A Monster Calls was a children’s story. It is about a child. It was conceived and written for children (at least in its book form). But the Old Vic’s current production, directed by Sally Cookson, involves no children, and the audience, at least in my memory of it, consisted mostly of adults. This is not necessarily a criticism, simply an observation. I’ve been grappling with how to talk about this play – which I really enjoyed – and its power, and I keep coming back to thinking about children’s stories. Art, particularly theater, created for children is generally thought of as simplistic and sentimental. Examples I can think of are Disney adaptations such as The Lion King or The Little Mermaid, or British pantomime. While these works all have their own value, they also entail a degree of capitalistic spectacle that reinforces theatrical convention and thematic safety. A Monster Calls certainly does not fall into this category. Its embrace of its own theatricality and its willingness to engage with violence, elements of horror, pain, and shame make it something stranger and lovelier.

Western childhood is arguably a relatively recent construct within the arc of human history. As child labor laws began to take effect after the Industrial Revolution, the “value” of children shifted from the economic realm to the emotional realm, and was cemented there by sentimentalism. I point this out to illustrate that the way we conceive of children’s fragility and capacity is not fixed. There is no reason that complex art cannot be made for children, and yet particularly in the theater, it is a rarity.

However, A Monster Calls isn’t necessarily for children. On the Old Vic’s website there is a warning which reads “A Monster Calls is a wonderful story which, although there is a strong magical element, is primarily for a young adult and adult audience due to some themes that younger audiences may find upsetting.” But, through out the play, there were moments of explicit exposition and dialogue, such as the “morals” of the first two tales, which felt geared towards a younger audience. It is easy to say these moments detract from the flow of the whole of the performance, and I initially found them aesthetically off-putting. But upon reflection, this commitment to clarity ultimately resulted in the most powerful moment of the play: when the monster tells Connor very gently and simply that the truth of his thoughts cannot be bad, and he must speak them in order to be free.

Which brings me back to the theater full of adults. I suppose the question I’ve been wrestling with is whether or not Sally Cookson’s production remains a children’s story. And if it does, what the purpose is in telling a children’s story for adults. Why is it important for older people to bear witness to these worst moments of a thirteen year old’s life? Is there some harm done by taking this story away from the children for whom it was conceived? I’m not really sure, but the best answer I have at the moment has to do with that commitment to clarity. Despite years of cultivating an appreciation for a message that is ‘shown’, I started to sob only when the monster told me something, like a child. There is a power in directness that children’s stories don’t shy away from. My (mostly) adult self found it incredibly meaningful.

I still have many questions about the feasibility and ethics of telling a children’s story for adults, and children’s place in the theatre. But I am so grateful to have seen this production that honors childhood’s complexities and makes beauty of its language.

Fly by Night, a new work by the artist Duke Riley, boils down to this: 1,500 pigeons, all with LED lights strapped to their legs, swooping together over an outermost corner of London, against a backdrop of the coming dusk. It’s very simple really. The birds have lights. We watch the birds. End of play. But some strange alchemy of curry, blankets, weird donuts, wine, friends, and a long hot journey results in an experience that feels, in its own quiet way, essential.

Though it was first conceived to honor the pigeon keepers of New York City, the London production has been billed as a commemoration of the “unsung heroes” of the Great War. The coops that serve as the primary set piece are modeled on those used in WWI, and the site of the production, Thamesmead, was home to a munition factory known for its production during the War.  The piece’s simplicity and near silence create space for immense breadth of interpretation, and thus the rhetoric of the marketing is perhaps more likely to fill that space than it may for most plays, and therefore more worthy of critical inspection. Through this lens,  the description, “commemoration of the unsung heroes” does the piece a troubling disservice. The unsung heroes of WWI are certainly not a bunch of birds. To make a homage to the homing pigeon is to minimize and sideline the war’s immense human suffering and to glorify its tools.

However, the actuality of the production dismantles this rhetoric through its commitment to care. Every aspect of the experience, from the careful instructions for the long journey to Thamesmead, to the availability of blankets and food onsite was obviously lovingly considered. This infusion of care made the evening a demonstration of the best facets of humanity. To commune, to delight, to eat and drink, and wonder at beauty and absurdity is antithetical to war. I’m still not entirely sure if I would consider the piece a work of theater, but it functioned as an intentional, nearly ritualistic, consecration of goodness, resulting in an at times transcendent beauty.

Gazing up at the swirl of lights, I had several blissful moment of displacement, forgetting who I was and what I was watching, my vision commandeered by the dance of seeming stars. Within its ritualistic goodness, this production also accessed a deep sort of innocence. Unbound by any structure beyond a beginning and an end, I found myself considering what I need out of a production. It’s enough for me, I think, to simply sit comfortably and watch something beautiful. I’m still trying to work out the relationship between what gives me pleasure and what makes me think and how merit factors into both. But through the pleasure of watching these birds I felt myself connected to a history of creation, in which we try to access something new by doing something beautiful. And more importantly, in a moment of intense global violence and pain, I felt connected to those who had experienced it with me, who made the long trek together simply on the promise of watching something weird and lovely, together.