The latest offering at the Vineyard Theatre is “Bughouse,” conceived and directed by Martha Clarke, with a script adapted from the writings of Henry Darger, by Beth Henley. For those who are not familiar with the subject matter, Henry Darger was a prolific visual artist and epic novelist. He had a troubled childhood, losing his mother when he was 4 years old and left to live with his disabled father, who found it difficult to care for the precocious child. At 12 years of age, he was misdiagnosed and sent to a scandal-ridden asylum for “Feeble Minded Children” where he was bullied and abused. After finally succeeding in escaping after five years in the asylum, he lived in several different apartments in the Chicago area and supported himself as a maintenance worker at various institutions. His obsession with the mistreatment of children manifested in the hoarding of a tremendous amount of paper paraphernalia on the subject, including books and newspaper articles.

When he lost an article in 1911 about a murdered five-year-old, Elsie Paroubek, who later became the fictionalized Annie Aronburg, a martyred child-rebel leader, featured in his magnum opus, he became obsessed with finding it. His prayers to find the missing article were not answered, so he stopped going to mass for three years. Fearing eternal damnation, he returned to his Catholic faith, attending multiple masses daily, along with reciting the rosary and reading the Bible. He was a recluse, with his only close friend being William Schloeder, with whom he formed a two-person club” The Children’s Protection Society.” His vast collection of creative work was discovered in 1972 when his two-room apartment was emptied shortly before he died. It included a 15,000-page novel titled, “The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm. Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, about a parallel fantasy world where enslaved children rebel against evil adults; an 8,500-page sequel; a 5,000-page autobiography; and an astonishing collection of 350 watercolor paintings. All the previous information was gathered from an extensive program note by Michael Bonesteel, the art historian for this production.

What happens on stage would be incomprehensible without this pertinent information. The beginning is the end; the end is the beginning; and the middle is the beginning and end. There is no further information revealed, no dramatic arc, no character study and not enough structure to keep the proceedings from falling apart. It is like hearing the story from a carnival barker, then going into the sideshow and watching an odd character go about menial tasks for an hour, which is tiresome and redundant. The star of the show is Neil Patel’s production design, embellished by John Narun’s projection designs. These two elements are highly complemented by the props and set decorations of Faye Armon-Troncoso and the moody lighting design by Christopher Akerlind. Henry Darger is portrayed by John Kelly, whose performance is admirable, but flat and monotonous, not of his own accord, but due to the limited script and material. The audience may understand the catalyst that motivates the action but is deprived of understanding the person who completes the task. The hour-long show is solely dedicated to visualizing the information revealed in the program. Certainly, Henry Darger’s parochial talent and peculiar character would be enough to be featured as a star in the main arena, rather than becoming a mere sideshow attraction.