“The fairy tale’s concern is not useful information about the external world, but the inner processes taking place in an individual,” wrote child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim in his 1976 book The Uses of Enchantment. Bettelheim argues that fairy tales are therapeutic because they help the reader contemplate “what the story seems to imply about him and his inner conflicts at this moment in his life.” British dramatist Anthony Neilson flips this formulation on its head in his 2004 play The Wonderful World of Dissocia, currently receiving its U.S. premiere in a beguiling if uneven new production at Profiles Theatre. Neilson asks: What if we choose to remain on the other side of the looking glass? What if we actually prefer our Technicolor fantasies to the bland routine of normal life? He explores this alluring possibility in his darkly comic fable about the havoc fairy tales can wreak upon grown-ups.
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The kingdom bears a close resemblance to the Lands Beyond in Norton Juster’s linguistically playful The Phantom Tollbooth. (Lisa encounters two bumbling “insecurity guards” and a randy “scapegoat,” among others.) It becomes quickly apparent that all is not well in Dissocia: abandoned by their benevolent queen, its unhappy citizens are trapped in the clutches of the evil Black Dog King. But Neilson has even darker things in store for Lisa as she searches for her lost hour. The subliminal sexuality that Freudians seek out in fairy tales is made painfully explicit in several scenes featuring humiliation, rape, and the deployment of novelty weapons of mass destruction that leave burn marks in the shape of farm animals.
The second act’s sterile, psych-ward setting feels like a cop-out after the first act’s intricately cultivated mania. Maybe that’s the point, but Neilson seems to be scolding us for the fun we had before intermission. The twist comes off like a schoolboy prank instead of a fleshed-out dramatic concept. While it does allow Somer Benson, as Lisa, to let rip some ferocious acting after a necessarily prim performance early on, the play is reduced to a less interesting meditation on mental illness. The effect would have been more frightening had Neilson allowed Dissocia to enrapture the audience as effectively as it seduces Lisa herself.v
No Palestinian characters appear onstage, emphasizing the deeply ingrained insularity of the settlement (a stretch of wood-and-wire fence visible behind the home in Kurt Sharp’s cavelike set adds to the walled-enclave feeling). The tension is intensified by video interludes of news broadcasts showing increasing violence on both sides and reports of clashes delivered by the characters. But the real battle, Lerner’s script suggests, is for the soul of the family—and of Israel.
Through 5/10: Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 4 and 8 PM, Sun 4 PM, Chicago Temple, First United Methodist Church, Pierce Hall, 77 W. Washington, 312-857-1234, ext. 201, srtp.org, $20-$32.
