This page contains spoilers.
Imagination is an important part of theatre. As directors, designers, actors, and as audiences, we use our imagination to flesh out the characters and worlds depicted on stage. On The Twentieth Century (American Airlines Theatre, 2015) takes place on a train, the Twentieth Century Limited, which is enroute from Chicago to New York City. This train was designed to look and sound like a real locomotive, complete with moving parts, opening doors, and steam coming from the blast pipe. When we sit in the audience, we acknowledge that what we see isn’t a real train, but the sounds and visuals simulate the real thing and very quickly our minds suspend disbelief, allowing us to be swept away by the story unfolding on stage. We rely on our imagination without even realizing it.
We might create friends, guardians, or protectors who are not real but who seem real to us: our imagination allows us to make believe and conjure a person/animal/being out of thin air. Often imaginary friends are coping mechanisms, acting as confidantes because real ones don’t exist in our lives. A good example of this is found in the film Chocolat starring Juliette Binoche (who also starred in Roundabout’s production of Betrayal, American Airlines Theatre, 2000) which includes an imaginary kangaroo that her daughter conjures to deal with loneliness and the stresses of nomadic life.
Several examples of imaginary people can be found in Roundabout’s canon. In The Importance of Being Earnest (American Airlines Theatre, 2010), the character Algernon (played by Santino Fontana) creates an imaginary friend called Bunbury who serves as an excuse for weekend gallivanting away from his aunt Lady Bracknell’s (played by Brian Bedford) excessive prying. And it can be argued that the characters Estragon (played by Nathan Lane) and Vladimir (played by Bill Irwin) in Waiting for Godot (Studio 54, 2009), are forever waiting for a man named Godot, a character who is nothing more than a figment of their collective imagination. In the below scene where the two men confront another (Pozzo, played by John Goodman), we see their imagination around this elusive Godot manifest:
POZZO: Who is Godot?
ESTRAGON: Godot?
POZZO: You took me for Godot.
VLADIMIR: Oh no, Sir, not for an instant, Sir.
POZZO: Who is he?
VLADIMIR: Oh he’s a … he’s a kind of acquaintance.
ESTRAGON: Nothing of the kind, we hardly know him.
VLADIMIR: True… we don’t know him very well… but all the same…
ESTRAGON: Personally I wouldn’t even know him if I saw him.
POZZO: You took me for him.
ESTRAGON: (recoiling before Pozzo). That’s to say… you understand… the dusk…the strain…waiting…I confess…I imagined… for a second…
Beckett, Samuel. Waiting For Godot. Grove Press, NY, p. 16.
In the play Mr. Marmalade (Laura Pels Theatre, 2005), four-year-old Lucy (played by Mamie Gummer) projects the dysfunction of the adults in her life onto her imaginary friend/love interest, Mr. Marmalade (played by Michael C. Hall). Lucy sorts through feelings of loneliness and isolation in a pretend relationship with businessman Mr. Marmalade. In the below scene, Lucy’s mother, Sookie (played by Virginia Louise Smith), enters during one of Lucy’s imaginary encounters with Mr. Marmalade:
Sookie enters in a slip and high heels. She carries two dresses.
SOOKIE: Which one?
LUCY: Mom, I’m busy.
SOOKIE: What are you doing?
LUCY: Mr. Marmalade just got home from the office and he has to leave in like five minutes so I’d greatly appreciate it if you left us alone.
SOOKIE: Hello, Mr. Marmalade.
MR. MARMALADE: Hello, Mother.
LUCY: He says hello.
SOOKIE: Tell him hello for me too.
MR. MARMALADE: Such a nice woman your mother.
SOOKIE: Which dress should I wear?
LUCY: I think it’s very rude for you to barge in here when I have company. You owe Mr. Marmalade an apology. You know how precious his time is.
MR. MARMALADE: It’s not a problem at all. I adore the time I spend with your mother.
LUCY: He accepts your apology. Begrudgingly, I might add.
SOOKIE: Maybe Mr. Marmalade has a preference about which dress I wear.
MR. MARMALADE: I prefer the red dress, although I imagine just about anything would look stunning on you.
LUCY: He likes the red one.
SOOKIE: Me too. Thank you, Mr. Marmalade.
Excerpt from Mr. Marmalade by Noah Haidle. Roundabout Theatre Production Script, pp. 7-8. Roundabout Theatre Company Archives.
Harvey (Studio 54, 2012) might be the most well-known play about an imaginary friend. In this comedy of errors, Elwood P. Dowd (played by Jim Parsons) has family and friends worried sick by his insistence on a friend named Harvey, who he describes as a “pooka,” or shapeshifter, embodied in the form of a six-foot tall rabbit. For this production, Roundabout’s Upstage Guide featured articles about the play, its production history, and included interviews with director Scott Ellis and designer David Rockwell. To get a taste of the humor of this wonderful production featuring an imaginary friend, peek at the clip featured on Roundabout’s YouTube channel.