The Yellow Wallpaper

Little Apple Theatre brings The Yellow Wallpaper to Judson Memorial Baptist Church on Saturday, November 14, with a single performance from 7 PM to 8:30 PM. It's a devised work based on the short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, which means the company didn't just stage the text as written but built the production around it.

The story takes us back to the summer of 1892. Jane has just had a child, and her husband John, a doctor, brings her to an old country house to treat her 'temporary nervous depression — a slight hysterical tendency.' He keeps her confined to a former nursery lined with abhorrently colored yellow wallpaper. As the days pass, Jane's nerves begin to fray, and through a series of increasingly frenetic journal entries, she starts to see movement and the figure of a woman trapped behind the pattern. It's a slow descent into obsession, and the wallpaper becomes the center of her world.

On stage, Victoria Jones plays Jane, Ian Olson plays John, and Meghan Voight plays The Woman. The three of them carry the whole thing, and since it's a devised piece, you'll see how they've translated Gilman's interior monologue into something that works in a live room.

Tickets run from free to $25, and the show runs an hour and a half. You can find it at Judson Memorial Baptist Church, 4101 Harriet Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55409, on Saturday, November 14, from 7 PM to 8:30 PM.