The Theatre of the Lap:

Looking at Picturebooks as a Theatrical Experience

Peter J Roth

In his lecture on book making, Will Hillenbrand discusses the importance of his

early development as a child, including his innate love for drawing and stories. He and

his grandmother shared a fear of thunderstorms and to ease their fears she would invite

him and his brothers to stay over her house where she’d tell them stories. She would tell

stories about how she saved her dog Pepper’s life, or about a voice in the woods, or when

the gypsies came to her farm (Hillenbrand, Bear and Bunny. n.d.). These stories from

her life were not the only stories that his grandmother read to him. Hillenbrand’s

grandmother also read to him from picturebooks such as the stories of Beatrix Potter.

Hillenbrand believes in the power of picturebooks because they represent loving

encounters between his small self and the “big people” who would take the time to sit

down with him and travel into the world of the picturebook with him. They were

expressions of warmth and love between a child and caretaker in which magic was

created and together they traveled into the world of each picturebook through what he

calls “the theater of the lap (Hillenbrand, 2018).”

It was an interesting choice of phrase that Hillenbrand used in his 2018 essay,

“the theatre of the lap.” It’s obvious that a child’s experience of being read to from a

picturebook--the sound of their caretaker’s voice reading the words of an author, and

the visual experience of exploring art on a page--is different from an ordinary reading

experience, but it’s also telling that he didn’t chose to call this experience the “television

of the lap” or “movie theatre of the lap.” Hillenbrand chose theatre and I think he did so

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because the theatrical experience and the picturebook experience share deep similarities

which should be explored.

The Theatrical Experience

There’s no solid definition of theatricality, and numerous playwrights and theatre

scholars have added their opinions to the discussion of what it means for something to

be theatrical. This discussion started with theatre’s origins in ancient Greece. With all

due respect to YA author John Green and his opinion that “Aristotle was wrong about

almost everything” it’s clear from Aristotle’s Poetics that he was 1) a passionate fan of

theatre and 2) an astute observer of its conventions. In his description of tragic theatre,

he defines the artform as an imitation of an action that is “complete and whole” using

embellished language and ornamentation. He notes that there must be a beginning, a

middle, and an end to the action and it should depict a change wither from bad fortune

to good or good fortune to bad (Aristotle). Twenty-five hundred years later, Thornton

Wilder elaborates on these observations. Wilder says the following about theatre:

I. The theatre is an art which reposes upon the work of

many collaborators.

II. It is addressed to the group mind.

III. It is based upon pretense and its very nature calls out

a multiplication of pretenses.

IV. Its action takes place in a perpetual present time.

(Wilder, 1941)

Wilder goes on to describe the fact that rather than the work of one artist working

privately on a painting or poem, a work of theatre depends on plot, words, and dialogue

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from a writer, interpretation by a director, performance by actors, visual interpretation

by designers, and even the imaginative collaboration of the present audience (Wilder,

1941). A correlation might be seen in the work of the author and illustrator (which I’ll go

into later). The performance of an adult reading to a child can also be seen as similar to

that of an actor interpreting the dialogue written for them by a playwright.

On the subject of the group mind, Wilder describes how theatre is written with a

crowd in mind and as such it requires the dramatist to consider the various life

experiences of the individual audience members and broaden the appeal to a larger

audience by focusing less on details and more on “forward movement” (Wilder, 1941).

The forward movement necessary to keep a the story of a play moving, and thus

interesting and entertaining to an audience is similar to Uri Shulevitz’s (1985)

observation that picturebooks need to unfold in the same way. Shulevitz says that for a

children’s story to be satisfying, it must depict a complete action. He tells us that it is a

process that “unfolds” over time with a beginning and a middle which needs to hold the

readers’ attentions, typically with some kind of suspense. To complete the action of the

children’s story there needs to be an ending, a resolution that concludes the story in a

logical manner (Shulevitz, 1985). This is almost identical to Aristotle’s observation that

tragedy (and similarly all theatre) needs to have a beginning middle and end for it to be

satisfying.

Picturebooks, like theatre, are also not designed to be private experiences. It’s

possible to read the text of a play and enjoy it privately just as it’s possible to read and

enjoy a picturebook quietly by one’s self. But both theatre and picturebooks are designed

to be performed and shared aloud. There is an element of oral tradition to the

picturebook.

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 I think that where Wilder’s idea of theatre and the art of picturebooks are most in

common is in his observation that theatre is a world of pretense. Wilder describes what

was written about the first known performance of Medea and the fact that it caused a

considerable emotional response from the ancient Athenian audience. As Aristotle

writes, tragedy is an imitation, and it stands to reason that imitating the tragedy of

Medea would certainly pull at the heart strings of those watching her story. But Wilder

goes on to describe the fact that Medea would have been played by a man wearing a

large mask with a megaphone built into it. He would have also worn boots with six-inch

high heels and soles and he would have spoken in verse. If the Greeks had wanted to

merely recreate Medea’s story they would have cast a woman in her role who would have

performed more naturally. The conventions of the Greek stage act as an agreement

between the performers and the audience to pretend that what they see is real. To quote

Wilder, “It provokes the collaborative activity of the spectator’s imagination” (Wilder,

1941).

Something similar happens with children’s picturebooks. If he truly wanted to

recreate experiences such as pigeon who wants to stay up past his bedtime, Mo Willems

would have drawn his belligerent birdy with photorealistic perfection. Instead we are

treated to a bird who is drawn with only a handful of quick dashes; his head a mere

circle with an equally large round eye in the center (Willems, 2006). Willems use of this

stylized pigeon does more to excite the imagination of the reader than a perfectly

realized pigeon would. In his cartoonish form, the pigeon is closer to something an

audience of children can recreate in their own drawing and thus also in their minds.

Much like the ancient Athenians watching Media’s outbursts of passion translated

through a mask and having to become active collaborators in their imagination, so too

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with children seeing the pigeon’s tantrums. Children become active participants in the

process of brining the picturebook to life (El-Tamami, 2007). Julie Roach (2016)

emphasizes the idea that picturebooks are meant to be performed, much like theatre.

The performative aspect invites the reader and audience to move together, harness

collective energy and create their own interpretation of the author’s work.

Finally, Wilder describe theatre as taking place in a perpetual present. He

describes how novels are written in the past tense; the narrator is relating to the reader

something that has already happened. In theatre the audience isn’t hearing about

something which happened, they are witnessing it take place right before them. “A play

visibly represents pure existing” (Wilder, 1941). Shulevitz (1985) describes the same

thing in how picturebooks should be created and read. Children hear a picturebook read

to them and witness its images as an experience that takes place in the present.

Shulevitz describes the experience as being theatrical; “immediate, vivid, moving.”

Writer as Playwright and Illustrator as Director

There are two creative forces at work in modern theatre that drive the execution

of a play; the playwright and the director. Essential to a play is its plot, which is the

structure of the play in a meaningful way. It is the playwright who performs the task of

building the play’s plot. They dole out the events that take place in a way that best tells

the story (Carton, 1989). The director interprets what’s been written by the playwright

taking the dialogue and stage directions and with the help of actors and designers adds

the visual elements. Essential to good theatre is spectacle, which comprises all the visual

elements of a production including scenery, effects, costume and stage movement.

Spectacle provides visual appeal for the audience by providing variety and beauty, but

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it’s also an essential means for the director to communicate their own vision of the play

to the audience (Carton, 1989). According to Louise Carton, spectacle does the

following:

1. Establishes environment.

2. Enriches characterization.

3. Indicates mood or style.

4. Enhances play’s meaning.

5. Captures and holds audience’s attention.

6. Contributes to audience’s aesthetic pleasure.

(Carton, 1989)

The collaboration between playwright and director is similar to that of author and

illustrator. In his video on the making of Bear and Bunny, Will Hillenbrand (n.d.) shows

the written story he received from Daniel Pinkwater for which he was to create the

illustrations. Hillenbrand’s process was to read the story over and over again until the

pictures began to appear and he went on to draw them. Pinkwater’s story didn’t provide

any note about what the pictures were to contain, instead the images were invented by

Hillenbrand from whole cloth, though inspired by Pinkwater’s story (Hillenbrand, Bear

and Bunny. n.d.). The collaboration between director and playwright is similar. In most

productions a playwright and director aren’t in discussion. The director depends solely

on the playwright’s script and then must use their own imagination to provide a visual

realization of the play.

In his answers to the class’s questions from earlier in the semester Hillenbrand

mentioned his collaboration with Margery Cuyler on an upcoming book called Snow

Friends. In their discussions Cuyler and Hillenbrand realized that most of the narration

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was unnecessary because Hillenbrand had managed to capture so much of her story

through his illustrations, so they chose to remove the words (Hillenbrand, 2019). This is

similar to those few instances when a playwright is in rehearsals and can discuss a

production with the director and work with them to refine a show.

In both instances the author or playwright are working to create a play or

picturebook’s plot and character, while the director or illustrator interprets the writing

into a visual form of storytelling. Collaboration is essential for both artforms.

In A House That Once Was Julie Fogliano provides the reader with the story of

the two children who explore an abandoned home in the woods. She even provides her

own linguistic pretense in the form of rhymed poetry. As the children explore the

abandoned home they contemplate the people who once lived there and imagine who

they were and what might have happened to them (Fogliano & Smith, 2018).

Lane Smith acted as the director. She recognized that there are two stories at

work in Fogliano’s writing; that of the children exploring the abandoned home and that

of the former residents. She cleverly enhances this by using two different artistic styles.

The boy and girl in the home are illustrated with ink in a pointillist style. Although the

children are in an abandoned home in the woods, the light pallet and the splattered ink

create a vibrancy. Although the home is empty, it’s filled with life; the plants and

animals that have encroached and the children themselves.

The imagined former residents are painted in oil and in a darker pallet. This

lends the idea that whatever happened to the family that once lived there, they are now

lost to memory. The darker pallet also implies that the former residents’ fate may have

also been somewhat dark. The oil paint brings to mind the great painters who hang in

museums lending gravity to the former residents and their fate.

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 Like a playwright, Fogliano gives the reader plot and much like a director Smith

interprets that plot and translates it into visuals such as color, light, and movement.

Dude, Where’s My Means of Interpretation?

I’d like to present an example of how two different works of literature, a play and

a picturebook, both depend on the use of tone as well as visual cues to provide meaning

to their dialogue. In chapter ten of her handbook on children’s literature, Rebecca

Lukens discusses tone. Tone is an author’s attitude towards the story. By varying a

story’s tone its meaning can significantly change. Inflection, tone of voice, descriptive

language can all affect the tone of a story. The addition of a smile turns an enemy to a

friend (Lukens, 2007). A recent addition to the world of picturebooks perfectly

exemplifies the way that tone can inform the reading of a story. This is Aaron Reynolds

and Dan Santat’s Dude! (2018) which tells the story of a platypus and beaver who go

surfing together when they are first terrorized by and then befriended by a shark. The

only line of dialogue in the entire book is the eponymous “DUDE.” There is a similar

example in the theatrical world, a ten-minute play by Shel Silverstein, Thinking Up a

New Name for the Act, which tells the story of a woman murdering her husband after

which she is arrested, tried, and executed. The story is quite involved, filled with twists,

turns, and emotions, but the only lines of dialogue are the words “meat and potatoes.”

The conceit of Reynolds and Santat’s book begins when the two friends, a

platypus and beaver, meet with a mutual “DUDE!” to each other. They are waving and

smiling which implies that they are friends. When the beaver points at the warning sign

on the rocks and frowns as he says “DUDE!” it’s clear that it is with a level of

disappointment which is erased on the next page when the two friends, wild-eyed with

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excitement, charge into the sea shouting “DUDE!” Their continued exchange of the word

“DUDE!” continues to create a tone of playfulness and wonder until the beaver spots a

shark fin in the distance and his “DUDE” is written smaller than previous pages, with an

ellipse and question mark, and without the vibrant colors the word has been written in

on previous pages. It is followed by a two-page spread, in red, of the panicked friends

screaming “DUDE!” as the shark emerges, frowning, from the water. The muted, smaller

“dude…?” from the shark lets the reader know his sadness at the beaver and platypus’s

reaction to his presence.

Shel Silverstein’s Thinking Up a New Name for the Act works similarly. Rather

than a single word, there is a single phrase at work, “meat and potatoes.” The play

begins with a housewife Lucy offering her husband Pete a dinner of meat and potatoes.

He ignores her, mumbling meat and potatoes as he scribbles in his notebook. Pete’s

attention wanders from his disinterest in dinner towards his sexual desires using the

words “meat and potatoes” to describe his and his wife’s anatomical features. An

enraged Lucy then hits Pete over the head with a frying pan, killing him. It is through

Silverstein’s stage directions that the phrase goes from the concrete subject of meat and

potatoes to the more abstract ideas of desire, anger, and more. He plays with this

dynamic during the investigation in which the detectives note the actual meat and

potatoes of dinner on the table as well as Pete’s brains on the murder weapon.

INSPECTOR: (Thinking.) Meat and potatoes…hmm…meat--

(He examines piece of meat--he smells it--he puts it down.)

potatoes--(He picks one up--he tastes it--shrugs.)

potatoes…Meat and potatoes.

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 SERGEANT: (Goes to Pete’s body, pulls back sheet, reaches

under Pete’s head and lifts red drippy brains.) Meat. (He

hands out brains to Inspector who takes them gingerly.)

INSPECTOR: Meat.

(Silverstein, 2003)

It’s not a coincidence that Silverstein worked both as an author-illustrator and as

a playwright. The conventions of combining spoken words and images to create a

greater whole are both at work here. It may seem like Reynolds and Santat’s DUDE! and

Silverstein’s Thinking Up a New Name for the Act are both engaged in a silly gimmick,

but both are taking advantage of a basic, essential way that humans communicate,

which is visually. 80 to 85 percent of perception and learning takes place visually for

people who have normal vision (Moreillon, 2017). Silverstein and Reynolds & Santat’s

works emphasize the importance of visual interpretation. Both works of art take

advantage of their audiences’ innate ability to read and interpret color, light, tone, body

language and inflection. As a picturebook, DUDE! also serves to teach young readers

how to read and interpret pictures.

Those of us who already know how to read often ignore or at least downplay the

illustrations in a picturebook in favor of what’s written. However, pictures often tell us

things that are not written. A picture can tell us what time of day it is and where a story

takes place. An even deeper reading of a picture can help inform an audience as to the

sounds and smells that might be present in a scene. A softer illustration can create a

sense of quietness and calmness that might not be available from the text (Hillenbrand,

Seeing the Picture. n.d.). Picturebooks like DUDE! can be a helpful tool for continuing

to teach young readers how to read pictures and interpret mood, tone and other

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elements through visual signals. How to read body language is another important lesson

children can gain from illustrations more than they could from text alone.

The Value of Picturebooks as Theatre

How is any of this more than a novel observation? Is there any value to looking at

picturebooks as a form of theatre or is it merely a fun exercise to compare and contrast

these two artforms?

In fact, there does happen to be educational value to the theatrical experience. In

studies of theatrical literacy, children have shown that they are for more likely to be able

to recall visual dramatic actions rather than dialogue (Klein & Fitch, 1989). This is

evidence that children are much more prone to visual learning than aural or textual.

After seeing a production of Don Quixote fifth graders were unable to identify the

character of Dulcinea because she was an offstage character they never got to see (Klein

& Fitch, 1989).

Reading is a process for interpreting the world and the act of drama offers

children the opportunity of taking what they read and relating it to lived experiences.

Understanding drama uses many of the same mental facilities necessary for reading.

Reading is a transaction between reader and text in much the same way that drama is a

transaction between the actor and the audience (Sun, 2003).

Theatre and picturebooks are both ways that children can put themselves in the

experience of others and learn in a way that is more holistic than just reading text from a

page. After learning about immigrant experiences children who were encouraged to

create tableaux--living scenes--from the lives they’d learned about, were far more likely

to retain what they had learned as well as express deeper understanding of others’

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perspectives. Reenacting stories helps children retain their memory of events from a

story and increase their understanding (Sun, 2003).

This is something that should be kept in mind when reading to young children. A

reader should avoid focusing on the story’s text at the detriment of the pictures. They

should allow the interaction of the words and pictures to inform their performance of

their reading. This should help young audiences remember the events from the

picturebook and learn whatever lessons might be inside for them.

Curtains and Books Both Close…

They Can Also Re-open

A lively, engaging picturebook reading should affect children in the same way a

lively, engaging play would. A performer who responds to their audience, who invites

them to play with them in the imaginary world of theatre is much like an adult who

responds to the child or children they’re reading to, inviting them to play in the

imaginary world of the picturebook. When a caregiver listens to their audience and puts

their whole voice and movement into a picturebook they heighten the experience for

children in much the same way an actor heightens the experience of a play (Roach,

2016).

The playwright Sarah Ruhl (2014) has this to say about theatre:

Theater in its most basic form is a kind of reading

aloud. When children are small, we tell them to make

a circle and we read to them. When they grow up, we

tell them to sit in a corner and read to themselves. In

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 the theatre, we ask adults to be children again, to sit

in a circle and be read to.

Everyone grows too big for laps. Sadly, many of us think that growing out of laps

means that we must also grow out of stories, being read to, and picturebooks. However,

the theatre of the lap is still available to us even if the laps have long since shrunk too

small for us. Wonder can still exist for us in the realms of theatre and picturebooks. In

both artforms there are numerous artists at work looking to kindle a sense of play in

children and adults alike. All we need to do to reclaim that wonder is to be willing to sit

in a circle once more, to make eye contact with another human being, and be read to.

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Works Cited:

Aristotle. Butcher, S.H. (translator) (1994). Poetics. Retrieved from:

http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.mb.txt

El-Tamami, W., & ‫ﺍﻟﺘﻤﺎﻣﻲ‬, ‫ﻭ‬. (2007). "The Simple Little Picture Book": Private Theater to

Postmodern Experience / " ‫"ﺍﻟﺒﺴﻴﻂ ﺍﻟﺼﻐﻴﺮ ﺍﻟﻤﺼﻮﱠﺭ ﺍﻟﻜﺘﺎﺏ‬: ‫ﺑﻌﺪ ﻣﺎ ﺍﻟﺘﺠﺮﺑﺔ ﺇﻟﻰ ﺍﻟﺨﺎﺹ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﺮﺡ ﻣﻦ‬

‫ﺍﻟﺤﺪﺍﺛﻴﺔ‬. Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, (27), 25-43. Retrieved from

http://www.jstor.org/stable/30197971

Fogliano, J. & Smith, L (illustrator). (2018). A House That Once Was. New York, NY:

Roaring Brook Press.

Hillenbrand, W. (n.d.) Bear and Bunny Presentation: Book Making Process. [online

video]. Retrieved from: https://spark.adobe.com/video/uNOpQUPyqvFQj

Hillenbrand, W. (n.d.) Seeing the Picture: Visual Literacy. [online video]. Retrieved

from: https://spark.adobe.com/video/L7kXh2bXposOh

Hillenbrand, W. (2018) I Believe in Picturebooks. Nerdy Book Club. Retrieved from:

https://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/2018/04/05/nerdy-reader-i-believe-in-

picture-books-by-will-hillenbrand/

Hillenbrand, W. (2019). A Few Questions from Students in Art & Story. [online video].

Retrieved from: https://spark.adobe.com/video/vGEKgWqyZMdRb

Klein, J. & Fitch, M. (1989). Children’s Comprehension of Live Theatre. A paper

presented to the Society for Research in Child Development Biennial Meeting,

Kansas City. Retrieved from:

https://eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED305999

Lukens, R. (2007). A Critical Handbook of Children’s Literature 8th Edition.

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Moreillon, J. (2017). The Mighty Picturebook: Providing a Plethora of

Possibilities. Children and Libraries,15(3), 17. doi:10.5860/cal.15.3.17 Retrieved

from: https://journals.ala.org/index.php/cal/article/view/6421/8472

Reynolds, A & Santat, D. (2018) Dude! New York, NY: Roaring Brook Press.

Roach, J. (2016). What Makes a Good Storytime?. The Horn Book Magazine. Retrieved

from: https://www.hbook.com/2016/06/choosing-books/horn-book-

magazine/what-makes-a-good-storytime/

Ruhl, S. (2014). Reading Aloud. from 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write. New York,

NY: Faber and Faber, Inc.

Shulevitz, U. (1985). Writing with Pictures: How to Write and Illustrate Children’s

Books. New York, NY: Watson-Guptill Publications.

Silverstein, S. (2003). Thinking Up a New Name for the Act. from An Adult Evening of

Shel Silverstein. New York, NY: Dramatists Play Services Inc.

Sun, P. (2003). Using Drama and Theatre To Promote Literacy Development: Some

Basic Classroom Applications. ERIC Digest. Retrieved from:

https://eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED477613

Wilder, T. (1941). Some Thoughts on Playwriting. Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays and

Writings on Theatre. (2007). New York, NY: The Library of America.

Willems, M. (2006). Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late!. New York, NY: Hyperion

Books for Children.

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