You know that feeling when you're a kid, and the hallway light goes out, and suddenly the pile of laundry in the corner looks exactly like a crouching monster? That's the vibe. Mary Zimmerman’s The Secret in the Wings isn't just a play; it's a deep dive into that specific brand of childhood dread. Honestly, if you go in expecting Disney-fied princesses and talking mice, you’re going to be very, very surprised.
Mary Zimmerman is a genius at taking dusty, old stories and making them feel like they're happening right now, in your own head. She did it with Metamorphoses, and she does it here with a handful of obscure, creepy European folk tales. The structure is weird. It’s basically a “staircase” of stories that stop right when things get bad, only to resolve at the very end.
What Actually Happens in The Secret in the Wings?
The setup is deceptively simple. A little girl (often named Heidi in various productions) is left at home by her parents. They’re going out for the night and they’ve hired the neighbor from next door to babysit.
The problem? The neighbor has a tail.
He’s an ogre. Or maybe he’s just a weird guy that the girl perceives as an ogre. That’s the brilliance of it. The play exists in that blurry space between reality and a nightmare. To distract her from his terrifying tail—and his constant, creepy requests for her to marry him—the babysitter starts reading from a book of stories.
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The Stories Within the Story
Zimmerman doesn't pick the famous tales. You won't find Cinderella here. Instead, she digs up the grim stuff.
- Three Blind Queens: This one is brutal. Three queens have their eyes gouged out by a jealous nursemaid and are banished to a mountain. They get so hungry they start... well, they start eyeing each other’s children for food. It’s heavy.
- The Princess Who Wouldn't Laugh: A classic setup where a king offers his daughter’s hand to whoever can make her crack a smile. But in Zimmerman's hands, the suitors aren't just funny; they’re desperate, and the stakes feel oddly high.
- Allerleira (Thousand-Furs): This is one of the darkest. It involves a king who decides he must marry his own daughter because she’s the only one as beautiful as his late wife. The girl flees into the woods wearing a coat made of a thousand different furs to hide her identity.
- The Six Swans (Silent for Seven Years): This acts as the "center" of the staircase. A girl must remain completely silent for seven years to save her brothers, who have been turned into swans. If she speaks a single word, they’re stuck as birds forever.
The play "fans in" to this central story. You get the first half of the Blind Queens, then the first half of the Princess who won't laugh, and so on. Once we hit the middle, the play "fans out," finishing the stories in reverse order. It's a structural trick that keeps you leaning forward because you’re waiting for the "payoff" for three different cliffhangers at once.
The Secret in the Wings Mary Zimmerman: The Double Meaning
So, why that title? What’s the "secret"?
In theater, the "wings" are the spaces offstage where actors wait. You never know what's coming out of them next. But Zimmerman has also mentioned a deeper meaning: the "wings" are the things from our childhood that mark us. The secrets we carry from when we were small and the world felt too big.
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Basically, the play suggests that what we find frightening is usually just "the most frightened." The Ogre isn't just a monster; he's a lonely, rejected creature. The basement isn't just a dark room; it's a forest, a palace, and a sea of tears.
Why the Staging Matters
You can't just read the script and "get" it. It's built for the stage. Zimmerman's work is famous for its "visual poetry."
- Found Objects: A tennis racket becomes a rifle. A piece of flexible ducting becomes a snake. A sheet of fabric becomes a swan's wing.
- The Basement: Most productions set the whole thing in a cluttered, unfinished basement. There’s usually a staircase that leads to a door that never seems to open to the real world.
- The Music: Usually, there's a live element or a haunting, folk-inspired score that makes the atmosphere thick enough to cut with a knife.
It’s about imagination. It asks the audience to do the work. If the actor tells you that a red ball is a severed head, and they react with enough horror, your brain starts to see a head.
Is It Too Dark for Kids?
This is a common debate. Most theaters suggest it for ages 11 and up.
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Look, original Grimm’s fairy tales were never meant to be "safe." They were cautionary. They were meant to prepare children for a world that can be cruel, unfair, and confusing. The Secret in the Wings Mary Zimmerman restores that edge.
It deals with cannibalism, incest, and murder. But it does so with a weird kind of wit. It’s funny in a "did they really just do that?" kind of way. It doesn't revel in the gore; it revels in the emotion of the stories.
Actionable Insights for Theater Lovers
If you're planning to see a production or perhaps direct it yourself, keep these nuances in mind:
- Focus on the Transition: The magic of the play is in how one story bleeds into the next. It shouldn't feel like a talent show with separate acts. It should feel like a dream where the logic shifts but the feeling remains.
- Embrace the Dark Humor: If you play it too "scary," it becomes a horror movie. If you play it too "funny," it becomes a parody. The "sweet spot" is right in the middle—the "dramedy" of the absurd.
- Don't Over-Explain: The audience doesn't need to know exactly why the King wants to marry his daughter or why the queens lost their eyes. The "why" is less important than the "now what?"
- Study the "Staircase" Structure: If you're an actor, you have to remember where your character's emotional "cliffhanger" was, because you won't return to it for another 40 minutes.
The play ends with a bit of a twist regarding the girl and the babysitter. It’s not a "happily ever after" in the traditional sense, but it is a resolution. It suggests that by facing the stories—the scary, messy, "secret" parts of our lives—we finally get to grow up.
If you get a chance to see a production by a group like Lookingglass or a high-level university theater, go. It’s a 90-minute fever dream that will make you look at your own basement a little differently.
To dive deeper into Zimmerman’s world, you should check out the original Grimm’s versions of Allerleira or The Six Swans. You’ll quickly see just how much she leaned into the original, jagged edges of these folk tales while stripping away the modern polish. Reading the script (published by Northwestern University Press) is also a great move, though you'll have to use your own imagination to fill in the "wings."