“A Childs Play”

[ Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak ]

Student: Sidika Cupuroglu

The concept of this production is based on the coexistence of multiple layers within Max’s world. The story of Where the Wild Things Are is interpreted as a reflection of a child navigating between control and freedom, reality and imagination. The stage represents these layers without separating them into distinct locations.

The first layer is Max’s household a controlled, structured environment shaped by adult logic, rules, and routines. This space represents order, safety, and limitation. It is where Max’s world is framed, and where objects, furniture, and behaviors are defined and contained.
The second layer is Max’s hyperworld the imaginative, emotional space of his own creation. Here, rules are flexible, scale shifts, and objects and creatures exist according to the child’s perception. This world allows Max to process his emotions, experiment with control, and temporarily parent himself. It is expansive, unpredictable, and fluid, reflecting the logic of the child rather than the adult.

Between these two layers is the transformation, the moment when the household overlaps with the hyperworld. The design does not attempt to fully reconcile the two perspectives; instead, it highlights the tension between them. Transitions, distortions, and overlaps show how imagination emerges from reality, and how reality is altered through the lens of the child.

This approach allows the audience to experience the story not as a linear sequence of events, but as a layered system of perception. They witness the interplay between control and freedom, order and wildness, observation and participation. The focus is on Max’s experience at the boundary between his inner and outer worlds, where imagination and reality collide without merging into a single, unified perspective.