Green Herrings in a Yellow Room: A Counter Production of The Yellow Wallpaper

Written, directed, and designed by Sloan Aulgur

“Green Herrings in a Yellow Room” is a theatrical table reading about a play-in-progress. It is a counter-production of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, the short story published in 1892, which follows an unnamed woman prescribed a “rest cure” by her husband, John. Confined to a room wrapped in gothic yellow wallpaper, the narrator becomes obsessed with its patterns. As her mind deteriorates, she sees a woman trapped behind the paper. This production reimagines Charlotte’s bedroom as not yellow, but green—a rich, vibrant green laced with the medium responsible for its provocative coloration: arsenic. 

Developed through a method of “unfabulation,” this performance un-writes the feminist text to reveal the toxic material histories behind 19th-century arsenic wallpaper. Set around a central table of archival props and models, audience members find themselves cast into an unfolding production—an investigative live performance about the production of another story. Guided by the Director, participants read from verbatim historical texts, engaging in a layered, live dramaturgy that blends theater with design theory. “Green Herrings in a Yellow Room” undoes Charlotte’s literary misdirections and the public discourse surrounding the color in question.