Several weeks ago I was in the audience at Berkeley Rep to see “Imaginary Comforts, or the Story of the Ghost of the Dead Rabbit.”  Sometimes Berkeley Rep’s selections are really out there.  That was true of this presentation. which had asides about a rabbit and a rabbi that was supposed to be humorous (a mistake in conversation when talking about a rabbi that it was a rabbit that was being discussed) . However within the story of the rabbit and the ineffectual female rabbi, I found my own meaning.
The story the father told his daughter, in this play, was that he, the father, and the girl’s mother were unable to produce a child.  One day when the father was walking through the woods, he met a rabbit. The rabbit offered to give him a bunny that would become his child when he exited the forest. In exchange, the rabbit asked that the father and his family would always protect him.  The agreement was reached and the baby became their wonderful daughter. Several years later the man was walking through the woods and he met the rabbit. The rabbit informed the man that his family was in need of food and protection and that the father needed to make good on his promise. That night the family had rabbit stew.
What an awful story.  And then I remembered my husband Marshall loved to tell his story of the rolling head. It goes something like this: A man descended into an old mine shaft at the bottom of which– he descends slowly and scarily– he finds a wonderful meadow which he gleefully explores until he finds a dead body without a head.  As he goes further, he hears a thump, thump, thump and sees a head rolling toward him saying something.  As the head gets closer, he hears it exclaim,”I am going to get you.” The man starts to run as the head rolls after him. The man runs up the ladder of the mine shaft as he hears thump thump thump and “I am going to get you” behind him.     The story concludes with the caveat that the head is loose and one needs to beware of the thump, thump, thump they might hear because the head is out to get them.
Of course this story is best told at a campfire or around Halloween.
In discussing this crazy story with my children who are now in their 50s, they still laugh at  how scared they and their friends would get. Loud screams would emerge as the story was told with all the drama it evoked.
We all have examples in our own lives of the Grimms fairytales that, in their original versions, were scary and awful.  The wolf did eat grandma in Little Red Riding Hood, for example. The witch did have the poison apple and so on.
How we get comfort from these absurd stories is anyone’s guess. For my adult children, it was the fondness of the storyteller that was brought back in memory; the sharing with others who were freaked out and the simplicity of childhood that their favorite scary story elicited.
Perhaps Berkeley Rep chose well this bizarre tale because it made this theatergoer have many a laugh in the comfort of the imaginary Rolling Head story.

Ellen Blaufarb is a Marriage Family Therapist.

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