In this provocative, sometimes chilling comedy, Wilder renders a child's-eye view of the grown-up world, as a father, a mother and their three children play a revealing game of make-believe in which the children pretend to be orphans. Startling truths emerge on both sides, as pretense challenges the family to discard the traditional roles of parent, spouse, child and sibling – blurring the lines between perception and reality, artifice and innocence.
Published in Thorton Wilder One Act Series: The Ages of Man.
Childhood was first produced at the Circle in the Square Theater in New York January 10, 1962, as one of three plays grouped as Plays for Bleecker Street. It was televised by the CBC in 1966 and 1969, and by an educational television channel in 1966 and 1970.