Charles McPhee was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease (or ALS) in 2006. Prior to this he had a radio talk show in the United States where listeners would call in and describe their dreams (they were always called ‘dreams’, never ‘nightmares’) and had helped callers interpret them, but the diagnosis came about after his listeners noticed he was broadcasting with slurred speech. Some wondered if he had overdone it with booze. Lou Gehrig’s disease starts off with slurred speech and other symptoms, and being a terminal disease, in its later stages there is eventual difficulty with breathing without mechanical support.
George Oliva was McPhee’s talent manager, then radio producer and then business partner. After McPhee died in 2011, Oliva, aka The REM Doula, wanted to explore other ways of connecting with people that wanted assistance with dream interpretation. In 2008 he became the publisher of the dreamdoctor.com website but found an online repository of information wasn’t “intimate enough”. Attempts at a reality television show, all the rage then and all the rage now, didn’t go anywhere, and so he took to the stage instead.
The gameshow format is somewhat overused in quest-finding stories on stage, though it is used to reasonably good effect here, with graphics that functioned well depending on contestant choices, which included one front-rower from the audience (consider yourselves duly warned if you find yourself seeing this show). A briskly paced production, there are musical numbers and some improvisation, the latter arising from selected members of the audience who are invited to write down a dream they have had recently had. Those dreams are analysed and re-enacted by Oliva’s ensemble actors (named and applauded in the show but not listed in the press release), often with much hilarity.
I do not intend, of course, to divulge all of the ‘Dream Principles’, suffice to say that (as I was once told many years ago) those of us who say we don’t dream actually do: we just don’t remember them. Informative and entertaining in equal measure, this is a great example of how to use live theatre to educate and engage.
Review by Chris Omaweng
At the heart of the show is the work of celebrated dream expert Charles McPhee, whose practical and accessible approach to dreams inspired creator and performer George Oliva to bring this material to the stage. Rather than treating dreams as mystical nonsense or abstract theory, this show argues that dreams are logical, learnable and deeply personal, reflecting our feelings, awarenesses and thoughts in ways that are often symbolically rich, startlingly honest, and surprisingly useful.
Funny, fast-moving and full of theatrical invention, the show moves from musical numbers and comic sketches to live dream interpretation, showing audiences that the language of dreams is not only real, but it’s a language we all already speak in our sleep.
Written by and starring George Oliva “The REM Doula”
THE LANGUAGE OF DREAMS: A CRASH COURSE
theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall at the Edinburgh Fringe
17 to 29 August 2026
