[theatre] Let the Right One In – Apollo Theatre, 15-Jul-14
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2014 07:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranth“I’ll be a princess, and you can rescue me … what if I were the dragon?”
This production transposes the setting from Sweden to 1970s/80s Scotland (Rubiks cubes, X-wing fighters, ‘Star Wars’ defence programme on the TV, those revolting banana-flavoured foam sweets) and cuts the story down to its bare essentials. Oskar (Martin Quinn) is a dorky teenager, uncomfortable in his body, bullied by schoolmates: his mother is an alcoholic, his father wants to keep him at arm’s length. One evening he meets a strange young girl, Eli (Rebecca Benson) in the playground: it’s her guardian Hakan who is responsible for a couple of recent murders in which blood has been drained from the bodies. Hakan dies; Oskar learns Eli’s true nature; the bullying becomes lethal; rescues are effected.
This is a gorgeous production: the set is all tall silver birches (some handily equipped with lopped branches so Eli can climb and lurk) with a wintry night sky above the auditorium. There was slightly too much choreography for my liking, but on the whole the staging was very good. I wasn’t sure if they’d skip the swimming-pool scene: they didn’t, and it was innovatively (and realistically) staged, but I think I’d rather have had something allegorical. (I remember freeze-framing the (Swedish) film, trying to work out what was happening: that was a truly chilling bit of cinematography.)
Lots of interesting themes and echoes: the implicit trust of two people sleeping side by side, the isolation suffered by both Oskar and Eli. None of the characters ever mention the v-word but there is a lot of blood, both literal and metaphorical. This version of the play is considerably more light-hearted, even romantic – despite the physical and verbal violence, and Eli’s grossly physical transformations – than I recall the film being.
“I’m not a boy,” says Eli.
“But you said you weren’t a girl,” protests Oskar.
“I’m nothing – not old, not young …”
… which wraps up one of the themes of the original.
This production transposes the setting from Sweden to 1970s/80s Scotland (Rubiks cubes, X-wing fighters, ‘Star Wars’ defence programme on the TV, those revolting banana-flavoured foam sweets) and cuts the story down to its bare essentials. Oskar (Martin Quinn) is a dorky teenager, uncomfortable in his body, bullied by schoolmates: his mother is an alcoholic, his father wants to keep him at arm’s length. One evening he meets a strange young girl, Eli (Rebecca Benson) in the playground: it’s her guardian Hakan who is responsible for a couple of recent murders in which blood has been drained from the bodies. Hakan dies; Oskar learns Eli’s true nature; the bullying becomes lethal; rescues are effected.
This is a gorgeous production: the set is all tall silver birches (some handily equipped with lopped branches so Eli can climb and lurk) with a wintry night sky above the auditorium. There was slightly too much choreography for my liking, but on the whole the staging was very good. I wasn’t sure if they’d skip the swimming-pool scene: they didn’t, and it was innovatively (and realistically) staged, but I think I’d rather have had something allegorical. (I remember freeze-framing the (Swedish) film, trying to work out what was happening: that was a truly chilling bit of cinematography.)
Lots of interesting themes and echoes: the implicit trust of two people sleeping side by side, the isolation suffered by both Oskar and Eli. None of the characters ever mention the v-word but there is a lot of blood, both literal and metaphorical. This version of the play is considerably more light-hearted, even romantic – despite the physical and verbal violence, and Eli’s grossly physical transformations – than I recall the film being.
“I’m not a boy,” says Eli.
“But you said you weren’t a girl,” protests Oskar.
“I’m nothing – not old, not young …”
… which wraps up one of the themes of the original.
