Review
LORD OF THE FLIES
Sage Theatre
Starring Scott Roberts, Danny Dorosh and Ben Laird
Directed by Kevin McKendrick with Elizabeth Stepkowski
Adapted by from the William Golding novel by Nigel Williams
Runs until March 22
Dancers’ Studio West Theatre
Survivor was never like this.
A pack of young schoolboys is stranded on a deserted island and turns what ought to be a child’s dream – being let loose in a tropical paradise without any adults – into a brutal nightmare of paranoia, murder and devil worship.
Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s classic 1954 novel, remains the most chilling of castaway tales, whether or not you choose to see it as a wartime allegory of the primal chaos lurking under the thin veneer of civilization, or any of those other things your teachers taught you in English class.
Sage Theatre’s new production of British playwright Nigel Williams’s 1995 adaptation lets us make up our own minds. Williams’s lean, straightforward approach emphasizes the novel’s plot over its characters’ psychology, while directors Kevin McKendrick and Elizabeth Stepkowski complement it with a bare-bones staging that accents the action, albeit often in a stylized way.
Ralph (Scott Roberts), a natural leader among the boys, takes charge of his schoolmates and tries to retain a sense of order and purpose with the help of his advisor, the sickly but pragmatic Piggy (Ben Laird). But Ralph is undermined by his rival Jack (Danny Dorosh), who would rather go native than cling to civilization. He turns his band of followers into bloodthirsty hunters, who revel in killing and dancing and create their own demonic god out of the severed, fly-infested head of a pig.
Roberts, Laird and Dorosh, leading a lively cast of 11 actors in their teens and 20s, anchor the show with solid performances. Roberts is an honest and charismatic Ralph, while Dorosh’s nasty Jack clearly descends from a long line of handsome bullies and cads. Laird’s plump, bespectacled Piggy is both comic and pathetic as the lisping voice of reason, but he lacks vulnerability, in part because he is one of the taller and older actors in the production.
McKendrick and Stepkowski make good use of Dancers’ Studio West’s vast dance floor to convey the island’s two camps, with Jack and his savage mates swaggering on the mountain – a scaffold – upstage, while Ralph and his few disheartened adherents huddle in their makeshift shelter downstage on the beach. The directors also work up some nice effects and subtle tableaux, but one could do without all the slo-mo scenes of violence, Piggy’s melodramatic death throes and Evan Rothery’s over-the-top fits as Simon, the boys’ visionary and holy fool.
Kudos, however, to Brian MacNeil’s evocative lighting, which beats down on these poor, benighted children like a merciless white sun. |
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