I went to the preview of Lord of the Flies, with some trepidation, having disliked the book which I thought was over-hyped by its key placement on the GCSE syllabus. However, the latest offering at the O’Reilly, directed by Dom Applewhite, has emphatically changed my opinion. Lord of the Flies should have the audience enraptured by its intelligent, thoughtful and complex interpretation of Golding’s classic novel.
The stand out member of the cast is undoubtedly the director, Dom Applewhite. Not only was his enthusiasm for his project catching and refreshingly genuine, but also, his vision for the production was pain-staking in its clarity and the result of much hard-work. Applewhite expressed with great ease his vision of the book, which had clearly affected him from his first reading; he sees Simon as the ‘philosophical’ character, yet he was determined to remind his audience that all of the characters of the play are children. He is obviously close to his cast; his warm-up exercises managed to mimic the childish excitement and creativity he clearly wishes his characters to express. It was uplifting to see such a well-bonded and talented cast, with a stand-out director.
The set of this production is simple; instead of attempting to create a jungle setting, an idea Applewhite labelled ‘tacky’, the set will be white. This is a homage to Peter Brook’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, but is designed to represent a void of character formation, an integral part of growing-up. However, don’t think that this means the rest of the set will be basic. There are to be special effects to capture the terrifying fire on the island and the cast will be wearing fifties period costume. From the description of the stage, it seems that the crew have captured the balance of simplicity and authenticity perfectly, although I’m not entirely sold on the special effects; we will have to wait and see.
However, undoubtedly the best features of the production is the cast. The actors were some of the most talented I have seen in Oxford. They managed to capture the ambiance of heady public-school boys in an instance. My favourite performance was Kit Owens’ interpretation of ‘Piggy’. Having seen him as Kit in the warm-up games I was shocked by his transformation within a few seconds of the preview; everything about his interpretation screamed ‘Piggy’. Owens’ accent and body langauge are flawlessly perfect. It was astonishing that the cast had only been rehearsing for one and a half weeks, as their knowledge and interpretation of their characters was faultless.
Lord of the Flies should be fantastic. I now understand Applewhite’s fascination with Golding’s classic; he utterly changed my perception. And nothing is more powerful than a play that can change your opinion and interpretation of something.
