Reviewed by:

• Let the Right One Inby Jack Thorne
• Judith Saunders (bio)

The West Coast premiere of Let The Right One Inopened May 20, 2023 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. This production was headed by the original British creative team with American actors. The story is based on the Swedish vampire novel Lat den Ratte Komma inby John Ajvide Lindqvist, which was subsequently adapted for a movie, popular with Generation Z. Stage director John Tiffany, choreographer Steven Hoggett and playwright Jack Thorne collaborated to theatrically capture both the magic and horror of a love story between a troubled adolescent boy, Oskar, and an ageless vampire in the guise of an androgynous pre-pubescent, Eli. Each finds solace in the other and they finally venture together into an unknown future. According to the program notes, it was the Swedish movie that inspired Tiffany to launch this stage production for Scotland's National Theatre, which then transferred to London's West End. Such story-filching from other sources is not an unusual theatre practice. Playwrights have traditionally been magpies in their search for material. It was this production team that based their highly successful Harry Potter and the Cursed Childon the book by J. K. Rowling.

I attended the performance on Saturday, May 27, not having read the book or seen the movie, and with only a smattering of vampiric knowledge from reading Bram Stoker's Dracula. I pondered our society's fascination with this non-human, blood-sucking creature that has so persistently been reprised in the media. What relevance does this myth have for us today? Having seen Tiffany and Hoggett's stunning 2007 production of Black Watchat St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, I was eager to see what they would do with Let the Right One In. I was not disappointed. They succeeded once more in creating a memorable experience, exemplifying the genre "physical theatre"—employing mime, dance and all the tools theatre has at its disposal to tell a story.

As the play began, the open stage revealed Christine Jones's minimalist set of snow-covered birch trees lit by an icy cool light casting an eerie atmosphere. Lone figures silently crossed and re-crossed the stage to the haunting music of Ólafur Arnalds "Now I am Winter." Finally, a passerby asks an old man if he is in need of anything. "The time," says the old man, before grabbing him, rendering him unconscious, awkwardly hoisting him up by his feet with a rope strung over a tree branch, and slashing his throat to drain his blood. Hearing voices approach, the old man panics, and runs off leaving behind the jug of blood at the feet of the hanging man. Suddenly we are in the world of the vampire.

The story unfolded in episodic fashion, with actors as stage-hands moving furniture and props on and off stage as scenes changed. Among them were a set of gym lockers where Oskar is routinely bullied by classmates, a playground jungle gym where Oskar and Eli meet and become friends, a kitchen table and [End Page 272]bed to represent Oskar's home life, and an impressive water tank to serve as the swimming pool for the climactic scene where Oskar, threatened with drowning by tormenting classmates, is saved by his avenging angel, Eli. Such abstract scenery, swiftly changed, maintained the play's fluid action and served to stage the un-stageable elements of this supernatural story.

The acting was of a high standard throughout, but it was Diego Lucano as Oskar who was exceptional as a scrawny adolescent exhibiting the vulnerability and gaucheness that made him the target of classmate bullies. Recalling the tortured schoolboy in William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Oskar is their "Piggy" providing them a daily opportunity to toy with, humiliate and torture. Awkward scenes with Oskar's alcoholic mother, his absent father, and even his sympathetic gym teacher, who is never present to rescue him from his daily bullying, demonstrate his need for stability and safety. Noah Lamanna...

审阅者：

• 让合适的人进来杰克·索恩
• 朱迪思·桑德斯（简历）

《Let The Right One In》西海岸首映式于2023 年 5 月 20 日在伯克利话剧团开幕。本片由英国原班主创团队与美国演员共同领衔制作。该故事改编自约翰·阿杰维德·林奎斯特 (John Ajvide Lindqvist) 所著的瑞典吸血鬼小说《Lat den Ratte Komma》，该小说随后被改编成电影，深受 Z 世代的欢迎。讲述了一个充满魔幻和恐怖的爱情故事，讲述了一个陷入困境的青春期男孩奥斯卡和一个伪装成雌雄同体的青春期前的永恒吸血鬼伊莱之间的爱情故事。每个人都在对方身上找到了安慰，他们最终一起冒险进入了一个未知的未来。根据节目说明，正是这部瑞典电影启发蒂芙尼为苏格兰国家剧院推出了这部舞台剧，然后转移到伦敦西区。这种从其他来源窃取故事的行为并不罕见。传统上，剧作家在寻找素材时就像喜鹊一样。正是这个制作团队根据 JK 罗琳的小说改编了非常成功的《哈利·波特与被诅咒的孩子》 。

我参加了 5 月 27 日星期六的演出，当时我没有读过这本书，也没有看过这部电影，只是通过阅读布拉姆·斯托克的《德古拉》而了解了一些关于吸血鬼的知识。我思考着我们的社会对这种非人类的吸血生物的迷恋，这种生物在媒体上不断地被重述。这个神话对我们今天有什么意义？2007 年，我在布鲁克林的 St. Ann's Warehouse 看过蒂芙尼和霍格特令人惊叹的《黑色手表》，我很想知道他们会用《让合适的人进来》做些什么。我并没有失望。他们再次成功地创造了令人难忘的体验，体现了“形体戏剧”这一流派——利用哑剧、舞蹈和剧院拥有的所有工具来讲述故事。

戏剧开始时，开放的舞台展现了克里斯汀·琼斯（Christine Jones）极简主义的白雪覆盖的白桦树，在冰冷的灯光照射下，营造出一种诡异的气氛。伴随着奥拉维尔·阿纳尔兹令人难忘的音乐“现在我是冬天”，孤独的身影默默地在舞台上来来往往。最后，一个路人问一位老人是否需要什么东西。“时间到了，”老人说，然后抓住了他，把他打昏了，笨拙地用一根挂在树枝上的绳子把他的脚提起来，割破了他的喉咙，放干了他的血。听到声音接近，老人惊慌失措，跑开，把一壶血留在了吊人脚下。突然我们就进入了吸血鬼的世界。

故事以情景方式展开，演员作为舞台工作人员随着场景的变化在舞台上和舞台下移动家具和道具。其中包括奥斯卡经常被同学欺负的一套健身房储物柜、奥斯卡和伊莱相遇并成为朋友的操场丛林健身房、代表奥斯卡家庭生活的餐桌和[完第272页]床，以及令人印象深刻的水箱作为高潮场景的游泳池，奥斯卡被折磨的同学威胁要淹死，被他的复仇天使伊莱救了。这种抽象的风景，迅速变化，保持了戏剧的流畅动作，并有助于上演这个超自然故事中无法上演的元素。

表演自始至终都是高标准的，但迭戈·卢卡诺饰演的奥斯卡非常出色，他是一个骨瘦如柴的青少年，表现出脆弱和粗俗，这使他成为同学欺负的目标。回想起威廉·戈尔丁的《蝇王》中受折磨的男学生，奥斯卡是他们的“小猪”，为他们提供了每天玩弄、羞辱和折磨的机会。奥斯卡酗酒的母亲、缺席的父亲，甚至是他富有同情心的体育老师（从来没有在场把他从日常的欺凌中解救出来）的尴尬场景都表明了他对稳定和安全的需要。诺亚·拉曼纳...