Galway’s Heart’N’Crown Theatre Co are bringing William Golding’s award-winning classic Lord Of The Flies to the Black Box Theatre next week, on Monday November 17 and Tuesday 18.
First published in 1954, Lord Of The Flies was Nobel Prize-winner William Golding’s debut novel. The book became an instant classic, its success enabling Golding to retire from his teaching job and devote himself full-time to writing.
Lord Of The Flies tells the story of a group of schoolboys marooned on a tropical island after their plane is shot down during a war. Though the novel is fictional, its exploration of the idea of human evil is at least partly based on Golding’s experience with the real-life violence and brutality of World War II in which he served with the Royal Navy.
Free from the rules and structures of civilisation and society, the boys on the island in Lord Of The Flies descend into savagery. As the boys splinter into factions, some behave peacefully and work together to maintain order and achieve common goals, while others rebel and seek only anarchy and violence.
In his portrayal of the small world of the island, Golding paints a broader portrait of the fundamental human struggle between the civilising instinct - the impulse to obey rules, behave morally, and act lawfully - and the savage instinct - the impulse to seek brute power over others, act selfishly, scorn moral rules, and indulge in violence.
Competition and power struggles split the boys into two packs. Ralph (Eanna O’Dowd ) leads one group and preaches civilised ingenuity and togetherness, but Jack (Conor Quinlan who can be seen in The Year Of The Flying Saucers with Patrick Bergin ) wants none of it and forms a faction of barbaric hunters who ultimately go to war with Ralph.
This powerful shift in conscience transforms ordinary kids into primal killers, setting off a devastating battle of good versus evil and presenting a haunting metaphor for the savage in us all. Golding himself said of his novel that writing it was “like lamenting the lost childhood of the world”.
Heart ‘N’ Crown’s staging of Lord Of The Flies is scripted by novelist and dramatist Nigel Williams and directed and produced by Stephen Patrick Kenny, whose debut feature film Blood, Sweat and Wars will be shot next year in Galway.
Ahead of the play’s opening, its two leads - Conor Quinlan (Jack ) and Eanna O’Dowd (Ralph ), who both hail from Galway - met up to discuss the production. Eanna began by explaining why Heart’N’Crown chose to do the play.
“Stephen Kenny has wanted to do it ever since he first read the script, and to bring the play to Ireland for the first time,” reveals Eanna. “He had to wait a few years however until he felt he had the right cast available to do the production as he wanted, which he does now.
“He says this will be his last stage play as he’s moving into TV and film and he wants to go out with a bang, and I think he’ll do that - everything about it is coming together really well so far.
“One of the great things about Stephen is he’ll always give the budding actor a break because he knows what it’s like when you’re trying to break into the business, how hard it can be. I owe a lot of me getting into acting and being where I am now to Stephen.”
Many people will know Lord Of The Flies through one or other of the two film versions; Peter Hall’s from 1963 and Henry Cook’s in 1990. How does the play compare to those adaptations?
“The first film stayed quite close to the novel whereas the later one ‘Hollywoodised’ it a bit and changed aspects of the story,” observes Conor. “The characters in the play version are very close to the novel so to that extent it’s more like the earlier film.”
“The best thing about the play compared to film or book is just being able to see it live there in front of you,” O’Dowd adds. “It’s the kind of play I think where we can really draw the audience into the story.
“The set, for instance, is very minimal and it’s up to us to pull in the audience and get them to use their imagination and I think it works very well. The play really brings out the story’s central idea that we all have something of the savage inside us and our so-called civilisation can just dissolve.”
One alteration the production brings to the story is making the boys somewhat older, so that instead of being aged 12/13, they’re in their later teens. One effect of this is that Jack’s band of hunters appear much more aggressive due to their added age and, in two of the play’s key scenes, they give the hapless ‘Piggy’ and Simon awful deaths.
Reflecting on their own characters, O’Dowd notes of Ralph; “Even though he’s one of the leading boys, Ralph himself can be quite easily led by the others. For example a lot of his initiatives are actually first suggested to him by Piggy. The play shows the weakness in each individual character.”
Quinlan’s Jack has, he says, “A lust for power. He doesn’t seem to have any ideas about how to get home. In this isolated community he sees an opportunity to get power. I think there’s also a lot of fear in Jack: he’s scared to be alone. Jack’s probably used to authority and feels scared when that’s removed. In trying to resolve that he loses control of himself.”
As well as Quinlan and O’Dowd, the 11-strong cast also features Graham Feeley (from Kings ) Mark McCormack, David Sullivan, Douglas Abraham, David Burke, Tim O’Sullivan, Oisin De Brun, Duncan Moss, Gerard Faherty, and Michael O’Malley as Officer.
Tickets for Lord Of The Flies at the Black Box are priced at €18 on Monday and Tuesday night (the play commences at 8pm ) and there is also a matinee performance on Tuesday at 12 noon, priced €14. Booking available from the Town Hall, (091-569777 )
