Review: The Lost Boys is theatre that moves, but not far enough
Devised and performed by Little Eggs Collective, based on Peter and Wendy by J.M. Barrie
Review by Charlotte Smee
The Lost Boys, the latest devised work by Little Eggs Collective, doesn’t belong in any box neatly. Inspired by J.M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy, this version is part-rave, part-theatre, part-concert, part-dance, part-art installation. A shiny foil-like tunnel with a mirror at the end runs alongside what used to be a bank of theatre seats at the Reginald Theatre, and is now an empty box of blackness (at least for the time being) - a portal to Neverland where you’ll find the boys giving their episodic performances of youth and how it escapes us.
A first for Little Eggs, this performance moves the audience around, providing little to no seating and guiding audience reactions using only performers and a few lines of tape. Entering the space is something like lining up for a concert - no-one quite knows what to do as the performers throw themselves around with wild abandon to the heavy beats of a techno soundscape (one of many devised by the cast). Drink and phone in hand, I watch the rave happening on stage and wonder if I’m supposed to be dancing too. My friend and I giggle at each other and I start to move my body around with much less abandon. I remember that this is immersive and then try to roam around behind the stage the performers are dancing on. Then, the music disappears, and we’re plunged into darkness. I shuffle back into the herd of audience members.
Then, Ariadne Daff as a kind of Tinkerbell, attempts to warm the herd up. Armed with a microphone, elf ears and fairy wings, she directs us to clap, to move, and to interact. It all feels very hesitant. Of course it does – audiences are used to being still and passive. Tinkerbell tells us some stories from the story box, and she tells us we can go anywhere we like, except for behind the lines of tape. What a delight! An adventure! But all this promise seems to fade away as the show continues, and we end up herded into corners and relegated to our passive audienceness.
The Little Eggs Collective does ensemble theatre very well, perhaps some of the best I’ve seen in Sydney. Their 2022 piece Moon Rabbit Rising told the story of Hou Yi and Chang’e using only music, movement, and some excellent performers with wonderfully nuanced results. Much of The Lost Boys is the same – an ensemble of “boys” talks over each other as they tell stories of lost mothers, a small scene features a rabbit, repeated dialogue, a scary mask and some childish pretending, and the cast all dance together in beautifully choreographed unison at various points in the show. Some of the highlights of The Lost Boys also include an innovative use of space – performers up in the rafters creating live soundscapes with their voices and loop pedals, large pieces of plastic floating overhead like waves, and a series of performers climbing up and down ladders. These highlights are enhanced by delightful costumes by Esther Zhong, that dress the cast in various states of schoolboy disarray, and mystical storybook set and lighting by Ryan McDonald. Little Eggs has an eye for theatrical spectacle, and this is how The Lost Boys is best enjoyed – a kind of ballet of images and ideas about youth that reflect and refract the Peter Pan story we know and love.
Despite all this, as a piece of “immersive” theatre The Lost Boys is missing a crucial element: a real sense of inclusion and involvement. This is heavily dependent on the audience that comes into the space, but it’s also dependent on the type of things that are presented in an immersive piece. Where I wanted to wander, get lost, and explore, this piece of theatre asks the audience to move and then stay still at various points in the performance. It’s something different than usual, but disappointingly it doesn’t ask you to participate much more than you might if you were sitting in the stalls. The delight is not entirely missing – it’s just a more restrained delight that asks you to follow the rules and directs you where to look. It’d be exciting to see what Little Eggs could do if we really were raving with the performers, if we really were part of a wild, immersive free-for-all. When we are immersed, we find things outside of where we are directed to look – tiny details at the edges of the world, little bushes with messages hidden in them, puzzles for us to solve – understanding that there is tape, but never feeling like there is some.
An ambitious project from Little Eggs, The Lost Boys is the start of something new. This is theatre that moves you from one perspective to another – but it’s a little too self-conscious about its limits to trust you to move with it, inside it, and around it.
The Lost Boys plays at the Seymour Centre until 1 Dec. Find tickets and information here.
Images by Grant Leslie
Charlotte is the editor of Kaleidoscope Arts Journal, a little enby and a big mess. Their friends regularly worry that they might overdose on theatre.
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