BOYS WILL BE MONSTERS
William Golding’s 1954 cautionary thriller depicts a world on the edge of nuclear war. But when a plane crashes, a tiny portion of humanity is given a do-over. Tragically, reduced to feral bipeds, they succumb to our worst instincts. Lord of the 
Flies imagines a deserted tropical island’”a kind of modern Eden–in which a band of choir boys and prep students are abandoned with no adults to keep them civilized and only themselves to preserve order if not law.
Sadly, their expulsion from Paradise is written in their genes. In only 90 wrenching minutes, Nigel Williams’ adaptation, now Halena Kays’ kinetic staging by Steppenwolf for Young Adults, depicts the disintegration of restraint, mercy, and remorse (but not religion) before the ugly fun of unchecked power.
Which side, asks the play, would you take? Fair-minded and right-thinking, Ralph (Spencer Curnutt) chooses reason and rules, aided by the scientific-minded but easily scapegoated Piggy (Dan Smeriglio), a large, asthmatic teen utterly dependent 
on his glasses to function. Their symbol is a giant conch which determines, they declare, who can speak at any one time (Occupy Wall Street employed a similar strategy at their mass meetings). They establish the essential precaution of lighting a fire and keeping it burning so passing ships and planes will see it and rescue them (the fire, of course, conveniently suggests both civilization and savagery).
Implacably opposed to Ralph’s sensible pragmatism is Jack (ferocious Ty Olwin), a public school bully who promises the boys the kind of consequence-free folly that irresponsible YouTube videos depict every day. He’s a born warrior/hunter (to Ralph’s gatherer) who proves perversely effective at fear-mongering: He arms the kids with spears, kills a pig and vies for leadership of the pack with the less-exotic Ralph.
When the Christ-like Simon (Lane Flores) discovers a dead aviator hanging from a parachute, the heathen lads convince themselves that he is the “beast” of the island who they must sacrifice (religion is always there to foul the nest). Insidiously, the beast can take many shapes: He could possess one of them without the victim even knowing –hence, “Kill the pig, spill his blood!”
Worshipping the skull of a boar placed on a pike, these “boys gone wild”’”like the screaming girls who accused the “witches” in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 or Hitler’s “brown-shirts” in 1933–literally run out of control. Murder is on the menu. At the abrupt end they declare that it was only a “game.” But, unlike the soccer players stranded in the Andes in 1972 who were forced to become cannibals, these English boys had choices they never knew. Golding sardonically assumes the worst about inhuman nature: Lord of the Flies forensically forces you to argue otherwise. ”
It’s an atavistic nightmare and for young actors with energy, if not anarchy to spare it’s no stretch to recreate. Kays’ twelve young performers rampage around the upstairs theater, leaping and howling to equal Mike Tutaj’s splendid sound design and vivid projections. As telescoped here, the regression happens so fast it seems predetermined. The ending is played a bit bigger and brighter than in either film version, as if to insulate the adults’ rationality from the punks’ predation. If only it were that easy’¦
photos by Michael Brosilow
Lord of the Flies
Steppenwolf Theatre Company
scheduled to end on November 15, 2013
for tickets, call 312-335-1650
or visit http://www.steppenwolf.org
for info on this and other Chicago Theater,
visit http://www.TheatreinChicago.com
