Revered horror film becomes a stage show in Berkeley
“Let the Right One In” really seems to have tapped into some kind of vein in the popular imagination.
Originally a 2004 Swedish vampire novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist about a bullied 12-year-old boy’s budding romance of sorts with the mysterious child next door, it became a hit 2008 Swedish film and a 2010 American remake, and just last year it was very loosely adapted into a short-lived Showtime TV series.
In the intervening years it has also become a stage play that will see its West Coast premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
The team of playwright Jack Thorne, director John Tiffany and choreographer Steven Hoggett are probably best known for “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” the Olivier- and Tony Award-winning play that set up residence at San Francisco’s Curran Theater for an extended run starting in 2019.
But “Let the Right One In” was actually Tiffany and Thorne’s first collaboration, premiering in 2013 at Scotland’s Dundee Rep Theatre and moving on to London’s Royal Court and the West End, making its American premiere at St. Ann’s Warehouse in 2015.
Childhood friends Tiffany and Hoggett have worked together on many other projects, such as the musical “Once.” Hoggett was also the choreographer for the Green Day musical “American Idiot” that premiered at Berkeley Rep in 2010. “Let the Right One In” scenic designer Christine Jones also did the set for “American Idiot” and won a Tony Award for it on Broadway.
“Story-wise, it’s closer to the film than it is to the novel,” Tiffany says of “Let the Right One In.” “Even though John (Lindqvist) wrote both the novel and the screenplay, it’s a tighter, more focused story.”
The novel is in several ways more disturbing than its various adaptations, with some gruesome details about how Eli, one of the central characters, became a vampire. One key difference is that Eli’s adult companion, protector and procurer, Håkan, is much more sympathetic in the films, where it’s implied that he’s been with Eli since he was young, than in the novel, where he was drawn to Eli because of an attraction to children.
With Håkan as a former child companion now grown old, Tiffany says, “It struck me that it’s a very similar story to Peter Pan, with Eli as a kind of Peter Pan, and Wendy who promised that she wouldn’t grow up and then does. And then Peter comes back and asks Wendy’s daughter, Jane, if she wants to go to Neverland. There’s that awful sadness about people who don’t grow up. Because you realize as you get older, well, the reason that Peter Pan never grows up is because he’s actually dead, and you’re preserved at the age you die. That’s what the Lost Boys are.”
Based on the original National Theatre of Scotland production, the Berkeley run is the first with an American cast. It’s also the first time that the character of vampire child Eli has been consciously cast with a nonbinary actor.
“When the novel was conceived, and when we did the production 10 years ago, it wasn’t a term that was familiar to me,” says director Tiffany. “The story is set in 1983, when everyone was struggling with anything that was different from the cis-heterosexual norm. But revisiting the text and seeing Eli say, ‘I’m neither a girl or a boy,’ that felt like a really positive opportunity to collaborate with a nonbinary performer.”
“Eli is a shape shifter in every way,” says Canadian actor Noah Lamanna, who plays Eli. “They exist with no definable age or gender, and we discover throughout the show that their gender story is more complicated than it seems, but it’s also by no means a quote-unquote ‘trans story.’ None of the characters in the show really have a concept or a language around gender identity.”
“It’s a love story disguised within the horror genre,” adds Lamanna, who’s also been cast in the new season of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” that premieres in June. “There’s a really vulnerable and honest human story at its core, and I think that’s what makes it so timeless. There’s something about this story that people continue to come back to and feel magnetized towards.”
The horror aspect creates some fascinating challenges both in terms of tone and the technical challenges of how to bring some of the story’s more fantastical scenes to life onstage.
“There’s moments that you just go, how on earth does that happen?” says Tiffany. “And there’s a couple of scares that always get the audience, but audiences like jumping out of their seats, I’ve discovered. It’s been a really interesting journey about the idea of putting horror on stage. They’re not that happy bedfellows, which is why there’s not been that much horror on stage. It can come over very easily as kind of absurd and comical, whereas it seems to sit better in film. You have to be very, very delicate and very nuanced about how you do it.”
“I think it’s an interesting time to be telling this story, because within the broader conversation, we are very quick to decide who is worthy of being listened to, who is worthy of being redeemed, who is worthy of our empathy,” Lamanna adds. “Something that’s really interesting about the show is that I think it denies you an easy villain. Even the characters who appear to be villains, we have moments of either redemption or deep empathy when we see the circumstances that they are dealing with that cause them to act the way that they do. We see Eli do some really awful things, and yet we’re still rooting for them. Everybody in the show acts out of fear, acts out of survival, and — really importantly — acts out of the drive to protect the people they love.”
Contact Sam Hurwitt at [email protected], and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.
‘LET THE RIGHT ONE IN’
By Jack Thorne, based on the novel and screenplay by John Ajvide Lindqvist, presented by Berkeley Repertory Theatre
When: In previews May 20-23; main run is May 24-June 25
Where: Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley
Tickets: $43-$119; 510-647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org
“Let the Right One In” really seems to have tapped into some kind of vein in the popular imagination.
Originally a 2004 Swedish vampire novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist about a bullied 12-year-old boy’s budding romance of sorts with the mysterious child next door, it became a hit 2008 Swedish film and a 2010 American remake, and just last year it was very loosely adapted into a short-lived Showtime TV series.
In the intervening years it has also become a stage play that will see its West Coast premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
The team of playwright Jack Thorne, director John Tiffany and choreographer Steven Hoggett are probably best known for “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” the Olivier- and Tony Award-winning play that set up residence at San Francisco’s Curran Theater for an extended run starting in 2019.
But “Let the Right One In” was actually Tiffany and Thorne’s first collaboration, premiering in 2013 at Scotland’s Dundee Rep Theatre and moving on to London’s Royal Court and the West End, making its American premiere at St. Ann’s Warehouse in 2015.
Childhood friends Tiffany and Hoggett have worked together on many other projects, such as the musical “Once.” Hoggett was also the choreographer for the Green Day musical “American Idiot” that premiered at Berkeley Rep in 2010. “Let the Right One In” scenic designer Christine Jones also did the set for “American Idiot” and won a Tony Award for it on Broadway.
“Story-wise, it’s closer to the film than it is to the novel,” Tiffany says of “Let the Right One In.” “Even though John (Lindqvist) wrote both the novel and the screenplay, it’s a tighter, more focused story.”
The novel is in several ways more disturbing than its various adaptations, with some gruesome details about how Eli, one of the central characters, became a vampire. One key difference is that Eli’s adult companion, protector and procurer, Håkan, is much more sympathetic in the films, where it’s implied that he’s been with Eli since he was young, than in the novel, where he was drawn to Eli because of an attraction to children.
With Håkan as a former child companion now grown old, Tiffany says, “It struck me that it’s a very similar story to Peter Pan, with Eli as a kind of Peter Pan, and Wendy who promised that she wouldn’t grow up and then does. And then Peter comes back and asks Wendy’s daughter, Jane, if she wants to go to Neverland. There’s that awful sadness about people who don’t grow up. Because you realize as you get older, well, the reason that Peter Pan never grows up is because he’s actually dead, and you’re preserved at the age you die. That’s what the Lost Boys are.”
Based on the original National Theatre of Scotland production, the Berkeley run is the first with an American cast. It’s also the first time that the character of vampire child Eli has been consciously cast with a nonbinary actor.
“When the novel was conceived, and when we did the production 10 years ago, it wasn’t a term that was familiar to me,” says director Tiffany. “The story is set in 1983, when everyone was struggling with anything that was different from the cis-heterosexual norm. But revisiting the text and seeing Eli say, ‘I’m neither a girl or a boy,’ that felt like a really positive opportunity to collaborate with a nonbinary performer.”
“Eli is a shape shifter in every way,” says Canadian actor Noah Lamanna, who plays Eli. “They exist with no definable age or gender, and we discover throughout the show that their gender story is more complicated than it seems, but it’s also by no means a quote-unquote ‘trans story.’ None of the characters in the show really have a concept or a language around gender identity.”
“It’s a love story disguised within the horror genre,” adds Lamanna, who’s also been cast in the new season of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” that premieres in June. “There’s a really vulnerable and honest human story at its core, and I think that’s what makes it so timeless. There’s something about this story that people continue to come back to and feel magnetized towards.”
The horror aspect creates some fascinating challenges both in terms of tone and the technical challenges of how to bring some of the story’s more fantastical scenes to life onstage.
“There’s moments that you just go, how on earth does that happen?” says Tiffany. “And there’s a couple of scares that always get the audience, but audiences like jumping out of their seats, I’ve discovered. It’s been a really interesting journey about the idea of putting horror on stage. They’re not that happy bedfellows, which is why there’s not been that much horror on stage. It can come over very easily as kind of absurd and comical, whereas it seems to sit better in film. You have to be very, very delicate and very nuanced about how you do it.”
“I think it’s an interesting time to be telling this story, because within the broader conversation, we are very quick to decide who is worthy of being listened to, who is worthy of being redeemed, who is worthy of our empathy,” Lamanna adds. “Something that’s really interesting about the show is that I think it denies you an easy villain. Even the characters who appear to be villains, we have moments of either redemption or deep empathy when we see the circumstances that they are dealing with that cause them to act the way that they do. We see Eli do some really awful things, and yet we’re still rooting for them. Everybody in the show acts out of fear, acts out of survival, and — really importantly — acts out of the drive to protect the people they love.”
Contact Sam Hurwitt at [email protected], and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.
‘LET THE RIGHT ONE IN’
By Jack Thorne, based on the novel and screenplay by John Ajvide Lindqvist, presented by Berkeley Repertory Theatre
When: In previews May 20-23; main run is May 24-June 25
Where: Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley
Tickets: $43-$119; 510-647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org
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