‘Let the Right One In’ the most thrilling show in Houston
Lucy Mangan slinks up an empty birch tree in a stark winter landscape and waits silently in its branches, her eyes glaring like a panther’s. Is that blood on her shirt? Even when she fades into the shadows, the spotlight focusing instead on the unsuspecting humans below her, your eyes know better than to leave her be. She’s beautifully, terrifyingly strange.
Mangan plays Eli, the fantastic and fantastical being at the center of The National Theatre of Scotland’s “Let the Right One In,” at the Alley Theatre through March 19. It’s the most thrilling production on stage in Houston, starring an actor so deft at negotiating innocence and terror you don’t know whether to fall in love or to run away screaming.
Based on John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel of the same name, a reimagining of the vampire genre that inspired Swedish and American film adaptations, “Let the Right One In” is a multifaceted achievement. It’s at once a horror movie, a comingof-age tale, an exposé on bullying and a daring exploration of both the sweet and dark sides of sexuality.
To say that it does what “Twilight” and other teenage paranormal romances try to do but better — use vampires as a symbol for the violence of young adulthood — would be an affront to the play’s stark originality.
After all, the play unfolds entirely in surprises, presenting at first a conventional if painterly stage (Christine Jones, also responsible for the costumes) that suggests a typical Broadway drama but then opens up new and more imaginative worlds.
Men and women scurry past this wintry woodland, unsuspecting of a bizarre murder about to take place. Among these peaceful denizens is Oskar (Cristian Ortega), a school-age introvert who endures the psychological and physical torments of two classmates, the devilish Jonny (Graeme Dalling) and the reluctant Micke (Andrew Fraser). The complex portrayal of bullying delves into much more than a child forcing another to eat sand. Micke, for example, seems to like Oskar but knows that he must torment him or else will face similar treatment from Jonny.
Sound like a compelling drama already?
Oskar hasn’t even encountered Eli yet, nor has he been caught up in the manhunt in the wake of the string of connected deaths. At first, Mangan and Ortega’s chemistry is appropriately awkward. Then they get to know and rely on each other, and their bond feels sacred — in a world where no one can look after them, not even parents, their friendship becomes a matter of life and death.
The romance is remi- niscent of that in “Stranger Things,” but it’s more sexually complex and several shades darker.
Like in many great horror films, the Swedish film used the camera to hide, obstruct and omit. On stage, where everything can supposedly be seen, the use of the light and dark becomes paramount, with mysterious figures shambling in and out of view.
The action here is exquisitely rendered through Steven Hoggett’s choreography, which often toes the line between balletic elegance and bestial savagery.
But much of the credit goes to Mangan’s brutal and physical performance. I haven’t seen a young actor use her twitching body to elicit such visceral, fight-or-flight response from the audience since Saoirse Ronan in Ivo van Hove’s “The Crucible.” Look at how she prowls on the ground, how she spasms out of control, how she softly approaches Ortega but pounces at those who might be a threat, or food — this is a performance that will linger with you for weeks.
Without spoiling anything, the final action sequence of “Let the Right One In” features a stunt from Ortega that is genuinely heart-stopping. It’s the kind of ending that leaves your mouth agape yet completes an emotional arc for Eli and Oskar that’s mercifully warm and sweet. (Is that how Eli would describe the taste of blood?)
It’s the kind of subtle direction from John Tiffany that soars with the help of a firecracker team of effects people.
This is a play that knows the unseen and unspoken can terrify more than anything with a literal presence. For all her physicality, Mangan knows the power of suggestion. As the star of this astonishing, bold and stylish play, all she needs is a twitch of her shoulder or a glare in her eye.
And it’s done. We are utterly, helplessly under her spell.