‘Let the Right One In’ focuses on trust, bullying and growing up
Jack Thorne grew up relating to the protagonists often found in science-fiction and fantasy stories: children isolated from society and yearning to find refuge in supernatural wonders.
His favorite childhood movie is “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.” But Steven Spielberg’s 1982 film about a boy who befriends an alien wasn’t just a fun blockbuster for Thorne, an English screenwriter and playwright. It was the human story — about friendship and connection — that spoke to him.
“As a lonely child, the idea that there’s someone out there for you, even though they are alien, I found so relieving,” says Thorne, who named his son Elliott after the character in the film.
So when Thorne discovered “Let the Right One In,” Swedish writer John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel about a child vampire, the story, he says, “blew my mind.” Blisteringly intimate and exploring themes of adulthood, bullying and pubescent sexuality, it was the “E.T.” of vampire novels.
“I’ve never come across a story that found a way of making the vampire mythology so human and so real,” he says. “It really revitalized the genre in a strange and wonderful way.”
Thorne has written a stage adaptation of “Let the Right One In,” which comes to the Alley Theatre this Friday, through the National Theatre of Scotland, and plays through March 19.
Though Thorne has worked on shows such as the controversial teen drama “Skins” and adapted the megahit West End stage play “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” Lindqvist’s vampire story remains his most intimate project.
“Let the Right One In” is about the relationship between Oskar, a solitary boy who gets bullied at school, and the mysterious, young vampire girl he meets one day. The vampire, Eli, lives with an older man and stalks the nights with feral intensity.
Bearing neither of the saccharine romance of “Twilight” or “True Blood,” nor the cheesy camp of classic Hollywood vampire flicks, “Let the Right One In” instead explores dark and human themes with a high literary ambition.
Thorne, who grew up reading “The Chronicles of Narnia” and the novels of Susan Cooper, saw “Let the Right One In” as a revelatory work, a piece of literature that “knocked me to bits.”
“E.T. is about friendship. ‘Let the Right One In’ is, too, but it’s also about sexuality, it’s about someone who’s a little older than Elliott,” Thorne says, referencing the “E.T.” hero. “Eli is looking for an ally in the darkness, while Oskar is looking for an escape and finds it in Eli.”
He says Eli is a combination of a monster — she feeds on the people of the town — and a savior, who rescues Oskar from his predicament. Those who have seen either the 2008 Swedish film adaptation or the 2010 American film adaptation, “Let Me In,” will witness gruesome but touching portrayals of Lindqvist’s story.
“It’s one of the finest portrayals of bullying, and how you deal with bullies,” Thorne says.
And, even though the themes of violence and sex can be disturbing, there is sweetness at the heart of the story, says Thorne. It’s the “E.T.” element of two people from disparate worlds relying on each other, and learning to trust one another, in dire circumstances.
“That central idea of learning to love someone, no matter who or what they are, is so pure and so beautiful,” he says.
Thorne says the production at the Alley, directed by Tony and Olivier Award-winning director John Tiffany (“Black Watch,” “Once”) and choreographed by Steven Hoggett (“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”), lets this idea come to life.
“There’s this sense of people journeying together,” Thorne says of the stage presentation. “You’re always in a relationship with the actors in terms of how you experience the piece that’s happening onstage. That makes it a profound experience.”