Grown men play young boys in the upcoming Lord of the Flies. Edward Choy gets the dirt on this ambitious project 

Don’t worry if you’ve never read William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies. If you’ve watched Survivor or ever left a bunch of kids by themselves for more than ten minutes, you’ve got some idea of the plot. In a nutshell: 11 boys are stranded on a desert island with no adult supervision. They elect a leader. There’s a power struggle. Chaos ensues: Machiavellian manipulation, bigotry, discrimination and at least one murderous rampage. If you haven’t figured it out by now, let’s be very clear that this is not the best show to bring your child to this Christmas season. But you, dear grown-up reader, are in for a real treat. 

This Lord of the Flies is an ambitious production on several counts. First, set designer Hella Chan will incorporate actual soil and plants to recreate the look, feel and smell of a jungle, with enough flora to cover the entire stage area without risk of being uprooted when the actors run, tumble and fight their way through it. Second, it features adult male actors playing characters ages six to 12 years old (the cast includes familiar names like Sebastian Tan, Robin Goh and Gani Abdul Karim). But most amazingly, it’s being directed and produced by one person, without the supporting infrastructure of a theatre company. Who is this intrepid soul? Why, it’s 29-year-old Samantha Scott-Blackhall. 

Before you jump to conclusions about her being an egomaniacal theatre diva, rest assured that she is anything but. Scott-Blackhall is a well-respected director in Singapore, having been at the helm of shows like Quills for Luna-id Theatre, Modern Dance for Beginners for Escape Theatre and Hitting (On) Women for Action Theatre. She’s also worked with some of the finest local actors, and yet not many people have anything bad to say about her. Considering how bitchy actors can be, that’s pretty telling. So why strike out on her own? There’s a simple reason, really: ‘I want an opportunity to create my own work, take complete ownership of it, to choose the plays I want to do,’ she says. That, plus the fact that Luna-id and Escape Theatre – the companies she did some of her best work with – have essentially closed down. 

But why Lord of the Flies? ‘This play is very me,’ Scott-Blackhall says with a smile, and if you look at the shows she’s directed, it makes sense: most of them are plays that delve into the minds of complicated individuals and examine gritty themes. This play is slightly different because it analyses the psychological journey of 11 children, who together represent a microcosm of society. ‘It’s great because they don’t have a developed sense of identity, so what they represent becomes clearer,’ she says. ‘There are also important questions about when and how they turn into adults as they govern.’ 

Indeed, the story is a not-so-thinly veiled lesson in how taking on roles and responsibilities forces people to replace childhood innocence with the pressures of adulthood. Ironically, this is the reverse of the process the actors have to go through to prepare for their roles. For this play, they must regress and strip away their adultness to become children, then progressively take on adult attitudes while maintaining the physicality of a pre-teen. It all sounds awfully hard, which is why Scott-Blackhall is bringing in a psychologist to work with the actors on getting into character, and a movement specialist to teach the actors how to move like young boys. 

Yet she found herself pleasantly surprised by how easily the actors slipped into their roles during the promotional photo shoot for the production. ‘We had them strip down to their skivvies, and their make-up was au naturel – they just rolled around in the mud and smeared the stuff all over themselves, and off they went,’ she says. ‘They really got into it. There was genuine terror on their faces and in their eyes; it was fantastic.’ 

Claude Girardi, who in addition to acting in the play is also the production designer and photographer, explains why the extra help is still necessary: ‘Obviously, adults carry their bodies in a way that’s very different from the way boys carry their bodies. On top of that, most of the actors are pretty buff, so their posture and the way they move is significantly different. So in a way, we have to unlearn the way we move.’ Scott-Blackhall chimes in: ‘We look at my 11-year-old brother as a reference; the way he sits, the way he moves.’ 

If all that wasn’t enough, the actors are also expected to wax for the performance. That’s right – apart from their scalps, they’ll be practically bare. So is the waxing a way to appeal to a particular, erm, audience demographic? ‘Oh no,’ they answer together in genuine surprise. ‘That didn’t occur to us at all,’ Girardi clarifies, while Scott- Blackhall adds, ‘It’s just to help the audience with their suspension of disbelief.’ No erotic overtones, folks – you heard it here first. With its solid cast and the buzz factor of Scott-Blackhall’s producing debut, Lord looks set to be one of the shows to catch this December, if you’re not in the mood for typically cloying holiday fare. Now if only we knew where to put the kids during the show. 

Lord of the Flies goes on a rampage from 13-22 Dec. See here for more information.