Stranger Things: The First Shadow review

The production has a strikingly cinematic aesthetic that seamlessly integrates video projections, live action and superbly achieved stage illusions. Groundbreaking work from visual effects designers Jamie Harrison, Chris Fisher and 59 Productions breathe life into the play’s unnatural world: otherworldly monsters pop up out of dark corners; wisps of animated smoke spiral into spectral shapes; flailing bodies are lifted into the air, tossed around and crushed by invisible forces. 

Jon Clark’s nimble, precise lighting casts seething, shifting shadows that take on a life of their own. We are plunged into total darkness, broken only by a searching beam of torchlight, or the lights close in around an artfully composed tableau, framing the image like a panel in a comic book. Miriam Buether’s sets are defined by arresting textures, from the slick, gleaming white tiles of a medical research centre to the warped, half-rotted beams of a long disused attic. Twisted organic structures, such as the roots of a poisoned tree, slowly creep in, growing until they surround the stage with an ominous black proscenium.

DJ Walde’s original score builds on the series’ instantly recognisable theme music, using mellifluous synths to underscore the action with eerie, ambient soundtrack that is punctuated at key moments by jarring stings and shuddering orchestral swells. Paul Arditti’s atmospheric sound design provides a range of suitably unsettling creaks and hisses, shocking squeals of radio static and grisly pops of snapping bone.
Continues...

Standing out in a strong ensemble, Ella Karuna Williams is by turns tender, tough and resourceful as lonely outsider Patty, chafing against her adoptive father’s strict Christian conservatism and finding surprising common ground with troubled Henry. Oscar Lloyd and Isabella Pappas rise brilliantly to the challenge of portraying younger versions of fan-favourite characters Hopper and Joyce (David Harbour and Winona Ryder in the series), expertly mimicking their mannerisms and intonations. But their performances go beyond mere impersonation. Pappas’ Joyce has an irrepressible, idealistic fire that has been all but extinguished by the time we meet her in season one, while Lloyd compellingly explores Hopper’s strained relationship with his father, both men too stubborn and emotionally closed off to acknowledge that they care for each other.

Louis McCartney is menacingly mercurial as the troubled Henry, physically and mentally exhausted by a life spent in a constant struggle with his (actual) demons. When he is in full control of his mind, he is believably awkward, just a dorky kid desperate for normality and appalled by his own sadistic urges. McCartney charts this inner conflict with impressive skill, making absolutely clear which side of his personality has the upper hand at any given moment. Sometimes this is as simple as a change in his posture or tone of voice; sometimes he spasms uncontrollably while a cluster of slimy tentacles bursts from under his skin.

Subtlety is not the goal here, and this show never quite matches the series’ charming mix of nostalgia, hope and horror. But it is an extraordinary, gripping spectacle.