The Versus Theatre presents “Lord of the Flies 2.0”

Barcelona (ACN).- A reinterpreted, 21^st century adapted version of William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” will hit the stage at Barcelona’s Versus Theatre, opening their new season and marking the 15^th anniversary of the establishment. Directed by Abel Coll, the play adds “2.0” to its title, for the protagonists are not Golding children, but rather post-adolescents. Seven young actors will play the role of a group of shipwrecked adolescents on a solitary island who must learn to coexist. Through this process, they discover the hardships of communal living and see irrationality and violence take over.

The Versus Theatre will premiere its play “Lord of the Flies 2.0” on the 3rd of September. The show will run until the 31st of October. The play’s director, Abel Coll, has said that the play “strongly stays away from the original”. In any case, what the new version does not forget is the concept of “all against all” from Thomas Hobbes’ book, Leviathan.

The project started a year ago with actors Enric Rodríguez, Pau Vinyals and Georgina Latre that participated with Coll in the previous play entitled “Hikikomori”. With four more actors, the group went through a series of rehearsals in the month of March that finally led them to the definitive version that they will present this September.

With the appendix “2.0”, the director wants to make clear that his proposal is not a copy of William Golding’s text. Together with Joan Flores, Coll has rewritten the text and changed the generation of the protagonists- now post-adolescents rather than kids- and changed the number of characters.

According to Coll, because of the unusual and extreme experience that the characters face, “in an hour and 20 minutes of the play, they go from being post-adolescents to adults”. This is the first time that Coll will be acting as well as directing. The director stated that he had to take a “dare” because the “text ended up having less importance” than the context and action that was developed.

The need to survive on a deserted island uncovers human instincts and portrays the degradation of coexistence, at first orderly and healthy, turn to irrational behaviour. The story’s themes include the necessity to adapt to adverse circumstances, forms of repression, deceit, violence, superiority, submission, fear and loneliness.

The play’s cast is formed by Laia Alberch, Júlia Barceló, Ricard Farré, Georgina Latre, Enric Rodriguez, Edu Tudela and Pau Vinyals.