With the comedic horror parody musical Stranger Sings last month still fresh in my mind I needed a palette cleanser. That luckily was to come in the form of Stranger Things: The First Shadow, an award winning play that was not only canonical to the TV series whose universe it takes place in, but was based on an original story written by the Duffer Brothers, (alongside Jack Thorne and Kate Trefry), with Trefry writing the play. I watched the 13:00 showing in London on April 14th, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was blown away somewhat by the amazing special effects used. With the show working as an origin story of sorts for the antagonist of season four of Stranger Things there are doubtless spoilers from that show contained here.
On a side note, I brought a Stranger Things mug, but it turns out that wasn't the only thing I brought back from London as I also picked up Covid for the second time and currently feel awful!
The majority of the two and a quarter hour show is set in 1959 in the town of Hawkins, in which a series of sadistic pet killings around the town have started happening. While the police think it is the work of a wild animal, some of the teenagers believe it is a person responsible. In particular, James Hopper Jr. (Oscar Lloyd), Joyce Maldonado (Isabella Pappas) and Bob Newby (Christopher Buckley), three high schoolers (the characters would of course come to have large roles in the TV series) who decide to take it upon themselves to try and find the killer. These killings coincide with the arrival of a new family in town, the Creels, with them having came to Hawkins to start over, due to an incident involving the strange boy Henry Creel (Michael Jinson). Unknown to most is that Henry has some strange powers, able to make dreams (or nightmares) come to life, and psychic abilities stemming from an incident in which he went missing in the Nevada desert a year previously. With much of the town having no time for the weird kid, he ends up forming a friendship with Bob's adopted sister Patty (Ella Karuna Williams) who sees his abilities as a gift, not a curse.
This was one of the most impressive stage shows I have seen, at least in terms of the amazing special effects used. With the older characters in the show not having any prior knowledge of the supernatural, the show makes effort to ensure this remains canonical, and while the trio of Hopper, Joyce and Bob take on a role similar to the kids in the TV show, their investigation not only fails, but they don't even discover the real culprit. The play is split between their goings-on and Henry's relationship with Patty. Henry always came across as real weird, but made for an enjoyable performance. The actor spoke in a similar way that The Riddler does in The Batman. Without going into too many spoilers, it gave some information on his character that I either missed or which wasn't mentioned in the series. He is a conflicted individual, with it shown that he almost has a split personality, there is the normal Henry, and then there is the supernatural being within him (that always leads to some great moments where Henry will be speaking normally before his voice becomes demonically distorted). The friendship with Patty seems to work, this is due to her backstory of feeling like an outsider herself due to being adopted and never knowing her birth parents. There were plenty of nods to the show, I loved that the parents of Nancy and Mike Wheeler show up as teens, with Ted Wheeler coming across as a super jock idiot. There are two end act zingers, with Dr Brenner (Patrick Vaill) appearing at the end of the first act, while a young Eleven appearing right at the end (the events of the play lead up to showing how Henry Creel became an orderly at Dr Brenner's institution). Act one mainly features Hawkins High School and Henry Creel's house, while act two has a lot of it set at Dr Brenner's facility.
Special effects were tremendous, as was the interesting set design. The stage had three concentric circles on it which could revolve at different times to each other, or spin in opposite directions. This was used at times to give the illusion of motion, with characters having walking and talking conversations without really moving from the spot. It was also used to give a 360 view on static scenes. There were different levels at times to the stage, with areas such as Henry Creel's attic, the command room of a boat, and the rafters in a drama room all looking more authentic due to being high up in the stage. At times a big screen comes down to cover the whole back of the stage. This is used to show the iconic red credits, display secret government documents, as well as to do drone shot flyovers of Hawkins, and to represent the dark upside down area. The upside down looked fantastic, typically introduced with two bright red horizontal bars coming down and then up again over the stage. At times a body double of Henry is used, so that he can be at once in the real world wearing a blindfold, and in the upside down interacting with characters. Occasionally cast members will appear in the audience, such as people in hazmat suits comedically examining random audience members belongings.
I was impressed with the horror here. Being before the upside down proper the cool demogorgons only make a token appearance. There was a neat prologue set in the 1940's that featured one, and later a few are shown on TV screens in the lab. Henry being Vecna means he gets to do some of the stuff that character does. There was an impressive part when a cat flies up into the air, and then while suspended its limbs all snap with gnarly sound effects, the second act this is repeated but with a human. Obviously a dummy used both times, but I admit I didn't spot the swap between actor and dummy. There are plenty of times characters are suspended in mid air, I never once saw wires attached to the actors, so these always took my by surprise when they are suddenly psychically lifted up. There are a few jump scares, and moments of humour, and also the inclusion of blood. My favourite part was when a mouse in a cage was exploded, and another part where a test subject with a white hood over their face suddenly has blood dripping from where the eyes would be under the sheet. The very best effect comes towards the play end in which we watch a character fall from a great height, but created in slow motion, hard to describe but it looked so fantastic.
I loved Stranger Things: The First Shadow. It might not really add to much to the existing lore that hadn't been mentioned in the show itself, but it was delightful seeing such high quality special effects, and most importantly, it felt like Stranger Things despite being mainly set in the late 1950's rather than the eighties. If you get the chance to see this, it is well worth a watch, excellent stuff.
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