Theatre / Lord of the Flies, adapted by Nigel Williams, directed by Caitlin Baker and Lachlan Houen. At Canberra Rep Theatre until  August 10. Reviewed by ARNE SJOSTEDT.

The chaos in Lord of the Flies is perhaps what lingers most with you after it is finished.

In it, characters famously descend from civilised children into violent, aggressive savagery or frightened hopelessness.

The threat of this looms over the entire play, fluidly directed by Caitlin Baker and Lachlan Houen. It looms, until that threat gradually hits in all its nightmarish qualities, sending the Rep stage into a deep pit of fear and danger.

This production stages the play extremely well, carried forward by Ty McKenzie’s menacing presentation of Jack, who is the catalyst for just about every bad deed that takes place.

Performed maturely by a young cast of both males and females, this served to assist the polarised group dynamic that ends up taking place throughout the course of the play.

Piggy was played with conviction and empathy by Winsome Ogilvie, and Joshua James’ Ralph was appropriately British schoolboy out in the woods without his father.

Written after the World War II, the parallels with the impact of an aggressive force having threatened the stability western civilisation during that time are clear.

On stage, this production took its audience deep into an other-worldly, deeply troubled environment. And it left you with the overriding sensation that the structures that bind us together are fragile, and what is good in human nature can be quickly tested by what’s bad.

There was some sense that certain scenes in the long production leant heavily on the potential pathos underlying the threatened position some characters find themselves in. Equally, this was perhaps the element that made the tension between the two tribes more dramatic, as Ralph is gradually harassed into the harrowing heart of Lord of the Flies’ darkness.

Overall a highly successful reproduction of this classic text.