When teenagers Eli and Oskar meet in the play Let the Right One In, the beginning of a chilling, yet deeply compassionate, vampire story are not entirely obvious.
This is the story of two outsiders. Oskar, bullied at school and living in a sterile housing estate in a Swedish suburb with his smothering mother, and Eli, an elfin otherworldly character who has just moved into the neighbourhood.
A fledgling friendship begins, but so do a series of gruesome murders in the area. Are they connected to Eli? Who is she? “I’m nothing,” she says to Oskar. “Not a child. Not old. Not a boy. Not a girl. Nothing.”
Alexander Berlage: ‘It’s fundamentally a beautiful storyline of two teenagers trying to find a connection.’Credit:Oscar Colman
Alexander Berlage, who is directing the production by Darlinghurst Theatre Company, describes Let the Right One In as a supernatural horror coming-of-age teenage romance.