The Lost Ones

by Laurie Brooks

Copyright 2004

3 Men, 1 Woman, Single Set

In a time of war, two feral children play at what they know. Remembering little of the past, they construct a world of their own from a few memories, a battered copy of Peter Pan and their own determination to survive, until the arrival of the enemy becomes the catalyst for them to look outside. The Lost Ones tells the story of two boys who have lost their childhood to war and investigates emotional literacy and the human rights of children.

Comments from Irish teachers:

• "This play helped the children realize that rights which they may take for granted are not enjoyed by everyone."
• "The children were enthralled throughout. The world we live in today is a very small place. This play makes them more aware of self-protection and self-preservation."
• "We found the play touching and stimulating. We realize how lucky we are not to be involved in a war, unlike many of our peers throughout the world."
• "Excellent production. It made the students more aware of the rights of children."

Commissioned, devised with and premiered by Graffiti Theatre Company, Cork, Ireland, 2005 Spring Tour.

Supported by grants from The Children's Theatre Foundation of America and Irish Arts Council.

Introduction to The Lost Ones

Brooks has grouped four of her plays—Deadly Weapons, The Tangled Web, The Wrestling Season, and Everyday Heroes—under the telling description: "The Lies and Deceptions Quartet." These plays probe issues of adolescent identity, responsibility, and the consequences of actions taken amid difficult, morally ambiguous situations.

For The Lost Ones, Brooks began her initial work with Graffiti with the idea of focusing on the interests of adolescent boys. As with any playwriting project, many concepts swirl in and out of the work; but from the beginning of this devising, several central themes proved significant to the resulting play. These include: images of abandoned, un-parented boys; the idea of the societal silencing of emotions in young men; and the rituals of boyhood made larger in the context of impending danger. From these initial images The Lost Ones grew into a complex play about friendship and trust, loss, emotional and physical survival, and the universal yearning for "home."

The Lost Ones presents two youthful protagonists, Alpha and Squirt, who live in a "near future. . .time of war." As they struggle to escape the violence that surrounds them, we quickly discover that these two lost boys must navigate a world disconnected from the protective conventions of childhood, a world devoid of the presumed safety of home and family, with little language and few connections with a past. The boys, alone, hungry, and frightened, seek solace in trying to recall a former time of safety, comfort, and "mother." This "remembering" quickly gets confused with fragmented images of a story from their past, and in their minds their journey to "home" becomes a quest for "Neverworld," a place of soothing "Wendy stories" and a refuge from the "grown-up enemy." The intrusions of, first, "Girl," and then an actual "grown-up enemy," into Alpha's and Squirt's temporary refuge, challenge the fragile mythologies upon which they have built their reality, and complicate their journey to "Neverworld."

A soundscape of war surrounds the action of the play, providing an unrelenting sense of danger; and the feeling of menace outside the walls of their refuge is further heightened when Alpha and Squirt talk of "John long time gone" and of "three lost boys dead." But the play does not rest within a simple friend-vs-foe conflict. Instead Brooks interrogates the very idea of identity with all of the characters, as Squirt and Alpha must come to some understanding of themselves through their interaction with Girl and Enemy.

Alpha and Squirt exist in a world where particulars of time and place are secondary to the threats they must counter and the absence they must negotiate. While they have only vague memories with which to give meaning to their search, they are driven by the need for safety, protection, and love. Such longings certainly transcend age groups, but they also directly address vulnerabilities commonly understood as particularly meaningful for young people.

Ironically, The Lost Ones not only speaks to young people, but it also speaks about young people. Alpha and Squirt equate danger with physical growth (i.e. dangerous grownups), and they mark the divide between themselves (boys) and grownups through height. Yet Alpha and Squirt, though small in stature, must assume adult-like (grownup?) responsibilities for their own survival, thus evoking important questions about children and the cultural construction of childhood. When basic societal constructs disintegrate, as happens in war or natural disaster, does childhood also disintegrate? Young people exist in all cultures and in all times, but do children exist in all cultures and in all times?

Brooks presents an uncompromising view of the world, and she invites her young audiences to consider serious issues, seriously, as she does not offer easy answers, or a simple, unambiguous resolution. We do not know, for example, if the characters will ultimately be successful in their search for home. But through dramatizing such uncertainties and in presenting the complex problems confronting her characters, Brooks honors both the depth of feeling and the intelligence of her young audiences.

Although the play is set in a culturally ambiguous world, in its premier production by Graffiti, The Lost Ones was presented successfully to school audiences in Cork and elsewhere in southern Ireland. As theatres in other countries produce The Lost Ones, differences in production styles and audiences will likely bring additional nuances to the ideas in the play. But regardless of the social or political context of any production, The Lost Ones offers an affirmation of the resilience, optimism, and generosity of the human spirit that transcends time, place, and situation.

by Roger Bedard, Evelyn Smith Family Professor of Theatre at Arizona State University

2005 Graffiti Theatre Company publication

Photo courtsey of The Nashville Children's Theater