‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow’ Cast Teases West End Play: ‘It’s Like Being in a Fucking Action Movie’

” from NetflixStranger Things” may be heading into its final season, but fans of the sci-fi phenomenon need not despair. A new Hawkins adventure, ‘The First Shadow’, has just opened in London’s West End.

“The First Shadow” takes fans back in time to Hawkins High in 1959, before Jim Hopper (Oscar Lloyd) took in a strange child named Eleven, Joyce Maldonado’s (Isabella Pappas) son disappeared and Bob Newby (Christopher Buckley) is, well, mauled to death by Demodogs. As the iconic neon lights and synthesizers of the ’80s transform into leather and rock ‘n’ roll, the play (which begins previews Friday ahead of its Dec. 14 premiere) promises to immerse audiences even deeper into the world mystery of “Stranger Things,” thanks to masterful special effects.

“It’s like being in a fucking action movie, like being in an episode of ‘Stranger Things,’ but you’re doing it live every night,” Lloyd says. Variety. “It’s such excitement, so energetic and so fast, that it’s just a roller coaster.”

It’s early November and Lloyd, Buckley and Pappas are nearing the end of an intensive four-week technical rehearsal. Most pieces only take a week to complete, but this one, Lloyd says, is “a very ambitious and technically demanding show.” That’s not surprising, given that the special effects team is the same one that developed the impressive illusions for Broadway’s “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” which also premiered in the West End.

“It had to take a lot of the same design look that you see in the show,” says Lloyd. “There’s this kind of scary feeling.”

Buckley adds: “With television you can have a certain degree of separation. But with that, you’re there. You can’t escape.

The play, directed by Stephen Daldry (“Billy Elliot,” “The Hours”) with co-direction by Justin Martin (“Prima Facie,” “Together”), has been in the works for four or five years. During auditions, the actors were unsure who they were trying for, but eventually learned that they would be playing young versions of Hopper, Joyce and Bob (played in the series by David Harbour, Winona Ryder and Sean Astin).

“The directors said from the first day of the workshops, ‘We’re not interested in impressions,’” Lloyd recalls. “They want us to do our own interpretation of the characters.”

Pappas, who plays Joyce, found this particularly difficult because she has long admired Ryder. “I rewatched the entirety of ‘Stranger Things’ and it freaked me out because I was watching Winona Ryder and thinking, ‘I can’t be about to play this character the way she does,'” she says. The casting marks a full circle for Pappas, as she was in the running for the role of Max (Sadie Sink) on the TV series nearly a decade ago.

“During the audition, I said to myself, ‘This is my second chance.’ I have to make it happen,” Pappas says. “I love the show, so it’s amazing to work on it, and I identify a lot with Joyce, so it’s a good fit for me to play her.”

On playing the younger version of someone as beloved as Hopper, Lloyd adds: “It’s an interesting process, because it’s rare that you have such extensive source material to work on a character – and even then rarer that the source material is later in life. So we have to reverse the trend and ask ourselves: “What was this person like 20 years before we knew all this about them?”

But Lloyd hopes the play will introduce audiences to a whole new dimension of the character. “When you meet (Jim) in season 1, he’s quite traumatized and damaged by the death of his daughter, he’s sort of a functioning alcoholic, who has drug problems,” Lloyd says. “Even though you still have some aspects of him, it was important for me to see a different side of Jim in this room. He’s 18, which is before he went through a lot of trauma, so we’re hoping to see a slightly happier, more outgoing version of Jim.

As for the dynamic between the leads, Lloyd jokes that the directors call them “the fearless trio.”

“There’s a very “Ghostbusters,” “Scooby-Doo” energy between the three of us,” he says. “This is not your average group of friends. We don’t have much in common, we often clash, we spend most of our time arguing, which is much more fun to play.

Ultimately, the bond between the characters comes from their shared trauma, adds Buckley. “These are misfits who came together because of crazy circumstances,” he says. “And they make the dynamic work, especially towards the end of the play, when they set up an idea and it actually works.”

Of course, the trio of actors feels the pressure to live up to fans’ expectations. “There’s pressure because (the characters) are so well-loved,” Buckley says. But the support of Netflix and the show’s creators, the Duffer Brothers, who also developed the story from Kate Trefry’s “The First Shadow” screenplay, made the task less daunting.

Just before the technology began, the Duffer Brothers came to watch a rehearsal and give their feedback, and that’s when reality set in for Pappas. “I’m not going to lie, I was definitely thinking about doing the transition, because it’s their baby and you’re playing these characters that they created and lived with and worked with.” , she says. “But they were so nice and open to seeing new takes on the characters and different things we wanted to try.”

“They seemed really happy with what we were doing,” adds Lloyd. “For them, it’s like letting your children explore the world and see if they can thrive on their own.” And I hope we make our fathers proud.