Official Introduction to Treasure Island

The title 'Treasure Island' is quite frankly iconic. In the video that I will link below, director of Treasure Island Polly Findlay and adapter Bryony Lavery give us a short introduction of what is to be expected before watching the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLzbNrvM9Qc&t=47s

After watching this video I was very excited and intrigued to tune into the screening of Treasure Island. 

Here's why; after watching the introductory video I realised that Treasure Island was a massive challenge to setup at The National Theatre because the set contained a lot of elements which required attention to detail in order for the set to look realistic. It was a struggle for the team to set up because it was a known fact that Treasure Island did not work in stage format. Obviously Lavery didn't settle for this and challenged this statement. The whole set functions like an 18th Century ship. Every time there is a scene change the cast have to haul it in and make the change look like part of the production. There was countless amounts of research that took place which was about how a ship worked and what team work was like on deck. Findlay  mentions that she was keen to preserve the theme of hardship and darkness as well as physical sweat and moral ambiguity which is an important part of the book.

Bryony also mentions that the story is mainly focused on a character named Jim. The author of the book (Robert Louis Stevenson) said that when the book was published it would be 'for boys only'. The book is very clearly masculine as Victorians decided that women did not and should not go to sea and women pirates should be forbidden. Of course, women have always been at sea and women pirates are very much a thing. Lavery created colourful and comic creations and characters and she decided that (along with The National Theatre) she would make the main character Jim a girl. She felt that it was an appropriate gesture and wanted the audience to realise that the fact that Jim is a girl should be insignificant. Despite this, Lavery stayed true to the character of Jim making her young and intelligent and not resorting to mental cliques. 

Overall, the team wanted people to realise that despite this book being written in 1883, there are lots of contemporary residences. The main one being the pursuit of money with lack of apology, but determination which is a lesson the writers want us to take from the viewing.