The Indian Boy

This title features a Royal Shakespeare Company premiere for a fascinating new play written 'in response to' "A Midsummer Night's Dream". A 'wild child' is found in the forest by three builders. He is taken to a psychiatric unit, where he attracts the attention of June, a middle-aged psychology student, her husband, Julius, who runs the unit, and Sara, their 15-year-old daughter. June and Julius fight over the 'Indian Boy', but it is Sara who forms a bond with him which results in her letting him escape back into the forest, where further misfortune awaits him...Fascinating and mysterious, "The Indian Boy" is very much a play in its own right, albeit with some subtle echoes of Shakespeare's "Dream". It questions our notion of 'civilisation' and of how much we might have lost by cutting ourselves off from 'nature'. It adds to an honourable tradition of books, plays and films about the Enfant sauvage. "The Indian Boy" is premiered by the RSC in Stratford in November in the context of its Complete Works season. It is then likely to transfer to London - details to be announced.