Light in the Dark Storytellers present a dark portrayal of the naivety and vulnerability of a young man with learning difficulties. Presented in the form of a story rather than a play, Emmet tells the audience about his adventure: a quest to save a friend from her entrapment in college.
The performance switches back and forth between Emmet’s adventure and a dark, mysterious place whose identity is not revealed until the end. His way of understanding life is inspired by the fairytales he read as a child; he lives as if he is within one of these tales, but this magical world does nothing but get him into trouble. Starting with a woman who he believes is a fairy princess he can’t resist giving a kiss to, Emmet has the fatal belief that he can trust everyone he meets. In his mind he does nothing but good and firmly thinks that the people he encounters are the same wonderful, trustworthy characters he has read about in his stories. For example, he believes that a little girl he meets in a library is being mistreated by a wicked stepmother and faces the wrath of her mother even though he is simply trying to help.
Emmet has been trapped in a bubble where everything and everyone is good and honest. The script is very poetic, with wonderful descriptions of life through the eyes of someone who is unable to grasp the harshness of reality. We see a short snapshot of his life, with only passing references to what happened to him before, so we see the character’s inner struggle when he is most cut off and lonely. The one-man show is acted very well, drawing the audience into the pain caused to someone who refuses to believe that there is anything other than beauty in the world.
