THE CHANGELINGS - 2019

IN 2019, 100 young people came together with Goat Track Theatre to explore concepts pertaining to online addiction. This creative development process led them towards a discussion of how young people’s lives are ‘stolen’ away by technology. This then led them to a creative connection between the modern world of lost children and the mythical world of the Changeling myths of Europe where children were stolen by elves.

According to Changeling myths, babies were stolen from our world and swapped with elves from the underworld in order to ‘power up’ that kingdom. Parents would report their children becoming antisocial, angry, depressed, eating all the time and subject to tremendous tantrums - a bit like the behaviour of an internet addicted youth.

The outcome of this creative development took us into the creation of a futuristic reimagining of the Changeling myths where children are sucked down into the underworld via their computer devices & phones. Once there, they are invited to plug into a cyber fantasy and to remain in the ‘elven-world’, living in a computer-generated coma which excludes all of the stresses of the real world.

“The Changelings” see’s Hunter searching to find her little sister, Rosie, who has been sucked into the underworld. Time is running out and the only way she will find her sister and bring her home safely is if she herself goes into the dark underworld. Whilst in the in the underworld she meets several unlikely friends and many more foes to keep her on her toes.