Strange Mango vs. LOST

I am a big fan of the TV show LOST. It recently dawned on me that there are many similarities to a play that my dad and I wrote back in 2003 called The Stupendous Voyage to the Dreaded Strange Mango Thing.

In Strange Mango, a group of people are stranded on an island and discover that there is a group already living there who arrived several decades ago.

In the very first scene of the play, someone is unconscious and in the process of waking up to figure out the circumstances. In the very first shot of LOST, Jack Shepherd is unconscious and waking up in similar circumstances.

In scene two of Strange Mango, the protagonists are put in a cage by the inhabitants of the island. In Season Three of lost, Sawyer and Kate are also put in a cage by the inhabitants of the island.

In Strange Mango, when the protagonists leave the place they’ve been staying for a while, they find a skeleton. In LOST, when the protagonists leave the place they’ve been staying for a while, they find two skeletons.

In Strange Mango, the original inhabitants call the protagonists the “Outsiders.” In LOST, the protagonists call the original inhabitants the “Others.”

In Strange Mango, the protagonists (like the protagonists of LOST) are desperate to get off the island. In Strange Mango, three of the protagonists are accepted by the original inhabitants and become part of their group (just as several main characters in LOST also did).

Many of the original inhabitants of the island in Strange Mango were born there. The same is true of several LOST characters.

Pirates are essential to the plot of Strange Mango. The ship called the Black Rock is essential to the plot of LOST (the name of the pirate ship in Peter Pan).

The primary goal of several key characters in Strange Mango is to locate a specific island (as in LOST). At one point, when the protagonist of Strange Mango has the opportunity to leave and return to civilization, he is told “when we get back you need to be careful not to ever tell anyone.”

One of the more unusual characters in Strange Mango has a unique way of speaking. Some of the things he says sound eerily relevant to LOST:

“And the cosmic serendipity discombobulated the starlight fabulations.”

Several coincidences in LOST as far as connections between characters throughout their lives might be called “cosmic serendipity.”

“A candle of enigma twisted in the turning wheel of a tiny universe.”

This brings to mind the wheel that moves the “tiny universe” of the island.

“Sinister waves weave you backwards.”

Grim circumstances have transported the heroes of LOST back in time.

“All these crashing dreams have an undertow that always pulls us back. It pulls us back.”

Regardless of escaping the island, the heroes of LOST have been “pulled back.”

Bonus: The one in charge of the ship that blew up was called Minkowski.

The time travel device in our play The Dark Backward was called the Minkowski Device. The name came from a book on time travel.

STRANGE MANGO ---------------------- LOST

Protagonist: Henry ------------------Ben Linus AKA Henry Gale

Protagonist: Walt ------------------------ Michael’s son: Walt

Leading Lady: Carla AKA Carl ------------Alex’s boyfriend: Carl

Native of the island: Richard ------------Native of the island: Richard