Admittedly, I was a little worried about reviewing the First Theatre Company’s adaptation of ‘1984’, a play based on George Orwell’s dystopian novel of the same name. For, I must confess, that having never actually read Orwell’s great work (something that perhaps needs rectifying as an English Literature student), I wondered whether the play’s main triumphs would be missed. Yet, this was not the case; the play did not disappoint, capturing the essence of a totalitarian state, one dominated by, as the director Pearl D’souza points out, ‘mass surveillance and the spread of misinformation worldwide’.
The metatheatrical element of the play proved to be interesting, the high-ranking Inner Party member, O’Brien (Sebastien Bate) addressing the audience as prisoners of Big Brother. We had better watch what happens to Winston, so we, ourselves, do not make the same mistake. This breaking of the fourth wall encourages audience members to draw parallels between the Winston’s state of ‘Oceania’, and our current contemporary times. Indeed, Winston’s own role in the party is the rewriting of history (or as Big Brother would call it ensuring that history reflects their truth), reflecting the mass amount of fake news centred in the media now. One can never be certain what is the truth, in a world dominated by tabloid sensationalism and social media news. The production additionally engages with the idea of a play within a play, with Winston watching back as other prisoners re-enact key scenes from his life – his ‘thought-crimes’ and the events that led to his subsequent imprisonment, all dominated by his love affair with the sensuous and youthful Julia.
This manipulation of the novel’s syuzhet allows for an interesting contrast of the depiction of the deeply human romantic relationship between the ‘fake’ Julia and Winston, among the prison setting. Kalypso Pantagiotou’s youthful and defiant Julia and Noah Lazarides’s troubled ‘Winston’ bring a distinctly human sense of passion to the stage, but this is problematised by the real Winston (Cillian Knowles) observing painfully the action from above. Winston must watch as two prisoners re-enact his and his lover’s own behaviour – the close, lingering touches between ‘Winston’ and ‘Julia’ turn somewhat disturbing, therefore. When O’Brien tells them to stop acting when reaching moments when Winston and Julia had sex, they writhe away from each other. We are reminded that the prisoners are not really Julia and Winston; the idea of physical touch as comforting and necessary for humans is subverted to something repulsive. Big Brother clearly corrupts human relationships – both romantic and sexual. The prisoners become no more than puppets, who follow O’Brien’s voice. This is seen even before they re-enact the Winston’s supposed crimes – when the commander speaks of Winston’s diary containing treacherous writings, they seem uncomfortable in their own bodies and their low muttering only stops when O’Brien stops speaking. Clearly, they have been broken by Big Brother – the thought of disobedience is horrifying to them now.
The set design emphasises this invasion of the character’s mind – there are limited moments in which the mass propaganda of Big Brother is not on the stage. Posters fill the stage – ‘Freedom is slavery’, ‘Ignorance is strength’, and of course most famously ‘Big Brother is watching you’. This idea of constant surveillance is reinforced by the sound – a constant static crackling of the tele-screens watching individuals. We are briefly given relief – such as at moments in the countryside, or when O’Brien, due to his high-up position in the party, is allowed to briefly turn off his tele-screen. The audience can never escape this building of noise, which at times is perhaps slightly too overwhelming and dominates over the speech of the characters. While perhaps an intentional choice to show how Big Brother dominates over human speech, the play would have times benefited from allowing the actor’s voice to stay the primary vocal focus.
However, other elements of play’s sounds worked wonderfully, the musicality standing for hope for the future. When the prole woman sings in the courtyard (Maia Tollner) or Julia sings the children’s rhyme ‘Oranges and Lemons’, Winston sees a future when creativity can be expressed. Art stands in for possibility of liberation, which is only later cruelly subverted through the revelation of a tele-screen behind a painting. They can never truly escape modern technology in favour of human creation. The guard later corrupts Julia’s song, singing it back to her and concluding with a grotesque and violent ending.
Overall, the First Theatre Company’s adaptation of ‘1984’ is a deeply provocative production, which works to contrast the inhumanness of technology with the passion and sensuality of romance. I want to commend all actors on their performances and the wider production team, for staging a play that is so deeply chilling, yet poignant. It is a play that remains powerful for both its contemporary and modern audiences, a stark warning against the horror of giving up your mind.