Theatre Review: 1984

The first scene starts with a mousy man, Winston, writing the first lines of his rebellious diary. Smallish, with receding hair, a slouched posture and neutral clothes, the man in question seems confused and skittish, like a mouse. It's a world away from the final scene, where the same man is slumped in a chair, blood pouring from his fingers and mouth.

This was an gripping play, deep and perplexing. It's an adaptation of George Orwell's 1984, a book predicting the future as a dark, totalitarianism distopia. For such an iconic book, the production had a lot of pressure to live up to standards. However, the stage was plainer than I would have expected it to be: just a worn down room, backed with very 70's looking wooden panels. Books lined one side of the wall, and several gloomy windows were clustered across the back. The ceiling was sloped, with scenes, words or pictures projected on it. Finally, there was a little door to a "back room", of which we never see inside.

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Despite a confusing beginning, the play is a well thought-out masterpiece. The main story is about Winston speaking out against "Big Brother", a power-hungry dictator who prevents freedom of thought and speech. Without anyone to share his traitorous feelings with, Winston slowly feels like he's slipping out of sanity. To demonstrate this, whole scenes are repeated with only minor changes, giving the audience a creepy feeling of deja vu. Deafening thunder claps and flashing lights were used to great effect, to disorientate and spook the poor watchers. Finally, all scenes that took place in the "back room" were projected onto the wall, making us feel like Big Brother himself, watching everything. Due to this decision, almost a third of the play was actually pre-recorded!

If anyone's read the book, you'll know the story is ended in Winston being captured and then imprisoned and tortured. This allowed time for the whole thinking behind the Party to unravel, and answered some key questions about the mentality of "Big Brother". However, whilst this was a key scene, I thought it was too gruesome. Blood was squirted everywhere, knives and drills were waved about, and we were all treated to terrifying sound effects.  Let me put it this way: there was so much blood on the floor that the actor slipped over in the puddle when bowing at the end of the play... yuk.

I loved this play because of the ideas it so beautifully laid out. Among many things, it showed the two paths of resistance to Big Brother: actively speaking out and trying to stop him, or lying low and trying to win the battle of staying alive. It also raised several questions: Would you betray your only friend when faced with your worst nightmare? Has "Big Brother"and the party really gone? Or have we just forgotten to notice them anymore? Can/has history been rewritten? How can we tell, if all media and records of past events have been erased or rewritten?