Review of a theatre performance of George Orwell's 1984

Title: George Orwell’s 1984

Venue: The Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke

Date and Time: Wednesday 20th February 2002 at 7:45pm

There are three main characters in George Orwell’s 1984 these are Winston, Julia and O’Brien.

Winston and Julia are a couple who meet under the rule of The Party and its leader Big Brother that fall in love which is forbidden.

Winston becomes a friend with O’Brien who he believes is the opposition leader of the party and they pledge they alliance with this party.

When Winston and Julia meet up again in a room above an antiques shop where they have been meeting recently, they start reading the book which was given to them by O’Brien they suddenly get caught by The Party and dubbed as traitors to Big Brother.

O’Brien who was working for the Party all along tortures Winston. Winston is first tortured on what seems like an electric table, the reason for this was if Big Brother says 2+2=5 what does 2+2 make? After this Winston is chained to a metal bath with handles where O’Brien interrogates him. Winston still has to be rehabilitated so he is brought into room 101, which shows what your greatest fear is and with Winston’s greatest fear is rats he has a cage full of rats on his face. Winston is rehabilitated after this he passes Julia in the street where they show no feelings towards each other.

At the end the opponents of the party are defeated and Winston sits there with a bottle of Victory drink and Winston looking shocked but says, “I love Big Brother”

At the beginning of the play you see two huge video screens that part in the middle and in between the two separate screens they have two smaller video screens that can be brought out. On these two video screens they have scenes of violence where they show a man being beaten up, blood splattered on walls, a mans face pushed against a pane of glass. Before these scenes of violence they have CCTV pictures zooming in on the main character Winston with him walking with in a crowd then it went into the scenes of violence. You first hear Winston speak when he first writes in his diary when he starts questioning Big Brothers and the party’s reign. After a diary entry a voice booms out “two minute hate period” you see five people wheel out on stage metal office chairs where they sat on them equal distance a part and the video screens move together. On the video screens behind them appears a picture of Goldstein, the oppositions leader and during these two minutes one by one the five people on stage, which include Winston, Julia and O’Brien get up and shout words like “die” to this picture.

Winston adds a few more diary entries these have him sat on a chair behind a desk and video footage of him on the left screen of him writing in his diary with the Winston on stage narrating what he is writing in unison with the video screen. Then it shows CCTV pictures of Winston walking again towards an antique shop where the antiques shop owner shows Winston a glass ball with a piece of coral in it, fascinated by Winston reactions towards this glass ball the shop owner takes Winston up stairs. The two huge video screens being pushed round giving the appearance of them climbing a staircase this was a set change that gave me the appearance of them on a old spiral staircase. When the set stops moving an old brass bed is pushed through where one of the smaller video screens would have been. When looking at this bed the shop owner and Winston get onto the rhyme “Oranges and Lemons” and they try remembering this rhyme until Winston has to go.

The set change is moved into the set of a corridor where Winston and Julia have eye contact, Julia has her arm in a sling and she falls down after walking past Winston. He runs back to help her up and where the two smaller video screens would have been there is a gab and the screens are pushed round to give the effect of a connection between them or a lot more. A note is passed from Julia to Winston, you see a touching of hands on the video screen as it was set outside, this note is read ...

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Julia and Winston agree to meet up at the train station. CCTV cameras are used again to show Winston walking to the train station and into a crowded area so they won’t be singled out. Julia orders Winston to go to this certain point, Background noises of Trains and crowds talking.

Winston and Julia meet at this point where no cameras are and Julia starts undressing herself and Winston. Julia and Winston are wearing the same grey boiler suit but Julia has a red sash round her waist representing the anti-sex league. Winston starts commenting on how beautiful she is and Julia returns this complement to him. I found this bit funny before they went of behind the two big video screens he goes “I’m not beautiful I have varicose veins”. They go off behind the two big video screens and on screen appear pictures of nudity featuring Winston and Julia.

Winston and Julia begin to meet in the room with the old brass bed and soon they begin to fall in love. In one of these meetings Julia spots a rat in the corner of the room, Winston begins to get scared and tells Julia to get rid of it, the rat being in the room makes him insecure, to me seems like he was a small scared child about rats.

Winston agrees to go and meet with O’Brien who he believes to be a member of the opposition party but who is actually the head of the thought police. Julia and Winston go and meet with O’Brien who you see is speaking into a tape recorder/microphone along to a news piece, on small video screen brought out to right downstage. O’Brien’s room is grand it has gold and red seats. O’Brien lets Winston and Julia think that he is a member of the opposition party where he asks them questions like “Would you throw acid in the face of a child” and “Would you promote Prostitution” they reply yes to these questions and are standing in the middle up stage. When O’Brien asks them “Would you agree never to meet with each other again” Julia replies no just before Winston was going to reply yes so Winston looks at Julia then at O’Brien and replies no. While all this was going on in the corner where O’Brien had been standing speaking into the tape recorder/microphone the tape recorder was still on, this questions O’Brien’s motives with Julia and Winston.

Another quick set change leads Winston and Julia back to the room above the antiques room where they are sat on a bed reading the book written supposedly by Goldstein but really was written by O’Brien. They move to the middle of the stage standing up reading this book when you hear helicopter sounds and a voice boomed “We are the dead”. From left upstage appears the antique shop owner who turns out to be a member of the party and ten men in white boiler suits then the two huge video screens move into close together forming a big bang and a bright flash of lights. This showed the end of the first half.

At The beginning of the second half the video screens show the torture scenes which they’d shown at beginning of the theatre with the music of strings. A small room is made out of the small video screens, Winston and O’Brien are sat in there talking this was before Winston was removed and strapped to an electric table which was brought down stage. O’Brien was standing left downstage and started mentioning Winston’s diary “You said in your diary 2+2=4 but what if Big Brother went 2+2=5 what does 2+2 make?” When ever Winston kept getting the answer wrong by replying “2+2 makes 4” a man standing on the other side of this table would pull a lever causing the table to give Winston an electric shock. Until he started screaming “2+2= 5 it makes 5” O’Brien wouldn’t stop the electric shock he would say “your only saying that to stop the pain you’ve got to believe it Winston” then this sign of torture was stopped. The two big video screens joined together and you saw more signs of torture like the beating up in the showers, Winston’s face being punched till it was covered in blood, O’Brien and other men in white suits giving Winston a kicking. You next see the actor who plays Winston when he is hanging from a big video screen and you can see his body through the gab where the smaller screen would have been. Winston falls into what looks like a metal bath with handles and is chained to these handles by a man dressed in white, Winston is covered in blood. O’Brien comes up and sits on a metal office chair next to the bleeding Winston; O’Brien starts acting all nice towards Winston and remarks “If you start doubting Big Brother you’ll start doubting your sanity”. He then moves and stands behind Winston and this metal bath/tray with handles symbolising that O’Brien is stronger than Winston. The metal bath is moved back between the two-video screens and appearing on screen is more scenes of torture towards Winston.

O’Brien next carries the injured Winston out into the middle of the stage and puts him down giving the effect that Winston is dead. Winston starts to move about he tries to stand up however he kept falling over again while he was doing this he was shouting “Julia” showing that he was till thinking about her even though at this moment O’Brien goes “Julia betrayed you a long time ago Winston”.

O’Brien starts talking about the rehabilitation “How there is three stages 1. Learning 2. Understanding and 3. Excepting I think you should move on to stage 2 now Winston”.

The next staged torture is Room 101, Room 101 is a room where peoples greatest fears come out and scare them because Big Brother is always watching, Big Brother knows Winston’s greatest fear is of rats.

Winston is Frog marched to this metal chair centre upstage where he is strapped to this chair. The cage is brought over his face and on the two big video screens appear pictures of hundreds of rats and the sound of them moving. Before O’Brien allows the rats to be allowed near Winston’s face O’Brien goes “with the opening of this little door the rats would be eating your face they’ll go for the eyes first then the rest”.

The next scene has Winston rehabilitated and he is walking down this street (made by the two big video screens) and Julia walks past they stop a little way from each other. Julia says “I betrayed you” and then she gives her reasons “You say stop do that to him and then for that split second after you didn’t mean it but for that second it was going to happen to you, you did mean it”. They exchange looks that have no feeling towards each other unlike when they first met and agree that they should meet up again.

The final scene has the two big video screens set out like one of the diary scenes but the right hand little screen is out, appears the news women on screen announcing that “the opposition of the party has been defeated, long live Big Brother”. On the left-hand video screen it has Winston’s face with a tear running down it and he draw on the dust on the table 2+2=5. To me it looked as if Winston’s hopes and dreams had been given up and that Big Brother was the only way to go. At the end the last thing you hear Winston say is “I love Big Brother”.

I really enjoyed this piece of theatre it had quick set changes; the actors stayed in character all the time, the lighting enhanced what was already there but it made your eyes want to see what was going to happen and not wander around looking at the people near you.

I believe the set helped the actor’s performance, as it was a very simple set where extra pieces of set could be brought out so the different scenes could be scene e.g. When tables were brought out to give the impression Winston was at work.

The costume was very basic, for Winston and Julia they both wore a grey boiler suit but Julia had a red sash round her waist to represent the anti sex league, O’Brien wore a blue boiler suit to show authority. The antique shop owner wore a smoker’s jacket, which is different, as everyone under the parties rule wore that same basic clothes so there was no individualism for anyone.

Underwear worn was long johns you mainly saw these with scenes between Winston and Julia and Winston’s torture scenes.

Surgeons/other torturers wore all white, white boots, gloves and coats.

The Sound used during the torture scenes was fast paced and strings. When it has scenes of a church on the video screen music of organs and other instruments associated with churches came on.

Uses of the video screens showed Torture, Love, Moscow Square, Diary, Proles, Train station, Winston’s mother, Countryside, Television news, Canteen, Dreams, Big Brother and Winston curled up on his side.

The movement when Winston was being electrocuted was fast and believable it made performances look real. When the scene before Room 101 where he is calling out Julia it is made believable as he was being put through intense torture he was not able to stand up properly.

The lightening made scenes move fast or move slow e.g. when Winston and Julia are reading Goldstein’s book the lighting soft. When the party has found them the lighting is all harsh and then at the end of the first half the lights crash together showing that Winston and Julia have been captured.

Scenes I found most memorable was when Winston was tortured on the electric bed and that 2+2=5 not 4 big brother says it’s 5 so it is 5. Another scene I found memorable was when Julia and Winston met for the first time and they were commenting on how beautiful each other looks and then Winston goes “I’m not beautiful I have Varicose veins” this for me was one of the only signs of humour in 1984.

Big Brother is based on dictators of this time. Big Brother was based on Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin; you got the vague idea of this as on the two big video screens it showed Big Brother who looked like a cross between Stalin and Hitler.