London Playhouse Theatre Production of "1984"

Hello, all! 

I'm sorry for the lack of updates this week. We went to two places each day, which came to about ten visits this week. As you can imagine, I was exhausted each day and did not have the energy to blog. I will catch up on those places, as well as the LondonAway! visits from last weekend. First, though, I would like to tell you about my first trip to the London stage!

One of my goals in coming to London was to see a stage play - preferably Shakespeare, but anything good would do. As some of you know, I read 1984 by George Orwell on the plane and as a nightstand book; I had wanted to read a classic English novel while in London, and 1984 seemed like a good choice. 
Embarrassingly, 1984 is one of the few cases in which I watched the movie before reading the book! At the time, I had just finished the book Furious Love, which was about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton (FANTASTIC read), and was seeking their movies. After spotting 1984 on Netflix, I went ahead and watched it. Here is the trailer, in case you're not familiar.

It is truly a brilliant film, and really is, as the trailer says, "the crowning achievement in [Richard Burton's] career." It's extremely sad to watch the film knowing how ill Richard was during the filming of it, and that he died soon after. He did not even live long enough to go to the premier. Additionally, John Hurt gives a strong performance as Winston Smith, as does Susana Hamilton as Julia. 

While many (even me!) usually frown upon watching the movie before reading the book, I'm very grateful to have done so in this case. Choosing to read the book now, while in London, has proved optimal as I have been to all of the places Orwell references; likewise, watching the film first has given me a springboard upon which to judge the stage play, something I would have missed had I not watched the film earlier. 

Since I arrived in London, I have sought interesting theater performances to see, and naturally the Playhouse Theatre production of 1984 stood out to me. Knowing today was a "non-academic day," I bought my ticket last week online for the afternoon show. Today, I took the Tube - something with which I have grown very comfortable - over to the theater. The people working there were very kind, and showed me to my seat. Unfortunately, the Playhouse Theatre does not allow photography, even before the show, so I have no pictures. (I forgot to take my camera anyway...oops.) My seat was on the upper balcony, and I had a good view of the stage. The seat was comfortable, and I was very ready to see how 1984 would work on stage. 

Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan, the co-directors and writers of this adaptation, stayed very true to the source material; however, they took an interesting perspective on the novel, one that, I'm embarrassed to admit, did not even occur to me. They both claim the appendix - "The Principles of Newspeak" - is by far the most important part of the whole novel. In the program, Icke states, 

I remember saying quite forcefully at the start, 'I think the appendix is the most important bit. I think it's structurally the thing that defines the whole...I don't know how you can adapt this novel if you don't touch the appendix. I don't know what it means.' It's a book that's about unreliability...and Orwell puts something at the end that a lot of people hilariously and ironically haven't bothered to finish. One of the things the novel really thinks about is the status of the text, and what text means - and whether text can have any authority when it has been messed with. How you can [sic] trust words to deliver any information?

Reading this passage made me think. Icke goes on to say,

 From the moment you read, 'It was a bright cold day in April,' you're reading the book with somebody else because that person has footnoted it and written you an appendix, so there's another reader in your experience of the novel at all times.

I found this a most deep interpretation of the novel, and one that had not occurred to me. Unlike the readers he criticizes, I did read the appendix as soon as I saw the footnote. Overall, I found the appendix the most interesting part of the novel, but for reasons other than what Icke proposes. Simply, the ways the passage predicted modern versions of Newspeak, such as textspeak, were so dead-on I was disturbed. Indeed, when people talk about this novel it is always within the context of surveillance or war; there is little discussion of the role of language in the novel, which is sad and telling, considering that is one of the most prevalent themes in the novel and one that has most certainly come true.

With this background in mind, I can say the stage play, while taking a few missteps, really was a brilliant show. There were a few elements I disliked at first, which I'll get into momentarily, but when I returned home and had a chance to ponder them I completely revised my opinion. 

The actor playing Winston looked way too young, handsome, and romantic to fit Orwell's description, but he did give a strong performance. You can kind of see what I mean here:

From: http://media.westendtheatre.com/1984-roy.jpg

From: http://londonist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Hara-Yannas-and-Sam-Crane-in-1984-West-End.-Credit-Manuel-Harlan.jpg

The acting, for the most part, was very good. The woman who played Julia (see the photo above with Winston) was satisfactory for the most part - she had the most irritating laugh, though, which drove me nuts. The man who played O'Brien, well, watching him act was like watching paint dry compared to Richard Burton's performance. Perhaps such an incongruent comparison is unfair, though....

Bearing in mind the writers' interpretation of the novel, it was fascinating to see how they took on this novel. The play opened with the room entirely black and the clock striking thirteen, as in the novel. The stage's arrangement was intriguing: the bottom space was a nondescript, dingy building, mostly brown, and the top half of the stage was a screen with images from the action below projected on it part of the time. I loved this because it really captured the omniscience of Big Brother. 

When the light comes on the stage, Winston appears, writing in his journal. Creepily, what he writes is projected onto the screen as a voice over reads aloud the opening passage of the novel. The lights flicker on and off, and then the cast appears, discussing the book 1984 while observing Winston. While this might sound clunky and kind of felt that way when I saw it in the theater, it does work and it enforces Icke and Macmillan's interpretation that there is more than one reader of the novel and, in turn, more than one person watching Winston. Indeed, the inclusion of the "readers" in the cast and the screen in addition to the audience created several layers of surveillance, which is most in line with Orwell's messages. Much of the play, as established in this opening scene, was presented as surreal, as though Winston may or may not be dreaming. At first, I felt this completely contradicted the point of the book, which was that this did happen but history is manipulated to make it look like it did not. Upon more thinking, however, I believe the dream-like setting was really meant to make Winston and in turn the audience never completely trust what they are watching. As the director said, this is a book about unreliability; what better way to emphasize that than by having the play's form itself unreliable? I found this an effective way to treat the stage as its own medium, rather than by relying solely on cheesy a voice over or bad dialogue. Also, by having characters reading the book as though from hindsight, the play stresses the importance of reading itself, a message I appreciated and I'm sure Orwell would have as well. 

The "readers" do not stay for long, though, and Winston does have lunch with Syme and Parsons - the play is extremely faithful to its source. Julia and Winston's courtship felt forced and quick, though, and the sex scene was a little ridiculous. The first time they are together, Julia throws papers into the air, screaming at the top of her lungs, "Down with Big Brother!," and Winston follows suit. They share a passionate kiss and embrace, then Winston basically throws her onto the table, the lights go dim, and then come on again with their clothes rumpled, suggesting they just had sex. I don't know. I felt like the writers were beating the message into my head with this one - "Hey, look! They hate Big Brother so much they derive sexual pleasure from their shared hatred! Hey, look! Having sex was a rejection of Big Brother politics!" - and I don't like having my head beaten. In spite of the silliness, the scene was effective. I do wish, though, they had chosen a better actress to be Julia. She had zero chemistry with the guy playing Winston, and her drunken Valley-girl horse cackle grated my nerves. We're supposed to believe Winston would essentially kill himself over this girl? Well, laughs aren't everything.... 

The second half of the play was far stronger than the first. When Winston and Julia rent the cottage from Charrington, they exit on stage left through a door. As they enter the room (and, thus, exit the stage), we see their images projected onto the screen. The next few times they are together, we see them like this: not physically present, but virtually. I found this VERY creepy because we are watching them in some of their most private and intimate moments - deep conversation about how much they love each other, Julia stripping to her underwear and Winston to his boxers, Julia sleeping while Winston reads to her - and it felt very uncomfortable to watch. Seeing the actors on a screen felt like a far greater intrusion than watching them simply on the stage specifically because of their corporeal absence. To me, this was one of the most effective aspects of the play because the audience is now Big Brother. We are watching. 

The scene in which the Thought Police invade the cottage was terrifying, as it should be, with loud helicopter sounds and lights shining every which way and men in black SWAT team get-ups and guns. I was very struck by the way they handled Winston's imprisonment prior to his torture. Many of the images from the book, such as Winston meeting a woman named Smith who suggests she is his mother, are done in a surreal, dream-like way. For instance, when he does meet the Smith woman, both he and she are wearing masks. When she takes off the mask, she turns out to be...Julia. I loved this because it hit on the Freudian elements of the novel as well as the invasion of personal thoughts and memories. Additionally, when Parsons joins Winston in the cell, he tries to have the Thought Police take Winston to room 101 in his place. There is a great hustle and tussle, and Parsons disappears. Then, Winston, who is still wearing a mask, sees another man, who takes off his mask and is...WINSTON! I loved this. So creepy. The lighting was perfect and was probably the best thing about this play, especially with the torture scenes.

When Winston is taken to room 101, the entire theater goes black. Then, the light on the stage is switched on, and it is a bright, blinding light made worse by the white set. It took me a few minutes to adjust, which I think was

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the point. The torture scenes were gruesome, and the lighting was perfect. When they cut off Winston's finger tips, for instance, the main lights on the stage began to flutter as the thugs tied Winston down and began cutting. The main stage lights went off while two vertical lines of neon lights on either side of the stage flashed once, then twice. When the main lights returned, there was blood on Winston's finger tips and all around the chair. This was especially effective (and used at several other points in the play) because the flashes resembled lightning, a trait that emphasized the power and volatility of the Party. 

As the torture scene progressed, it grew more and more gruesome. They had the box of rats on his face, he threw up blood, everything. The electric shock scenes felt real, and the play actually involved the audience. At the bitter end, as a man followed Winston with a camera and projected his image onto the screen, the lights in the seating part of the theater came on, and O'Brien asked Winston to tell "everyone" that 2+2 is 4. Very chilling. (On another note, I find Orwell's fiercely anti-Russian arguments hilarious considering he borrows from Dostoevsky so blatantly with both Notes from Underground and "The Grand Inquisitor." That's a whole other discussion, though.) 

The ending kind of fell flat for me in part because of...Julia. They had her serve him coffee and remain all perky with that laugh. Yuck. As Winston is still tied in the chair, the "readers" come back on stage and talk about how the events in that book took place over 100 years ago. They have a debate over whether Winston was a real person and decide he was. Then, they begin laughing about Newspeak and how they're so glad that government doesn't exist anymore. The big kicker (as in kicker in the head) comes when the woman reader says, "How do we know they don't do surveillance any more?" This was chilling, yes, but a bit too obvious. After she says this, O'Brien walks up to Winston, and Winston tells him thank you. The end. To me, the ending in the film far surpasses this; the movie is heartbreaking! This ending felt too forced and obvious, even if I appreciated what they were aiming for. It just felt so anti-climactic, especially after the well done 101 scenes. 

Overall, this was a fine production, in spite of a few things, and I would happily recommend it to anyone wanting to see some good theater in London. Just be prepared for a woman with a really bad laugh.