The question that the opening scene of the book club poses
is ‘how does one go about scrutinising a book with such legacy?’ And by
extension, how should it be appropriately adapted to the stage? What’s tasteful
is the lack of attempt to use the play as a contemporary fable and failing to
allude directly to the modern day as the tale exists within its own sphere.
Running at 101 minutes, the scene is set with an unsettled Winston
Smith, wracked with nerves whilst hunched over his desk in a dimly lit hard
wood-clad office. Winston’s character becomes increasingly disassociated,
through an exposition of the consumption of madness and paranoia, perhaps more
so than the book illustrates. The play tempts initially at banality, soon
thwarted with jarring digital screeches and offensive pangs of white light. The
use of lighting as overseen by Natasha Chivers is suitably stark, gentle
sephias marking the soft moments of human intimacy, whilst orange hues
illuminate the motif of ‘Oranges and Lemons’, all markedly juxtaposed by the
clinical floodlights of Room 101.
Mixed media is incorporated through a series of film clips
as a window to Winston’s private quarters, ironically displayed across a huge
screen that enforces the omniscient nature of the state. This ingeniously
frames the dismantling of Winston as a character through the physical
deconstruction of the bedroom; momentarily exposed onstage before seamlessly
morphing into the torturous Ministry of Love, governed by the cruel hand of
Angus Wright as O’Brien.
A sensual assault, 1984 is a violent, terrifying and
arresting depiction of a truly dystopian vision.
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