Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan’s adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 serves as a suspenseful and disturbing warning to a contemporary audience.
Like Orwell’s 1984, Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan’s stage adaptation is set in a dystopian universe where the government watches over and controls its citizens’ every move through invasive telescreens, disfigurement of language and the outlawing of love and every thought that goes against the Party’s principles. Through the rewriting of history Winston, despite his morose fury and disgust at the Party is forced to swallow the Party … This extremely relevant vision of the future has been adapted to the stage by Icke and Macmillan as a warning of the dangers of the digital age, unconsented surveillance …show more content…
In one particularly powerful revealing scene during Winston’s harrowing torture at the hands of O’Brien, the latter addresses the audience: “They will not look up from their screens long enough to notice what’s really happening.” This direct breaking of the forth wall challenges the contemporary mindset of the audience and asks if they can trust whatever they hear in media, and to critically think about the state of the world instead of mindlessly and blindly staring at a screen. Icke states in relation to the novel, “There’s so much of the text that resonates in particular with today’s society and political climate. It is a text that has a fundamental anxiety about technology, but also about trust, that you can’t trust what you read, what you’re told, what you are told by the news.” (Icke, …show more content…
Winston is constantly reminded that Big Brother is always watching him, knowing if and when a thought crime is committed against him. In this way, Set design by Chloe Lamford is envisioned to resemble a television screen using black barriers looking into the stage, this is made to appear as if the audience themselves were the all-seeing Big Brother. Tim Reid’s use of a live off-stage camera furthers the surveillance theme. Winston and Julia leave the stage believing they are alone, however, a live video displays their every move to the audience. This puts a further emphasis on the Party always watching, even when the two believe they have been finally left alone. Big Brother plays as an allegory of our everyday life, the government holds records of every person and surveillance cameras seem to follow everyone everywhere, even when we be believe we are
Like Orwell’s 1984, Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan’s stage adaptation is set in a dystopian universe where the government watches over and controls its citizens’ every move through invasive telescreens, disfigurement of language and the outlawing of love and every thought that goes against the Party’s principles. Through the rewriting of history Winston, despite his morose fury and disgust at the Party is forced to swallow the Party … This extremely relevant vision of the future has been adapted to the stage by Icke and Macmillan as a warning of the dangers of the digital age, unconsented surveillance …show more content…
In one particularly powerful revealing scene during Winston’s harrowing torture at the hands of O’Brien, the latter addresses the audience: “They will not look up from their screens long enough to notice what’s really happening.” This direct breaking of the forth wall challenges the contemporary mindset of the audience and asks if they can trust whatever they hear in media, and to critically think about the state of the world instead of mindlessly and blindly staring at a screen. Icke states in relation to the novel, “There’s so much of the text that resonates in particular with today’s society and political climate. It is a text that has a fundamental anxiety about technology, but also about trust, that you can’t trust what you read, what you’re told, what you are told by the news.” (Icke, …show more content…
Winston is constantly reminded that Big Brother is always watching him, knowing if and when a thought crime is committed against him. In this way, Set design by Chloe Lamford is envisioned to resemble a television screen using black barriers looking into the stage, this is made to appear as if the audience themselves were the all-seeing Big Brother. Tim Reid’s use of a live off-stage camera furthers the surveillance theme. Winston and Julia leave the stage believing they are alone, however, a live video displays their every move to the audience. This puts a further emphasis on the Party always watching, even when the two believe they have been finally left alone. Big Brother plays as an allegory of our everyday life, the government holds records of every person and surveillance cameras seem to follow everyone everywhere, even when we be believe we are