1984. Adapted and directed by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan. from the novel by George Orwell. The Headlong, Nottingham Playhouse and Almeida Theatre production. Associate director (Australia): Corey McMahon. State Theatre Company, South Australia and Canberra Theatre, Canberra Theatre Centre. Until July 29. canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.
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This 1984 is a tearingly good version of George Orwell's stark vision of a future that in 2017 may almost have been reached. It's an Australian recreation of a powerful English stage adaptation and it certainly catches the terrors of the novel, from Big Brother to Newspeak to the rats.
Orwell wrote it in 1948 and this version has a threadbare 1940s post-war English ambience but with the framing device of a book club looking at the novel a century on. That works rather better than it sounds as it enables hints at the Orwellian nature of humans carrying round their portable screens, with all the possibilities of those handheld devices being able to report and record one's doings, just as the TV screens do in Winston Smith's world.
Winston (Tom Conroy) lives in a world that is full of controls, from the Thought Police to Big Brother. His work involves airbrushing history but his dreams are of freedom. He falls in with Charrington (Yalin Ozucelik) who runs a shop devoted to unfashionably old things and there he is able to rent a room free of surveillance where he and Julia (Ursula Mills) are able to attain a rare privacy for their blossoming affair.
In a world where even young children are trained to tell on their parents, however, this is all doomed. Betrayal happens and Winston and Julia find themselves in the hands of the torturers and in the power of the terrifyingly smooth O' Brien (Terence Crawford). The set transforms into a white-walled place full of pitiless light and the going becomes very grim indeed.
Strong performances abound, from Mills' pragmatic Julia to Ozucelik's deceptively gentle Charrington and the plaintive Parsons of Paul Blackwell, seemingly so proud of his child's ability to sniff out traitors. Fiona Press brings a series of women to life, notably the canteen skivvy at her repetitive labour and the working-class woman who Winston hears singing despite a world of repression.
Crawford's O'Brien is definitely the stuff of nightmares and worst fears. And as Winston, Conroy is the story's unforgettable pivot, the man who tries to reach for what his world denies him.
Disturbing happenings, which will come as no surprise to those familiar with the novel but which are nonetheless terrifying, are backed by jarring sound and lighting effects and an intriguing use of video and imagery.
A difficult show but one that is unmissable.
