How could George Orwell get it so right? Shake & Stir’s remounting of 1984 couldn’t be more timely.
Searchlights rake across the audience as the audience take their seats, the bleak set is inner urban at its most decayed, the costumes are drab – apart from a bit of glamour in the love scenes in Winston and Julia’s hideaway – and admonitions to obedience are constantly being broadcast via a series of screened Public Announcement Warnings.
The devastating effects of an overreaching government have been never more clear to us in Australia than over the past almost six years – and we have just been catching up with the rest of the world, where some countries have been living under oppressive regimes for most of the 20th century. This production shows us what many have endured for decades – and what may be in store if we don’t pay attention.
It is no idle threat, which is why 1984 is still on the school syllabus (along with Orwell’s Animal Farm) – sure, it’s stark, in-your-face theatrical, but it demands that we think about what we are seeing – it doesn’t let us off the hook for a moment.
There is also spycam – our hero, Winston Smith, can’t even go to the toilet without his efforts being overseen, visible to us via multiple screens across the back wall, where we also see and hear Winston’s musing, and his impotent rage as events unfold. This is about as contemporary as it gets. They don’t have mobile phones in this tale, but the utter invasion of even the most private and basic of human functions is now an everyday event, it seems. Just think of something these days and up it pops on our mobile phone or computer feeds.
The notion of ‘thoughtcrime’ being accessible by the state is now our reality, freedom of speech has been censored and punished and, over recent years especially, we have seen real journalism disappearing from the news and truth being replaced by propaganda. All this was presaged in 1984 and presented here for us to digest.
OK, so we don’t yet have anyone as literal as the Fight the Orgasm Presenter… yet. Statistics though are telling us that younger people are less interested in actual sexual engagement than ever before, despite the ease of access to virtual encounters from your own bedroom, in your pyjamas – and you don’t even have to shower or dress up! Sex is verboten in 1984 – so when Julia seduces Winston, there is a ray of hope and joy and connection, short-lived though he knows it will be. The end – betray your heart and beliefs no matter what the cost – is a dark forecast. The State wins.
The cast is uniformly excellent – English accents aren’t as easy as they may seem and here they’re spot on. Chloe Bayliss as Julia, the honey trap and David Whitney as O’Brien, the double agent, stand out. The latter’s stream-roller interrogation of Winston is chilling.
Lighting, sound effects and video are all terrific – invasive and shocking and relentless. If you have read or seen any of John Le Carré’s espionage stories, you’ll know that Russia was particularly adept at using never-ending sound as a form of torture. We get a glimpse of this here.
Read: Exhibition review: Writers Revealed, HOTA
Surely the message of the original book – a mere 76 years old – and Shake & Stir’s bold challenge to us is to ensure that we resist, or at least use only for our own benefits the insidious seduction of easy AI and technology, so that we have some freedoms in our lives before we discover that life in Australia in 2025 has become life in Oceania in 1984.
1984, by George Orwell, Comedy Theatre
Shake and Stir Theatre Co
Adaptors: Nelle Lee and Nick Skubij
Director: Michael Futcher
Creative Producer: Ross Balbuziente
Designer: Josh McIntosh
Lighting Designer: Jason Glenwright
Sound Designer: Guy Webster
Video Designer: Craig Wilkinson
Fight Director: Nigel Poulton
Production Manager, Jonathan Harrison
Stage Manager: Kayla Cahill
Audio/Video: Josh Braithwaite
LX/Video: Hugo Catterall
Head of Staging: Andrew Whittaker
Cast: Chloe Bayliss, Tony Cogin, Abhilash Kaimal, Steven Rooke, Michael Whalley, David Whitney
Screen Actors: Skye McIntosh, Mila Futcher, Helen Cassidy, Eugene Gilfedder, Jake Maravilla, Zoë Schramm, Patrick Galen-Mules
Tickets: $105-$125
1984 will be performed at the Comedy Theatre, Exhibition Street, Melbourne until 6 July 2025.
