1984 | Engels theater

1984 may well be the most significant work of modern fiction. The company brings this work to the stage without seeking to simplify its message or dilute its power. The brilliance of 1984 is not only that it predicts a surveillance society in which we now exist, or that it exposes the lies behind every totalitarian ideology or belief, but that it explores these themes inside the human mind as well as in the outer world. “Thought

Control” is the aim of the State in 1984, and this will be achieved by destroying language so that it is impossible to commit “Thought Crime”.

Is Orwell’s vision any different from the dumbing down of our communication through digital media, the collapse of writing and the triumph of the digital banal? Orwell predicts a world where Ideology vanishes under the crushing impact of brute power, power for its own corrupt sake. Meanwhile, as Orwell predicted, War becomes a continuous condition of life, one that justifies any and every form of repression in the name of nothing.

Against this pessimistic background stands the simple heroism and physical desire of the main chracters: Winston and Julia. Their journey through quiet rebellion to hope and despair happens in the outside world and within their minds. Our production follows their external and internal journey until they meet in the torture chambers of Room 101. Paul Stebbings directs a thriller and a love story, a mind game and an end game. Illuminated by a modern rock score from Christian Auer this production aims to tell what may be the greatest story of our time as we stumble towards an”Orwellian” future where Big Brother is watching YOU.