1984 - Shake & Stir's Live Movie

I don't think I've ever been as depressed reading a book as I was with 1984, and once I finished it I remember thinking that it was not something that I'd particularly care to experience again. With that in mind, I never expected to see an adaptation for stage - but enter Shake & Stir, whose work aims to connect younger audiences with more complex texts with contemporary stagings. Shake & Stir's re-imagining of 1984 is a brilliant adaptation, and although it's still equally depressing it's compelling and engaging through its use of multi-media, brilliant technical design and wonderful acting.

Overall the adaptation is really enjoyable and very smart. The events of the book are condensed without compromising much of the plot, and certain scenes were staged exactly how I'd imagined them when reading the book.

Proberts, Parker, Balbuziente during
the '2 Minutes of Hate' (Source: Facebook).

I love that when I saw the poster, I knew which actor was going to play which character. The three main characters are perfectly cast, and overall the cast are great as an ensemble. They're led by the always worthwhile Bryan Proberts as Winston Smith, who plays the role slightly animated but sensitively subtle as a suppressed member of the silent minority. As the only woman in the cast, the role of Julia (obviously) falls to Nelle Lee, who shows a veneer of innocence but is delightful as the passionate and promiscuous rebel, and Hugh Parker is O'Neill in a way that's authoritative and eerily charismatic. Ross Balbuziente and Nick Skubij cycle a variety of supporting characters pretty well, but Skubij also pulls out a great performance with Charington (but I couldn't tell you why . . . ).

While much of the action on stage is led by the actors, multi-media plays a big part in progressing the story. The video media, provided by Optikal Bloc, is one of the most dominating features of the production. It exists as a way to communicate Winston's inner thoughts to the audience, and is instrumental in the production since without it, it'd be impossible to communicate the first half of the book. It's a smart idea and the only thing that really distracts it is that it feels like the total length of the footage feels like it's hugely dragged out, and all the internal monologue is delivered the same way (Winton speaking his thoughts directly to the audience in a shade of blue). It felt like we were sitting in the cinema watching 1984 - The Live Movie! While it gets a bit tedious, it's easily the best quality video I've seen in a live performance. Of course it also gets a lot of attention since half of the space is taken up by impressive and imposing television screens. It's gorgeously shot and processed, but there are a lot of slow motion shots zoomed into faces, and I spent a lot of time wondering if O'Brien and Winston were about to make out (actually, I think a homo-erotic subtext would have been interesting but I suppose that's a bit too much of a creative departure).

The remaining aesthetic and technical aspects of the show were brilliant. Josh McIntosh's cold and grimy set is imposing and practical, but so clever - it's magical when, in a few seconds, a corner of smoothly transforms into the intimate little room where Winston and Julia experience their temporary love story. Jason Glenwright's lighting is appropriate and varied as usual and the nondescript score, which is full of nuances and subtle rifts, perfectly captures and enhances the hopelessness of the monotonous life and is by far the best theatrical score I've heard from Guy Webster.

Proberts and Lee in McIntosh's beautiful set (Source: Facebook).

Beyond the unintentional erotic vibes, I have only two criticisms for the show, although I consider them to be pretty major faults. When Winston betrays Julia in Room 101, the event is too de-emphasized among the soundscape and lighting. Winston crying "Do it to Julia" is basically the conclusion to the show, as it shows that he has finally succumbed to the torture and has relinquished his will to think. It's pretty much a non-event since the screaming is so loud the content is inaudible and it's smothered by sound and a sudden change in lighting cue. The other criticism is the interaction between Julia and Winston at the end - it's too animated for people who have had their personal feelings annihilated (as spoken "they make it so they ruin your love"). Proberts moving a lot and trying to hold her hand implied that he still subconsciously had feelings towards her, and O'Neill makes it pretty clear he would have obliterated that. I guess it's really up to direction and interpretation, but those points really didn't get through.

While I'd heard some lacklustre reviews and people complaining about the overuse of multi-media, I really liked and enjoyed Shake & Stir's 1984. They've enjoyed a sold-out run which is well deserved and the adaptation has been handled sensibly and effectively. All the actors are great and the technical aspects are excellent, and beyond a few criticisms there isn't much not to like. Grand. I'd say the whole 'Double plus' thing, but everyone else in the industry has said that already.

Tickets for Shake & Stir's 1984 are sold out, and is showing at QPAC's Cremorne Theatre until September 1st. Duration of approximately 90 minutes.

'Fractions' by QTC

Prior to Fractions, the only exposure I'd had with Hypatia had been through glancing over her Wikipedia article, and watching Agora (both were pretty distressing). Based on the life of a female mathematician who is ostracised and later executed by zealous Christians, Marcel Dorney's new dramatisation of the life of Hypatia is magical, drawing upon historical events and recounts as inspiration to create a new telling of her final years and the fate of the Library of Alexandria. Fractions is a stunning piece created by an incredible cast and wonderful technical elements which I really recommend you make the trip to see.

The cast were all magnificent so I'm going to go ahead and write a big ol' block of text to describe them all. Jolene Anderson is mesmerising as Hypatia. She performs with an incredible mix of grace, passion and ferocity, communicating Hypatia's strong values and ethics mixed with the stubbornness that is her undoing. Hugh Parker portrays Orestes in a similar manner, firm and trusting as a paragon of order and justice that tries to resist and maintain the fragile balance of the political and the religious. I tip my non-existent hat to Jason Klaren who played Kyril, the loathsome and detestable antagonist. People around me uttered painful moans and protests whenever he appeared on stage and while he spoke something negative (which was all the time). It was lovely to see Lucus Stibbard on stage again, his characters were performed sincerely and were extremely likeable (he always carries this vibe of youthfulness and energy about him). The audience adored Eugene Gilfedder as the old Rika, the battered and candid soldier who provided some comic relief through his commentary. I was thrown a little by his crazy accent but the tenderness and genuine concern he showed for Hypatia and her obsession was a wonderful touch of humanity. This was easily the best cast I've seen in a professional production this year.

My favourite moment was when Hypatia addresses the audience and snaps that if the crowd want to talk, they can go outside. I burst out laughing and she shot the most FEROCIOUS look at me. Loved it.

This text is pretty anti-Christianity, and it's pretty obvious that the action of forcing your belief on someone is still socially unacceptable today. But some people just insist doing it.... around every ten minutes there will be at least one statement from a character which incriminates the religion as an erratic organisation that will blindly put their faith before any logic and common sense (all the plays I've seen by QTC have done this... it's pretty delightful). I initially wondered if Dorney had been influenced at all by Alejandro Amenábar's movie Agora, but upon inspection of the programme Dorney started this in late 2007. I was wondering since the political and religious discourses are pretty hard to miss in this play, although I'm not sure what the overall message of this play was unless it was just to point out Christians were in the wrong around 400CE. They are portrayed as being ignorant, incredulous and slanderous towards people with any other faith (so... pretty much not much has changed). The amount of crap they do and get away with in this play (such as harming those who don't share their faith, burning knowledge that doesn't) is sort of disgusting, but the grotesque factor is intensified since most of it did actually happen in real life. Not sure where I'm going with this paragraph, I just started writing it because it looked like I hadn't written enough for the rest of this blog.

Joleen Anderson plays 'Hypatia' in Fractions.

I did love the show but it's not without its problems - it has pacing issues during some of the lengthier speeches in Act One (I found myself wondering if you can buy sour cream that you can just pour onto food, like you see on TV with soup... like, you can get sour cream in a carton and spoon it onto food, but can you get it in a form that's similar to milk?) and I found the flow of dialogue really erratic with the fusion of random modern day words and colloquialisms. I guess I could super-analyse it and look into why the direction was picked but overall I think the choice of some words sounded a little sloppy and disrupted the flow of the piece, and also partially took away from the location of the work.

These are minor concerns though, especially seeing as most of the time I was enamoured with the set. Simone Romaniuk's and Ben Hughes' visions for their design was gorgeous. The stage is a simple set up with doors on each side and a table in the middle. Simple design, but above the actors were shelves that held hundreds of rolled scrolls of various sizes. Combined with the evocative lighting hues ranging from fragile blues to bright gold, the stage was nothing short of beautiful and the library resonated with grandeur. I was also really pleased with Brett Collery's work as sound designer and composer. The main tune of the show was played by a forlorn cello with a crap-load of reverb that evoked a bunch of different emotions at once.  The music was ample, but if anything I would have liked to have heard more of it since it added a lot. I didn't really hear a distinct motif or notice any significance in terms of the music commenting on the action, but it was paired really well and heightened emotion.

The melancholic Fractions is the best QTC piece I've seen (ever) and is definitely one of the better professional productions I've caught this year. The cast are wonderful, the music, set and lighting all compliment each other perfectly, and the text is definitely worth experiencing since we'll never know what really happened to Hypatia (except she was systematically and brutally murdered by irrational Christians).

Tickets for Queensland Theatre Company's Fractions range from $30 to $75, and is showing until December 10th. Book by visiting QPAC's website or by calling 136 246.