Adapting George Orwell's prescient novel "1984" is far from the easiest feat a playwright could attempt, but Michael Gene Sullivan, with actor/activist Tim Robbins in the director's chair, pull it off beautifully in their production "1984" currently playing at The Actors' Gang.
The play's staging complements the concept beautifully: A nearly bare room, benches along the walls, a large recess in the center of the floor, and recessed windows that serve as "viewscreens" on each of the three actual and one virtual walls.
As the lights come up, we see the protagonist, Winston Smith (Brent Hinckley), chained and lying within the recessed area. Four "Party members" – three male, one female – enter, their dark suits a harsh contrast to the unkempt, unshaven Smith's prison rags. A commanding voice begins to question Smith about when he began committing his treasonous acts. It's the voice of Big Brother, the Party leader, his face aglow in one of the "viewscreens."
Smith refuses to answer, so the answers are supplied to him by one of the Party members reading from Smith's diary, while two others (Brian T. Finney, Kaili Hollister) begin to act out Smith's words – particularly the recounting of Smith's meeting and eventual love affair with Julia, another disaffected Party member.
While few liberties are taken with Orwell's text, it's clear by their selectivity of what to portray that one of the main points Sullivan and Robbins wish to make with this play is that sex is the ultimate act of revolt against totalitarian authority – a truth that members of the adult entertainment community know (or should know) all too well.
Hence, the audience to taken through Winston's and Julia's first liaison in a secluded pasture, her joy at modeling a forbidden piece of lingerie for him in the room they've rented above an old antique shop (some brief nudity here), their mutual realization that they must become revolutionaries, and their decision to trust O'Brien, who they believe shares their goal of toppling Big Brother's regime.
The performances are uniformly excellent, so much so that in the pivotal scene in their antique-shop love nest, where Winston and Julia admit to each other that their political stance can only doom them, repeating to each other, "We are the dead," the audience experiences a genuine chill when at that moment, a voice from a hidden viewscreen barks, "You are the dead!"
Those who've read Nineteen Eighty-Four – and everyone in the adult industry should have done so by now, since neither the 1956 nor 1984 film versions really convey the power of the novel – know what lies ahead for Winston and Julia, and the ensemble here doesn't disappoint. It's all there: The Five-Minute Hates, the Junior Anti-Sex League, and of course, the Ministry of Love. For those who haven't yet read the book, the play will be that much more effective – but in either case, "1984" is one powerful theatrical experience that should be savored by all free-thinking and freedom-loving adults.
"1984" runs through April 8 at The Actors' Gang at the Ivy Substation, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232. Tickets can be purchased over the Internet at www.theactorsgang.com, or by phone at 310-838-4268
