Like 2001: A Space Odyssey, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is long since “dated,” by the actual date in its title. Unfortunately, the 1949 novel’s chilling social prophecy isn’t dated at all; it’s arguably never been more relevant.
Southwest Shakespeare Company kicks off its 2025-26 season with 1984, a stage version of the Orwell yarn adapted by Nick Hern.
“[The adaptation] has been around for a couple of years,” director Maren Maclean-Mascarelli says. “Keath [Hall, SSC Artistic Director] picked it because it’s extraordinarily actor-friendly.”
The play boils Orwell’s story down to an intimate human drama.
“It’s down to six artists, and it’s focused on the love story,” Maclean-Mascarelli explains. “The politics naturally get folded in, but it could have been an epic, and it’s not.”
Maclean-Mascarelli’s own background with the book was a typical one for a high school kid of her era. “I read it in ninth grade at Indian Hills High School in Oakland, New Jersey, and I read it to get an A, not for the artistic experience. I did Lord of the Flies the same year.”
She was therefore uncertain about the directorial assignment.
“I really wanted to do a Shakespeare, because that’s my wheelhouse, but Keath thought it was the right fit for me.”
Her emotionally attentive approach to actors came into play with this harrowing material.
When we think of Orwell’s story, it’s usually in the context of oppressive, intrusive surveillance and authoritarianism; the Big Brother posters, the “doublethink” euphemisms, the then-futuristic telescreens, even some startling prescience about AI. We may forget that, in the end, it’s a story of state terror and torture.
“It requires some sensitivity to compartmentalize, to leave it at the door when rehearsal’s over,” Maclean-Mascarelli says.
This may be a new flavor for SSC audiences, too.
“They may be surprised to not be ‘in’ the story,” McLean-Mascarelli observes. “Most of the time the audience is in on the joke… This is not that show.”
1984 opens on Saturday, October 11 and runs through Sunday, October 26 at Mesa Arts Center. Go to swshakespeare.org for details.
