The Hollow World of “1984”

Our theater company, all for One productions, is entering tech week for our upcoming stage production adapted from George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four…so naturally it’s the subject uppermost in my mind, even on a Sunday.

We’ve had some great conversations as a cast while working on this script. One thing we’ve wrestled with is the hopelessness in the story. all for One does not typically choose to tell hopeless stories. So why are we doing this one?

We’ve identified several aspects of the story which audiences today may relate to:  loss of privacy; the narrowing of language; and revisionist history.  We’ve talked about the fact that other countries–notably North Korea–are already experiencing a hell on earth which is quite similar to the world described in Orwell’s book. 

Two more examples of how Orwell’s ‘1984’ is becoming a reality in 2013:

One of the basic precepts of Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-four‘ is that individuals should not think for themselves, and that everyone is subservient to the State. It’s accomplished by reprogramming how people think, a reversal of logic and that which was known. Only through accepting these illogical reversals is someone “allowed” to exist:

“WAR IS PEACE;
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY;
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”

These three basic slogans of the Party were everywhere. Even questioning them was tantamount to a Thoughtcrime, and was punishable as such.

But was ‘Nineteen Eighty-four‘ just a book, merely a dystopian fantasy to be discussed in an English Lit class? Because more and more, I’m getting the distinct impression that someone decided it’d make a pretty good “How-To” instruction manual. 

Example #1:

IRS now referring to #Obamacare’s taxes as ….”Shared Responsibility Payments”??

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Remember this?

From Obamacare, to record-setting debt, to racially divisive rhetoric, our President has certainly been true to his word: America has been (and continues to be) “transformed”. 

The method through which his Administration is primarily accomplishing this metamorphosis is words, or rather, by changing the meaning/use of words: 

According to Janet (Big Sis) Napolitano, comparisons to an “Orwellian State” are just crazy talk!

Well, that just settles everything, doesn’t it?

I mean, if Janet Napolitano says north is south, and east is west, we all should probably just start recalibrating our GPS systems immediately: she and her cohorts wouldn’t LIE to us, after all!!

Lest you think I’m taking her out of context, here’s the whole thing:

“I think people have gotten the idea that there’s an Orwellian state out there that somehow we’re operating in. That’s far from the case,” she told Errol Louis during an appearance on Road to City Hall.