Who doesn’t know Big Brother? Not the trashy TV show that sticks people in a house for a month and lets the world watch them make fools of themselves. Big Brother, the menacing ever-constant political presence in George Orwell’s novel about the ultimate dystopia, 1984. Written just after the Second World War, the novel details a fearful world and the book serves as a warning. But we can rest easy, it’s entirely fictitious.
Or is it?

Last year, a theatre company in the US staged an adaptation of the iconic novel, to rave reviews. The company is known for its firebrand productions and venturing where not many other acting companies dare. In a way, the Los Angeles-based The Actors’ Gang may be a successful Winston Smith of the theatre world. It is fitting then that the director of 1984 is Oscar award-winning actor, director and writer Tim Robbins, a founding member of the Gang. Known for his vocal stance on political issues and criticisms of the invasion in Iraq, Robbins was initially dubious about the script he was sent by Michael Gene Sullivan of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, who adapted the now classic work. “I was so excited by his framing of the story, his ability to make the material resonate that I had suspicions he, as one of the characters in the play says, ‘was making this shit up’,” says Robbins in the play’s programme. “I had read the book some 20 odd years ago and quite frankly didn’t remember some of the passages. I immediately read 1984 again and was floored by its relevance, its insight, its warnings.” Most important, perhaps, is its relevance to the current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Bush administration’s efforts to undermine Americans’ rights to privacy and free speech – cornerstones of their country and the democratic movement.

As managing director of the Gang, Greg Reiner says, “The adaptation is so powerful and theatrical, [1984] certainly resonates with us today. The novel easily could have been written yesterday.” So what is it about Sullivan’s version that has supposedly had audiences crying out and squirming in their seats? “The innovation that the playwright made was that he set it all in Room 101, it’s all told in flashbacks. The torturers re-enact scenes from his diary, which makes it a great framing device because the torturers are a part of the story,” says Reiner. Add to that a small cast with an intimate and bare set and it’s easy to see how the bare essence of this work can come across in such a powerful way.

The political climate in the United States has changed since the play debuted, and that has brought other slow changes, but for Reiner, the most enthralling is yet to come: “Taking this on tour, it’ll be interesting to see how it resonates being so close to China. For me, that’s what I’m most interested in, how is a Chinese audience going to respond to this play?” he says.

It’s a valid question. While Orwell wrote 1984 with the Soviet Union and its figurehead, Stalin, in mind, China to a certain extent still resembles the structure of that now broken giant. Party cadres and officials are kept under close surveillance and reprimanded when stepping out of line, and China has had its fair share of accusations about torture. Perhaps, as Reiner says, the most fascinating part of the experience might not necessarily be the play itself, but its after-effects.

1984 will be performed from February 28 to March 4 at 8pm, and on March 3 & 4 at 3pm at the HKAPA’s Lyric Theatre. Tickets are $180-$450 from HK Ticketing, 31 288 288.