April, 1984. 13:00. Comrade 6079, Winston Smith, thinks a thought, starts a diary and falls in love. But Big Brother is always watching.
A radical, international award-winning theatrical adaptation of George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece, 1984, is on its way to shake and rattle Auckland. The smash-hit production, which has already been experienced by over half a million people across the world, is coming exclusively to Auckland Arts Festival in March.
Set in a world where an invasive government keeps a malevolently watchful eye on its citizens, this arresting and much-lauded staging explores surveillance and identity and how Orwell’s fiction has become our reality.
Produced by UK theatrical innovators Headlong, together with Nottingham Playhouse and the Almeida Theatre, George Orwell’s dystopian classic came roaring onto the stage in 2013 and has become an international phenomenon.
The critically and publicly acclaimed production was adapted by Olivier Award-winner Robert Icke and Olivier Award-nominee Duncan Macmillan, whose delightful show Every Brilliant Thing was one of the most talked-about at the 2017 Auckland Arts Festival.
1984 has enjoyed three hugely successful West End seasons, a season on Broadway and an Australian tour. Now, Auckland Arts Festival has teamed up with GWB Entertainment, the State Theatre Company of South Australia and Auckland Theatre Company to present the New Zealand premiere of this extraordinary theatrical experience.
Auckland Arts Festival’s new Artistic Director, Jonathan Bielski, says, “Right at this moment, the words of Orwell feel chillingly eerie. As we are confronted daily by the denial of plain facts, the creeping surveillance of the state and the increasing fear of the other, 1984 no longer seems like a novel but a horrifying prediction of what we are now experiencing. This powerful and confronting new production is of the moment and will leave audiences reeling.”
From 9 - 25 March in Auckland, a literary masterpiece will meet sheer theatrical ambition as one of the twentieth century’s greatest novels is given new life by some of British theatre’s fastest-rising stars.
Auckland Arts Festival and GWB Entertainment in association with Auckland Theatre Company and State Theatre Company of South Australia present the Headlong, Nottingham Playhouse and Almeida Theatre production of 1984.
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