A REVIEW OF THE ODEON'S SOCIETY'S 1984 PLAY

On April 12, 2014, I attended a play made by the Odeon Society of Ivy Tech Community College that was based on George Orwell’s classic novel 1984. Here is a link to the trailer. The Odeon Society is a student-run organization of Ivy Tech that periodically performs educational plays for the public. Their adaptation of 1984 was an excellently performed production that was presented at Ivy Tech’s Lawrence campus. 1984 is about a man, named Winston Smith, who suffers under the extremely oppressive rule of a totalitarian government – variously named Ingsoc, the Party, Oceania, and, most famously, Big Brother – that has taken control of England and other regions of the world. This thought-provoking play made me ponder about issues like fanaticism and totalitarianism. In this essay, I will reveal the traits and character arcs of the main characters of 1984. ​

In the play, different actors portrayed characters that each have their own views of “Big Brother”. Winston Smith, the main character, was a clerk in Big Brother’s Ministry of Truth. Winston was intelligent and humble, and was one of the only characters who never showed any signs of fanaticism. As a worker in the “Ministry of Truth”, Winston’s job was to rewrite historical documents according to whatever agenda Big Brother wanted to fulfill. Because he knew Big Brother deliberately altered the truth to fit their own agenda, he questioned Big Brother’s motives. 

After he met a woman named Julia and fell in love with her, they both got married, even though their marriage was forbidden by the state. The audience also learned that Winston’s boss, named O’brien at the Ministry of Truth, was the leader of a group of rebels, called "the Brotherhood”, who wanted to overthrow Big Brother. Both Winston and Julia met O’brien who told them about the struggles they would have to go through to be rebels. O’brien also gave Winston a book that explained why Big Brother operated the way it did. 

When Winston and Julia returned home, Winston read the book intently as Julia tried to impress him with objects she stole from the Big Brother. But as he read the book, the “Thought Police”, an organization devoted to making sure people are “thinking right” about the government, stormed into Winston’s apartment and arrested him and Julia. In prison, he found out that O’brien was not a leader of the Brotherhood at all but a spy from the Thought Police. O’brien then tortured Winston for days until he brainwashed him into a completely loyal devotee of Big Brother. Afterward, when he met with Julia again, both he and Julia have no memory of their relationship and they interacted with each other as mere coworkers of Big Brother. 

The second character was Julia. Julia was a young woman sent to work alongside Winston in the Ministry of Truth. In the play, Winston recognized her face because she had been following him around the city. Winston thought she was a spy from the Thought Police. In the first scene, when she was brought to the Ministry of Truth, she revealed that she did not understand why the Ministry was changing history and language. Winston, and his coworker Syme, explained to her that Big Brother is making these changes to gain absolute control of all aspects of society. Julia was a sensual and attention-seeking woman who only rebelled against Big Brother because she enjoyed it. The differences between Winston’s character and Julia’s character made me predict that they would have never had a long relationship together even if they were not caught by the Thought Police.

The third character was O’brien. Obrien, we discover, is a spy from the Thought Police who pretended to be both Winston’s boss and a rebel leader in order to squash all resistance to Big Brother. He is a character that we are told almost nothing about. As he is being tortured, Winston asks O’brien if Big Brother had captured and tortured him too. O’brien responds: “They got me long ago.” Nevertheless, we are not told much else about O’brien’s past. As Winston’s boss, O’brien appears authoritative and confident. We find out that as a member of the Thought Police O’brien is cold, deceptive, and fanatical. He is the only person in 1984 that comes close to being what many would call a true villain. Yet O’brien tells Winston that he’s merely a vessel of Big Brother; he knows that even though he will die, Big Brother will live on. Winston does not defeat O’brien in some final showdown, as many protagonists do. Obrien actually defeats Winston when he brainwashes him.

The fourth character was Parsons. In the book, the Parsons are a couple with several children. But in the Odeon Society’s play, Parsons was portrayed by a woman. Parsons had an annoying and boring personality, and Winston did not have a good relationship with her. When Winston secretly brought Julia into his apartment – Big Brother didn’t permit single men and women to come to each other’s residences – Parsons found out about it through her nosy daughter Gladys, who seemed to be even more annoying than Parsons. At the end of the play, Gladys turned Parsons over to the Thought Police when she blurted out “Down with Big Brother!” in her sleep. However, after the Thought Police interrogated her, she was released.

The fifth and final major character was Syme. Syme is an extremely intelligent associate of Winston in the Ministry of Truth. Winston does not like Syme very much, but Syme is the closest thing Winston has to a friend. There was a long scene in the play where he talks to Julia about how he had been creating a dictionary containing words for “Newspeak”, the language created by Big Brother to control the way people speak and think about the world. Syme was also imprisoned because the Thought Police view his great intelligence as a threat to their power. But after he was tortured, he was released as well.   

These five characters showed the audience the different ways people would react to a totalitarian government’s oppression. Some would question it and rebel against it for moral and intellectual reasons, like Winston. Some would rebel against it simply because they hate authority, like Julia. And others would be fanatically loyal to it, like O’brien, Parsons, and Syme. There were other characters in the play as well. But their roles in the play were minor compared to the roles of these main characters. 

Even though the actors were only students, I thoroughly enjoyed their performances. They obviously put a lot of time, effort, and money into the play. I wouldn't mind attending more of the Odeon Society’s plays in the future.