It’s a brave endeavour, attempting to condense one of the biggest and most ambitious dystopian novels of the early twentieth century into a single stage play. It has been attempted fairly recently by other companies – with varying degrees of success – and this version, adapted and directed by Pants On Fire Theatre Company’s Artistic Director, Peter Bramley scores some hits but also sustains some losses.
Huxley’s 1932 novel, set in a future hierarchical World State in which citizens are genetically modified, socially conditioned, reproductively manipulated, indoctrinated and drugged-up, shows what happens when a radical, idealistic, passionate outsider crashes into this perfectly designed world. Founded on Henry Ford’s assembly line tenets of mass production and consumerism (‘the more stitches, the less riches’), World State forms part of Huxley’s backlash against and critique of what he perceived as the dangers of Utopian Socialism - where there is potentially a loss of individuality, personal freedom ( ‘everyone belongs to everyone else’) and integrity.
World Leader Mond pontificates that sacrificing art, literature, and scientific freedom ensures societal happiness and stability, and, writing in the Depression-era, just free of the Great War, Huxley himself felt the need to assert that stability was the "primal and ultimate need" if civilisation was to survive – and he is wide-ranging in his uses of such thinkers as Freud, Malthus & Pavlov to create the perfect state.
The problem with such an ideas-weighty and prescient piece is that a lot of exposition is needed to explain the rationale behind this society – and the sheer detail and volume of discourse throughout can be overwhelming. At almost three hours long, the patience of the audience does become tested somewhat – though the arguments are still fascinating and timely. I am still honestly not sure if drama is a good medium for this story; the issues tend to take precedence over character development, and so it is easier to connect intellectually and politically with the play’s ideas but not necessarily with the characters – and this makes for some emotional disengagement.
Despite some gender-blind casting (World Controller Mond is now a woman, as is rebellious lecturer Helmholtz Watson), no attempt has been made to update or give contemporary relevance to the story; perhaps it was felt that the themes alone are now so familiar & so firmly acknowledged by culture & society that modern links simply do not need to be made explicit.
The various younger audience members clearly got all the irony of the Shakespearean references - but what unsettled me was the readiness and ease of their laughter every time a casual reference to one of the male characters ‘having’ a female was made. Does the confident, lazy sexism of the men really seem so dated now as to be funny?
The small Playhouse Studio space is well dressed and well used – white, grey and silver predominate, and the graceful – then violent - movements of characters are alternately hypnotic and gripping. It is at times choreographically spell-binding.
There are some technical issues to be ironed out – such as the occasional drowning out of dialogue by the sound effects – and I’m unsure if the lack of a programme/cast list was deliberately to underline the homogeneity of the characters, but LIPA’s MA Acting students – a small company, taking on multiple roles - throughout manifested commitment and energy at what must have been a bit of an physical endurance test.
A courageous adaptation – and one that indicates that perhaps the scope of the novel is possibly just beyond what can be achieved on stage.
Reviewer - Tracy Ryan
on - 11/4/19
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