No one who read 1984in high school would mistake it for a walk in the park.
So it's no surprise that a Broadway adaptation of the newly-relevant work (Hello,Watch Class of Lies Online alternative facts!) is provoking some seriously strong reactions in audience members. They include, if you believe this week's headlines, "vomiting," "fighting," and "fainting," per the Washington Post. (Shortly before opening night, producers instituted a new policy -- children under 13 aren't admitted.)
SEE ALSO: Our dystopian future isn’t found in '1984' — it’s 'Brave New World' and 'Infinite Jest'The biggest culprit seems to be the ending scene where -- spoiler alert for a book written in 1949 --young independent thinker Smith (Tom Sturridge) is detained and taken to a creepy all-white room where he is heavily tortured until his anti-Big Brother spirit breaks.
It was the most intense scene I’ve ever seen on stage.
I caught the show, which also stars Olivia Wilde, last week; the last 15 minutes of the play are chilling. While there was no visible vomiting or fighting at the performance I attended, it was the most intense scene I’ve ever seen on stage. Making generous use of strobe lights, loud noises, and copious amounts of very realistic-looking fake blood, it was a deeply disturbing experience.
That is, of course, sort of the point.
While not every piece of art this year is About Trump, there are some obvious, unsettling parallels between the dystopian, Newspeak-y, doublethink-y world at the center of 1984and the alternative facts reality we find ourselves in right now. (It's no wonder 1984shot to the top of the best-seller list shortly after Trump's inauguration in January).
SEE ALSO: How Trump has already taken us into full-on 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' territoryIn fact, just as upsetting as the extended torture scene is a line toward the end of the show that serves as a timely indictment of The Way We Live Now: "The people are not going to revolt," Smith's torturer calmly explains. "They will not look up from their screens long enough to notice what's really happening." Cue some uncomfortable shifting in chairs from the audience.
The creative team, for their part, are taking the controversy (which, let's be honest, has got to be helping ticket sales) all in stride. "You can stay and watch or you can leave — that's a perfectly fine reaction to watching someone be tortured,"co-director Robert Icke told the Hollywood Reporter. "But if this show is the most upsetting part of anyone's day, they're not reading the news headlines. Things are much worse than a piece of theater getting under your skin a little bit."
Damnnnn. He's got a point though.
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