Fringe review: George Orwell’s Animal Farm by Van Badham
An impressive youth theatre tackles George Orwell’s Animal Farm, a classic novel that hasn’t been this prescient since its debut in 1945. ★★★★
On a farm managed by the drunken and abusive Mr Jones, Old Major the pig gathers the animals, and together they forge a revolution. Animalism will end their slavery and bring self-determination, the Seven Commandments painted on the barn spelling it out with simple rules like ‘No animal shall sleep in a bed’ and ‘All animals are equal.’ But Old Major soon disappears from the farm, and then Snowball does, too. All Snowball wanted was a self-sustaining place to live and designed a windmill to make a start. In the wake of their absences, a new leader rises: Napoleon. And there is no mistaking that, despite his being a pig, his voice, intonations and hyperbole mimic those of Donald Trump.
It’s rare that the title of a play will include the playwright’s name in bold – that kind of recognition tends to be noted in the blurb or further along in the ‘More details’ section. Not so for George Orwell’s Animal Farm by Van Badham. Some might be familiar with Badham’s book Qanon and On, or her political commentary in The Guardian, or maybe have spotted her on ABC’s Q&A. She’s a political heavyweight outside the theatre space, and a true force within. Having won the Premier’s Literary Awards in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia for her playwriting (Black Hands / Dead Section; Muff; The Bull, the Boom and the Coronet of Stars), she’s unquestionably got the chops to carry off an adaptation of one of the most iconic political works ever written.
Faithful to the story of the 1945 dystopian novel Animal Farm but shifting the focus to a time and place far too cosy for our comfort, Badham blends George Orwell’s fascist-following pigs with the MAGA die-hards of America, creating an urgent satire with a new slogan, Make Animal Farm Great, MAFG emblazoned on the animals’ bright red hats.
It’s no surprise that the farm animals are teenagers wearing animal ears and noses, snorting and yipping and neighing, since the company that brought the show to the Adelaide Fringe is director Claire Glenn’s Conundrum Theatre, a boutique youth theatre company with a core message of diversity and positivity that negates anything close to Trumpism. The young performers bring a kind of levity to the overall performance, their playfulness as animated animals fitting with their age. Acting both onscreen and onstage, they demonstrate the hectic pace at which we distil our news, and no one is more media-present and swipe-ready than this age group.
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Mounted on the theatre’s wall above the stage are projections of old-style newsreels common to what might have been viewed in cinemas before the feature film, appropriate for the time the book was initially set. Interspersed are modern-day televised-type news broadcasts, situating the drama in the now, as if we, the audience, are watching from our own couches. Reporters cover the rallies and riots as they take place while also breaking down doublespeak, a term risen from Orwell’s other dystopian classic, 1984. Doublespeak is language that deliberately confuses, reverses or distorts meaning, as Squealer the pig masters in the same way that White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has. Zo Tan is an energetic Squealer, capturing the spirit of Leavitt terrifically. Aareesha Gill and Jenke Jessie Bronkhorst as Mollie the horse and Muriel the goat are a standout duo who represent the everyday duped, those whose grief have opened their eyes too late.
In witnessing these young people dissect our current world order off the blueprint of a book written about Stalinism, the cheerfulness they bring is jumbled amid a great gravity that sits heavy in the gut, particularly after communal laughs. In a dance number set to Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer, the audience happily claps along, even as the thug dogs start acting like ICE agents, terrorising and killing some of the animals. These are complex emotions packed into 90 minutes, and because it’s the next generation we’re watching on stage, it’s a constant reminder of what’s at stake: their future.
George Orwell’s Animal Farm by Van Badham is playing at The Garage International from February 18 – 22
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