Theatre Royal in Winchester production of 1984 :: Drama

Theatre Royal in Winchester production of 19841984 Evaluation===============On the 19th November 2002 myself, and a pigeonholing of year eleven studentswent to the Theatre Royal in Winchester to watch a play named 1984.The plays main theme was about a society being treated unfairly andnot being able to have rights or individuality. It showed people beingextremely restricted on what they could do both physically andmentally.Watching it, it do me feel fortunate to have the rights I have andthat I am not constrained on what I can do. The director wanted youwhen watching, to feel uncomfortable and distressed as you werewatching one individual being tortured. The more torture shown, themore inner(a) I felt to possess the rights I do have. A variety oftechniques were utilise to enforce the powerful message this playpresented. At the beginning, a group of soldiers pointed at theaudience and shouted Die Die continuously, which made you feelthreatened and also at the same time involved wi thin the play.The set was quite raw material yet effective. All the scenes featured twolarge wooden walls, which were moved for different scenes. These wallswere apply as a technique to change scene. When a freshly scene was startedthe walls would be spun round to illustrate a new scene, which wasvery effective. Throughout the play short videos were shown for avariety of reasons. These included emphasizing a point within theplay, to give new information to the audience or to add to thedramatic effect of a particular scene.Various lighting techniques were used including a situation. Aspotlight makes you focus on one particular part of the stage whereusually a scene is being acted. A spotlight can add tension andincreased dramatic effect to a scene, for example when soliloquies areused. An additional lighting method used was to flash shimmery lights atthe audience to illustrate a scene change. This was very effective asafterwards a new scene was taking place. As come up as light ingtechniques, the props used were very successful in making the scenemore exciting and attention grabbing. One prop used was a counterfeitelectric chair. In this scene the main character was being torturedusing the electric chair. The smoke and sounds the chair was makingmade the scene even more dramatic and made you sympathise with himeven more.The main characters included a man named Winston, and a woman calledJulia who has already had already a couple of illegal love affairs.Both characters were deprived of their rights and wanted the samething, freedom.