For once I would like to start with applause. Not only because they were intense and prolonged, as well as deserved. I believe that the liberating way in which they “erupted”, without a solution of continuity with the end of the show – almost as if they were part of it – and of everything that was disturbing and engaging it had proposed, signaled an intimate and worried adherence to the theatrical reduction Of «1984»the dystopian novel by George Orwellon stage until tonight on Carcano stagewith the interpretation of the Messina Ninni Bruschetta together with Violante Placido And Woody Neri. In fact, the declared aim of the director Giancarlo Nicoletti (who also translated the text by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan) is to make the spectators feel both spied on by Big Brother (Orwell’s, not the other one trivialized on television in our days), are in turn themselves spies (each other as well as the characters on stage) in a voyeur world, ours in 2024, in which, while avoiding the pathological spirals of conspiracy theory, it is clear that algorithms and artificial intelligence seem ready to replace in a contemporary way the single party imagined by the English writer.
The story of the two rebels Winston and Julia remains so current, also because “1984” was only a conventional year, far but not too far from 1949 in which the novel was published. Winston (Woody Neri), who is part of the External Party, lives by ideals and is unable to accept all the harassment of a regime (modeled on the Nazi and Stalinist experiences) that controls both the actions and thoughts of everyone, even through active screens in every apartment that emanate disturbing images and sounds and, at the same time, see everything that each person does. Julia (Violante Placido) is a vitalistic rebel who cannot bear the conditioning that has abolished emotions, sex, the pleasure of food and everything that essentially constitutes existence.
Love, a very forbidden thing, is what makes them believe they can create a world apart, but Winston’s desire to fight for freedom leads them straight into the trap of O’Brien (Ninni Bruschetta), a magnetic character from the Inner Party , which first shows itself as part of the anti-regime conspiracy and then reveals itself as a ruthless arm of power. It is he who, in a crescendo of physical and psychological violence, leads Winston to bend to “doublethink”, that is, believing in one thing and also accepting its opposite. He must be re-educated before being eliminated anyway (but in the ending there is a breath of hope for the future).
Alessandro Chiti’s scenography uses the most modern means – video projections, live footage, immersive settings – amplified by the coldness of high metal walls, with no glimmer of hope except for the worse. The music of Oragravity, the costumes by Paola Marchesin, the video design by Alessandro Papa and the fundamental lighting design (in a certain sense as terrifying as the sounds) by Giuseppe Filipponio enhance the directorial project, creating a show (apart, perhaps, from a few difficulty in the beginning to bring the story inside) of absolute value: for 141′ we are forced to abandon the conditioning of cell phones and the like (used by the characters on stage) which offer us a life at least partly desired by others.
In all of this, interpreters become a necessary strong point. Above all, Bruschetta – O’ Brien and Neri-Winston are perfect in the dialectics of their characters: the former is cold and far-sighted, insinuating and violent as the case may be; passionate and deluded, sentimental and combative the second. Violante Placido also fully expresses his attachment to Julia’s life. In a good quality company the other performers are Silvio Laviano, Brunella Platania, Salvatore Rancatore, Tommaso Paolucci, Gianluigi Rodrigues and Chiara Sacco.