REVIEW: ANIMAL FARM at Golden Goose Theatre 4 – 8 July 2023

‘a rumbustious, riotous revolution of a play’★★★★

 

After a five month tour of Europe, Adge-Tnt & Theatre du Heron’s production of George Orwell’s classic, Animal Farm, has notched up 160 performances in 14 countries. This rumbustious, riotous show (140 mins with an interval) had its closing performances in Camberwell’s Golden Goose Theatre, a South London venue, established in 2020 that has hosted a run of thought-provoking plays by many award-winning theatre companies.

The all-male ensemble of Animal Farm: Kevin Martin Murphy, Gerald Dorrity, Tony Wadham, Janeks Babidoriks and John Fagan are a loud, hairy lot and take on literature’s masterpiece with energy and passion. Paul Stebbing’s adaptation brings the text up to date with references to fake news and chicken nuggets while the direction by Gaspard Legendre is spare, witty and dark.

With a stripped down minimal production, the stage is set up with a pair of metal framed beds. This modular set solution is reformed and repurposed into battlegrounds, pubs, barns, chicken coops and a windmill. The audience are invited to participate in this funny and moving re-telling of Animal Farm by activating their imaginations. We must believe a pillowcase is a dead sheep or gossiping chicken. And when the same chicken/pillowcase is hung for treason, we feel great sadness.

The cast do a tremendous job of evoking both the animal and human characters at the heart of the story as well as the machinations of power that propel the story forward. Using their bodies and voices, they huff, bray, moo and honk through the drama, transporting audiences to this flawed animal utopia. Secret Agent Cat slithers sinuously. Packhorse Boxer lumbers and labours but doesn’t do “thinking”. Comrade Dog is a flurry of wild movement and savage teeth-baring. The inept humans meanwhile are usually pickling their livers in the pub and having some fun with the audience in the process, speaking to them directly and drawing them into their action - or inaction.

It’s a sad indictment that George Orwell’s classic, written in 1943, eventually published in 1945, is as relevant today as when it was penned. This short allegorical fable of an animal uprising remains a depressing indictment of human greed and self interest and speaks far beyond Stalin’s totalitarian regime, the original inspiration. We see aspects of Animal Farm in all stratas of society, industry and politics, nationally and internationally and, this theatrical interpretation is a worthy addition to the canon. It illustrates in a bold, vigorous way, how power structures operate and, how vulnerable democracy is to its insistent, insidious creep.

ANIMAL FARM at Golden Goose Theatre 4 – 8 July 2023

Presented by Adge-Tnt & Theatre du Heron

https://theatreduheron.fr/spectacles/animal-farm

Reviewed by Nilgin Yusuf