"1984" - HK Arts Festival March 4, 2007

Oscar winning actor, director and writer Tim Robbins directs this tour de force of Orwell's famous and prophetic novel about political oppression.

Imagine a society in which mass conformity and oppressive surveillance are the norm, where every act, word, gesture and thought are censored; falling in love is a crime; and where perpetual war is waged against unseen foreign enemies. Ruled over by the enigmatic Big Brother, the language is 'newspeak' and 'doublethink' - Ignorance is Strength, Freedom is Slavery and War is Peace. In Orwell's account of a totalitarian tomorrow, one man, Winston Smith, seeks to rebel. He is betrayed, arrested and imprisoned. As the play begins, he faces interrogation by the Thought Police...

Tim Robbins' gritty production brilliantly distills the message of a story (written in the 1940s) which needs no updating to make us feel the awful relevance of its truth.

Official Website: http://www.hk.artsfestival.org/en/prog/7/