A huge screen will dominate the new three-actor Australian stage adaptation of Animal Farm, a text that warns as potently today of the dangers of authoritarianism as it did when George Orwell first published his novella in 1946.
The screen is as “big and bright as the world”, advises playwright Van Badham in her stage directions, for the revolution will be livestreamed here at Perth’s Black Swan State Theatre Company. The play speaks to Orwell’s text by resetting the action at a Trump rally, with its white Americana masculinist aesthetics.
Power-hungry pigs will mastermind the overthrow of human overlords, then set about marginalising from power the horses, cows, donkeys, chickens and goat they had manipulated via social media propaganda, where emotions become facts, into forming a baying mob in the name of a utopian collective.
Alison van Reeken, Megan Wilding and Andrea Gibbs in rehearsal for Animal Farm at Black Swan State Theatre Company. © Daniel J. Grant
In September 2020, Badham delivered her playscript, with main roles eventually divided thus: Megan Wilding in the expanded role of pig Squealer and donkey Benjamin; Alison Van...
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