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Director's Notes for 

84:

A Tribute to Orwell's Dystopia

            I chose to work on adapting 1984 into a play for this season because I felt that there is a need in today’s America to remember the message behind George Orwell’s novel.  Orwell lived through the Second World War and witnessed the dangers of totalitarian societies in The Soviet Union under Stalin, Germany under Hitler, Spain under Franco, and Italy under Mussolini.  He did not write 1984 until after the war, in 1948, when several dictators had already been removed from power.  I do not believe his intention was to predict what the future would look like in 1984, but to warn against the dangers of allowing governments to gain the type of power that he had just witnessed. 

Coming out of the Bush Administration, in which we have seen many powers freely given to the executive branch through the PATRIOT Act, we are at a time in American history where the public needs to remember the horrors of wartime dictators and keep our government vigilantly in check.  Under the Obama administration many of these powers are still in place and it is not time to put blind faith in our “new” government.                                                                   

I am certain that there will be many who feel I was not faithful enough to the book.  I have changed the gender of O’Brien and added new characters but believe I have been true to Orwell’s  original purpose, to warn the public to be vigilant in keeping their governments in check.  Thank you for coming.                                               

Writer, Adaptor, and Director,
Brian Zybala.