%20and%20David%20Bennett%20(Napoleon)%20on%20top.jpg)
Wild ecstasy, with Laura Hayward-Smith
(Squealer) and David Bennett (Napoleon) on top. Pictures: Richard
Smith
Animal Farm
The Loft Theatre
Leamington Spa
*****
Sir Peter Hall’s adaptation of George
Orwell’s allegorical Animal Farm was devised for the National Theatre to
perform in 1984. It has weathered well. Now it’s over four decades old.
There are other versions, some inventive, notably ominous and chilling,
but this is the version that has enjoyed the most frequent outings.
It was given some music, consistent if of
questionable relevance, by Robert Peaslee (a curious cluster of Vaughan
Williams) and lyrics by acclaimed playwright and children’s writer
Adrian Mitchell. But what mattered most in this explosive Loft
production was the mass teamwork and wild animation. The activity was
hectic. The large ensemble, every one precisely and meticulously
directed by the Loft’s vividly inventive Mark Crossley.
There was endless dashing around: racing,
chasing, pushing, pulling, battering, thrusting, scampering, snuffling,
seething, sidling: a welter of animal activity. And the noise!
Yattering, chattering, yowling, guttural, frenzied; chanting, clamouring:
periodically puzzled, here and there increasingly troubled, sometimes
disturbingly threatening, even violent. A huge huddle of a constantly
twisting assembly.
Orwell’s story, a study in brutality and
beastliness, dwells on the rejection of humans and taking over of the
farm (‘Our enemy is man’) by the animals, led by the pigs – no actual
animal or creature heads here, just hunched and twisting and crawling
bodies.
Presiding over the pinched, squeezing tight mass
filling the stage was the self-appointed leader, Napoleon (a strutting,
selfish, self-satisfied David Bennett), increasingly unpleasant and
boastful and domineering: red-trousered (the means of denoting the
nasty, smug, malicious pigs). It is inevitable that out of this
leaderless gathering a dictator will emerge, and in the second half this
manipulative Bonaparte (Bennett) by stages proves his brute force. You
cannot resist him. Resistance risks oppression. That can risk a beating,
or at worst, removal and death.
%20and%20Napoleon%20(David%20Bennett)%20before%20the%20team%20falls%20apart.jpg)
Snowball (Henry Clarke) and Napoleon
(David Bennett) before the team falls apart
The pigs’ chief spokesman is an utterly appalling
character called Squealer. Ghastly, know-it-all, insuppressible,
impossible to silence and mouthing sneeriness or venomous instructions.
Laura Hayward-Smith captured with tremendous energy – perfectly, in fact
- this nasty piece of work: wheedling, bullying cackling, obnoxiously
obedient. ‘Squeal’ is the perfect description. This wickedly nasty,
jumped-up, intrusive, pushy, jigging, loud-hailing creature, dominating
above on Caitlin Mills’ fascinatingly elaborate wooden set, becomes the
trumpet for the ugly new regime. She is a liar, manipulator, cheat,
amazingly hyperactive, Hayward-Smith creates a kind of Golum, a
mini-monster. A very ghastly, horrendous piece of work. Utterly
loathsome.
There is much chuntering, mooing and booing,
optimistic or thoroughly confused utterances from the massed farmyard.
Elaine Freeborn’s Old Major, although a prize boar, sets the ball
rolling with an impressively sane set-piece speech, a modest lecture
most finely delivered. Two farm hands, acting occasionally as narrators
(Colm Forde, Taylor Kopp), struck me as particularly well-moved and
admirably well-spoken too. Cart-horse Clover (Rosie McGuire), who
exemplifies put-upon, hapless women in Orwell’s narrative, is sensitive
and well-meaning here, and touching Seeking to contribute, but largely,
undeservedly, overruled.
Crucial, too, in Animal Farm, are the political
horrors and right of life and death exercised by the ruling authority.
Revolution devours its perpetrators. One of the best, most unforgettable
contributions – speeches, virtually soliloquies – comes from Snowball
(Henry Clarke), one of the pigs (in symbolic red trousers), initially
guilty perhaps, but more of a free-thinker who becomes conscious of the
direction things are edging, and dares – like Trotsky, fatally – to
question the wisdom of the leadership. The consequence – he is bundled
off to his execution.
Also doomed is the loyal old, cart-hauling
stallion Boxer. Mark Roberts, with padded paws, builds several animals
up into characters, with an innocence and practised naivety that draws
one’s sympathy throughout. But the awfulness of Boxer’s disposal is that
his fellow animals are duped into thinking he is destined for
‘hospital’. In some ways, nothing more specially exemplifies the
cynicism and ruthlessness of – hence dictatorial Soviet – regimes.
Orwell wrote this in 1945: the full violence of Stalin’s 1930s bloodbath
was widely known.
If one finds any reservation, it is perhaps that
the second half was more lucid. The first part consisted largely of the
whole cast accumulating onstage. It felt a bit of a clutter, and the
result was that the blocking – or at least the amassing – was rather the
same. If on wanted an exemplar – of what could be added by a single
actor, onstage, it was the delightful solo/duet from Mollie (Sage Woore):
not just fabulously sung, but beautifully lit (several enchanting
sequences lit by Adrian Matthews). Might we have benefited from more
individual touches, more solo set-pieces, and an emptier stage? Perhaps.
The animals will be down on the farm to 31-01-26
Roderic Dunnett
01-26
The Loft Theatre Company
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