'Animal Farm' by George Orwell

a rehearsed play-reading, was staged in May 2000.

This was the second rehearsed reading that the Lisbon Players had presented. The first one was 'Under Milk Wood' by Dylan Thomas, directed in 1993 by George Ritchie. With the adaptation of 'Animal Farm', George Ritchie not only revived the classic story, but moreover, through the use of a highly qualified cast, a bare set and minimal lighting, brought us a tense and dramatic reading of the play.

George Orwell's biting satire 'Animal Farm' is a fable with a sting. Millions of words have been written about the threat of Totalitarianism, but it was George Orwell, the far-sighted British author of the brilliant and frightening '1984', who succeeded in exposing the Russian experiment for what it really was: an idealist's dream, converted by realists into a nightmare. In the adaptation brought to us by the Lisbon Players, we met beasts whose prototypes have dominated news headlines for over 50 fearful years.

Opening on a note of joyous triumph for the creatures who have emancipated themselves from the cruel mastery of a human owner, the reading mounts inexorably to a climax of disillusionment, in which the other animals discover themselves now subject to the rule of even more ruthless autocrats: the greedy, cunning pigs.

Intermingling humour and drama, 'Animal Farm' wrings the emotions of its listeners, leaving audiences shaken with the tale of a tragedy that happened in a mythical barnyard far away, but could ... if we denizens of a finer and more modern farm are content to languish in bovine complacency... most terribly and swiftly happen in our own back yard.

Director: George Ritchie