Media Archive

The American Repertory Theater in Cambridge is giving audiences a chance to revisit the dystopian novel (originally published in 1949) with a fresh look.

1984‘s theatrical vision of authoritarianism in action is not for the faint of heart.

The British theatrical adaptation “1984” reminds us that, in 2016, the novel is far from dated. And it comes to disturbing new life in the touring production that American Repertory Theater is hosting at the Loeb Drama Center.

This “1984” presents a bracing and invigorating night at the theater — like cold water splashing on a telescreen… or an iPhone.

The British production was a sold-out, smash hit in London. Now it’s touring the U.S., which gives us an excuse to explore how and why Orwell’s tale — which was published in 1949 — still feels ominously relevant and totally creepy in 2016.

Take a classically trained English actor who has played Hamlet in over 400 performances throughout his life and is currently up for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and put him in the role of a childlike 50-year-old.

Set on a lake at the end of ice-fishing season, Nice Fish is a reflection of its location and two friends who seek answers to life’s philosophical questions as they pass time waiting to catch something big. 

The great actors challenge themselves, and Mark Rylance, the winner of multiple Tony and Olivier Awards and currently up for an Oscar for his supporting role in “Bridge of Spies,�� has decided that the right challenge at this time of his life is musing about the meaning of life on the last day of the ice fishing season on a frozen Minnesota lake.

I fell hook, line, and sinker for Mark Rylance as a befuddled, would-be fisherman catching meaning in a frozen world.

A work of ART can be a prose poem, as illustrated by their current production, “Nice Fish”, a collaborative work of Louis Jenkins (whose conversational poems are acted out) and actor Mark Rylance (who twice delivered them in Tony-winning acceptance speeches).