Ahead of Pure Expression's site-specific staging of 1984 returning to Hackney Town Hall next month, Immersive Rumours sat down with director Jack Reardon to discuss his plans for the show and how this iteration of the show drastically differs from the 2023 version.
Immersive Rumours: Hi Jack. Thanks for speaking with us today. Do you mind telling us a bit about your history of directing and how that led you to becoming involved in 1984: A Unique Theatre Experience?
Jack Reardon: So I'm originally from a very small town in Ireland called Clonmel in Tipperary. I trained and did a Master's at The Lir Academy, and then spent the next eight years there in Dublin. I was really fortunate with the companies I got to work with and had an amazing experience immediately working at scale. One of my first jobs was on Let the Right One In, which John Tiffany originally directed. It was the West End production that came over to Dublin, which immediately showed me what theatre was capable of doing. I feel very fortunate for that because I think particularly young artists come into the industry, and they have to go through the fringe scene. Great credit to it, but I was very lucky to get to work in those big houses and see what working at scale looked like.
I tried to bring that experience into my own work, and while I still did fringe theatre in tandem with it, I found a cohort of people in Ireland with whom I got to create work at scale over a couple of different summers at home in Tipperary. What started out as all of us having maybe €3,000 to pay a bit to people, with Mam cooking for us for a few weeks in the summer led to us getting one of the biggest awards in Ireland, which is called the Open Call award. That resulted in a cast of 100 people where we were outside doing site-specific, huge spectacle theatre.
That then brought me to London about 2 and a half years ago. I've been very lucky and fortunate here with the people I've gotten to meet and the advice I've been given. I think London is incredible at saying 'Come in, have a cup of tea, have a chat, and we'll point you in the right direction' which brought me to 1984. It was the Young Vic who suggested me to Maddie [Wilson, Producer] and Adam [Taub, Executive Producer] to touch base with because of a conversation I had with them where I talked about my experience. I think that's what's amazing about this city, people are afraid of it, and rightfully so sometimes, but when London's good to you, it's very good.
IR: You’ve had experience devising immersive/site specific work before with Overlook - a show that was set to explore military life inside a former army barracks. Can you tell us a bit about the experience of working on that show and how ultimately the COVID-19 pandemic cut it short?
JR: Overlook still breaks my heart today... we were due to create this immersive show with the Irish Defence Forces. We were a week away from going to the barracks in Kilkenny to train with the Defence Forces for a few days, then we got an email that said 'Hi everybody. We're a little bit nervous about this virus thing, so we're going to delay by a week.' Fast forward a couple of months; the world's locked down and the show was pulled.
So much of the pre-production that went into that was incredible for both the work I'm doing in 1984 and indeed a lot of other shows I've done. The term site-specific is great, but I became more interested in the idea of site-responsive. How do you go into a space and allow it to be comparative to production, rather than just going in and slapping any old show up and onto it? You have to let that space tell its own story. So I think for 1984, when audiences step into that world, just the architecture alone of Hackney Town Hall, you walk in those doors and everyone goes, 'Oh, OK, yeah' and you feel it. That's design that you couldn't buy; you couldn't design it. The aura of that space is tangible.
When I did Overlook, that in part became From Out the Land with a lot of the research that we did over the next few years, which was also in the barracks but now outside, end-on theatre. The biggest thing was, how does the ground literally speak to the production, and how does it feed into it? How does it make an audience exist much more lively and freely in that world?
IR: Hackney Town Hall would be an impressive venue for any show, but for something like 1984 it feels like a perfect fit for the Ministry of Truth with its striking architecture and period feel. How much of the decision making of what's going on in the show is in response to the venue, and how much is trying to get the venue to fit around the show?
JR: There's always a bit of a give-and-take. I think where Hackney Town Hall gives, it gives limitlessly. The upstairs council chamber room, for example, every time we brought creatives into it, everyone has just gone, 'Well, we're just leaving this alone. You don't need to do anything to it'. Its regalness, authority, and purpose are so tangible.
Ruth [Badila], our incredible designer, said 'We would spend a fortune and come nowhere close to designing this.' It's a gift to a designer and to a production. On the flip side of that, when you're downstairs in the atrium, our production still has to tell a story. How do we make this space into an observation centre that can be inside, outside, in a secret bedroom? How can it also be a torture room? How can it be Room 101?
Hackney Town Hall atrium is a beautiful space. Thankfully, it's not a torture chamber. So how do you use it when it gives, and then how do you be creative with making that work? Thankfully, the incredible design team that are on board with this show, I'm so fortunate that we got them all to join us. The ideas that we have, the innovation - I don't think I've seen it personally in an immersive setting before. There are a whole lot of tricks and twists from a design perspective to make that building into what we need it to be.
It's a show that's definitely for all the senses; it's going to spark some interesting responses.
IR: This iteration of 1984 Immersive has been reworked from the 2023 version of the show. Can you tell us a bit about how it’s different and how those changes came about?
JR: Full respect to the previous iterations of Adam's script, but I think there was almost too much respect given to what a perceived production of 1984 might be and might look like. Maybe it was too faithful to the novel. When I came on board, the thing that I was most interested in was, Why now? Why do 1984 today? I think my production of 1984 is a production for today's audience. It speaks to us now as much as it does honour Orwell's 1940s novel.
I think the biggest change among many other things is that it's a completely different production. It's not blue boiler suits. It's not strictly coming in and just watching a couple of scenes play out. It's much more intricate in bringing design into it and bringing audiences on this journey where I think, frighteningly, we can see ourselves in it, or at least we can see our countries and governments in it. I think people will be able to find a lot of touchstones to this production that feel much more now than it did previously.
We could have just done what happened last year, but I think credit goes to Adam and Maddie, who wanted to evolve because they know what it can be. It will feel very different from previous iterations, but hopefully in a much more exciting way. It's a show that's definitely for all the senses; it's going to spark some interesting responses.
At all times in our production, even when characters believe they have found a nest of solitude and a private corner, they are constantly being filmed and broadcast to the audience.
IR: What aspects of Orwell's original novel were you most excited to explore when you first came on board?
JR: I think that one of the biggest aspects that really appealed to me was making an audience feel complicit and how easy it is to be complicit in these things. You look on social media or regular media and find yourself going, 'What am I doing to fix that?' I think 1984 is great at showing a society in which you can't do anything. Your literal thoughts are policed to prevent you from acting out. I think so often we see so much happening in our world, but we find it hard to get involved. Don't get me wrong, people are doing incredible things the world over in contrast to that, but I think it's petrifying to see how these regimes get into power. In our world today, the rise of the far right is quite scary. 1984, as a novel and as a play says, yes, it is, but this is how it happens and this is how they do it. That's really interesting, exciting, and terrifying, but also insightful within our production to see how that happens and maybe how much you play a part in that as an audience member.
IR: There's also an increased amount of AV elements being used in your version of the show. Can you tell us more about the impact that'll have on the show?
JR: So the big thing for me, both from the original novel and from Adam's script, is this idea of surveillance. The phrase Orwellian has become part of our vernacular, but when you actually think about what that means... right now I'm in this room and there's a CCTV camera in the corner. There's a webcam looking back at me. There are three cameras on my phone. We're constantly surrounded by them. The more and more research I did into current political systems, everything we see is because someone has a camera in your face at all times. I became really interested in this idea of surveillance and live cameras.
Alongside Dan Light, our incredible AV designer, we're working out how that comes into it. At all times in our production, even when characters believe they have found a nest of solitude and a private corner, they are constantly being filmed and broadcast to the audience. We've got an incredible statement wall that we're going to use in a very exciting way with our live AV, but it all comes back to that idea of surveillance from the novel, from this script, and from our world today. How do you feel when even your most intimate conversations are being picked up on and broadcast to the world?
IR: As we're speaking today you're midway through rehearsals for the show. How has that process been so far? Once you're working alongside the cast, how much of what you had planned changes once everyone is in the same room?
JR: Our first two weeks were with our three principal actors, playing Winston, Julia, and O'Brien. They're the major voices in many of the scenes, so we figured out what the play was, and when Adam the writer came to see a run-through of that, I can't remember what his comment was, but he said, 'Maybe think about something else happening at that moment' and I went, 'Oh, Adam, there's another play on top of this play once we bring in the ensemble and cameras and equipment into it'. I think he was very excitedly blown away by the scale of what we were trying to create.
This week has been bringing ensemble into that, and in short, a week ago we had this amazing torture scene. Now we have an amazing torture scene with three live cameras and five additional bodies. I'm not giving anything away, but we're doing some interesting things. Everything gets enhanced in these two weeks.
In terms of what we plan versus what happens in the room, the greatest thing for me in working with actors is the creativity. Actors are incredible creatures in how they can make something work. If there's a line that's sticking for you, an actor comes in with their own interpretation, and you go, 'That's exactly what it is.' It's been their input into it, both the three principles and our incredible ensemble, of not how we've changed things, but how we've evolved things, we've made it better. To my creative team, I always say, 'Your genius is better than my genius'. I believe that if we share ideas, they will grow and become better, and everyone is there for a reason. Everyone has been incredible in bringing their own ideas, innovation, creativity, and genius into the room to enhance the production further.
Immersive 1984: A Unique Theatre Experience runs from 1 October 2024 to 22 December 2024 at Hackney Town Hall. Tickets are priced from £24.50. To find out more and buy tickets, visit immersive1984.com
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