George Orwell's 1984: A Play Paperback – September 1, 1963

I enjoyed reading this book. As was told to me, the contents of this are so true as to what is going on here right now and what might follow. A must read.

When I purchased the book it did not add that it is a REVISED book. To a person who has nerver read it would be very confused like I was. Just a little confusing...

Now a classic. Great book (play). We as Bedford NH high school students will produce this play during our junior year. Orwell's 1984 vs. Obama's 2009; what's the difference.

it is a play adaption from the book 1984.

Nineteen Eighty-Four was a book set in a dystopian future in the same said year - 1984 - in which the Earth is ruled by three super-states who control their populace completely. The governments control all news, all publishing, and even have tailored the language to fit their needs. The book has had a huge impact on our culture and language, as well as influencing who knows how many films and another books.The play...fails. One problem is that they can't really show how the society works, like in a film, and they can't have Winston's first person point of view like when we hear his thoughts or see what he writes in the book, and they have to have the cast tell us everything. So there are conversations that, by their very nature, would have never taken part in such a society. Just defining some of the words from Newspeak, in public, would have gotten most of the cast arrested within the world of the book. The world that the play is based on, anyway. And Julia, who grew up in the middle of this society, has to have it explained to her by Winston. And Winston in the play shows his feelings WAY too much for living in a society where face-crime, showing too much emotion on your face, can get you arrested. Yet his character is shouting at her in public. This play would have ended in Act One, Scene One.And O'Brien is off. He comes across as less subtle. Or maybe it is because things happen so quickly in the play he is not allowed to be so.Then there are the weird changes. Parsons is a female character in the play. In the book he is, well, a he. Now I understand some characters can be played by either male or female, the booklet says so itself, but when they list and describe the characters they say, outright, that Parsons is 'a jovial, stupid, and unpleasant-looking woman.' Why? They, themselves, point out that the only characters who NEED to be female are Julia and the Landlady - which is funny because in the book the Landlady is also a man.This is a confused mess, badly thought out, a mass-produced piece if junk designed to sell Big Brother posters to schools with little or no skill in its creation. The ideas behind the story is lost in a stream of nonsense - pieces of a story that the creators tossed into the play but never, truly, understood how to pass on to the audience.I understand that turning a novel into a film or a play or a opera can be a problem but it feels like the people involved in this project did not have daring nor imagination needed to turn this great work into a great play.

this play covers the main parts and plots of the book but misses more then its worth. i have done the play and read the book after words and wow. theres a diffrence there.

A bastardization, this play attempts to capture the feel of Orwell's classic novel, and it fails miserably. It omits essential points of the plot and abridges several of the more important moments-- such as when Julia and Winston fall in love (a mere 1/4 page of the script). More importantly, because theater cannot "enter the internal thoughts" of characters as easily as books can (and this play has no monologs or soliloquies of that sort), the responsibility to imagine Winston's feelings lie wholly with the audience. George Orwell makes Room 101 real and terrifying; the play makes it a mockery. I would highly reccomend against this dramatization. I gave it 2 stars and not 1 because as a completely original play, it's OK. But, audiences will expect something of the caliber of Orwell's book, and this will leave them disappointed.