By Juliane Delisle-Pye, Y13
Last weekend, on February 27th 2021, the year 10 theatre students performed their interpretation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. The event took place online, broadcasted to around 200 viewers, composed of the friends and families of the performers and production members.
The students had been working on this performance since October, as it required the casting of the players, as well as the entire production logistics, which was all led by students. The students were taught by two teachers: Ms. Bryan, who was online and in charge of helping students with production, and Mr. White, who served as a theatrical advisor. This means that he was helping the players with tone of voice, gestures, positioning and overall delivery. The entire cast and production team put together was composed of roughly 60 students. The students came from three separate drama classes and did not work together until the final weeks before the presentation.
This production represented a lot of time and work covering weekdays, breaks, and weekends. The cast and production team came together on two occasions over the weekend and several times during lunch breaks. The weekend sessions served to run through lines, as well as the lighting and sound arrangements throughout the scenes of the play.
For those who watched the play, it was possible to see the amount of effort put into the presentation, despite the odd glitches that occurred online. There were four to five cameras placed in the theatre room in order to ensure the best possible viewing experience for friends and family at home. The fact that the class was able to even put together and perform the play during this pandemic is impressive; students had to keep on their masks at all times, which can be difficult when trying to speak loudly to an audience, especially an online one. The quality of the image and sound was also very good, considering the conditions.
On top of presenting Animal Farm online, the year 10 actors also performed their interpretation of the play on the previous Thursday to their year 10 peers and members of staff.
The setting was simple: an elevated platform for the speeches articulated in the play and a few boxes for the characters to sit on when listening to other figures. Nevertheless, this simple setting was very effective to depict the harsh living conditions experienced by the animals in the play and contributed to the overall atmosphere of the performance.
The costumes worn by the actors were jumpsuits, meant to represent the prison-like conditions of the farm. These jumpsuits also had large letters on the pants, like a label, which served to help the audience to identify the character talking at a given time. The characters ranged from humans, to pigs, to horses, to chickens, to goats, to sheep… Halfway through the play, there was a cast exchange, meaning that all of the roles from the first half of the play were given to a different group of students.
The roles in “Animal Farm” were attributed to students by their teachers and were not chosen by the students. The two main characters, Napoleon– the pig— and Squealer– another pig— were played by four different students and required a lot of strength in delivery. Overall, the year 10 participants were all very compelling in their roles and the production team did a very good job of coordinating sound and lighting with the acting. The question is: which play will we be able to watch next year?
