ORWELL DOWN AND OUT
Now I’m sorry. Orwell turns out to be quite wonderful. I know, because I’ve been seeing big chunks of him onstage lately, at the Bailiwick Repertory–where, as if to educate fools like me, they’ve been turning Orwellian prose into strong, smart theater. Bailiwick produced Sir Peter Hall’s stage adaptation of Animal Farm last season, and then brought it back for an encore run this season. In addition, they’re currently offering a “companion piece”: a concert version of Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, adapted by Bart DeLorenzo and performed on Animal Farm dark nights as Orwell Down and Out.
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“It is the peculiar lowness of poverty that you discover first; the shifts that it puts you to, the complicated meanness, the crust-wiping.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Jennifer Girard.
