Animal Farm

I have just seen the play Animal Farm last Friday at the National Library building and I enjoyed it tremendously.

Differences between the novel and the play

During the process of the play, I have noticed that there were many differences between the play and the novel written by George Orwell. Some of these differences are rather subtle.

Firstly, at the very beginning of the play, there was a dance by all the performers, which was not recorded in the book. Also, during the battle of the cowshed, Jones led a band of men to attack animal farm. However, in the play, Jones was alone and snowball was not injured when Jones fired his gun. In addition, the sheep were not included in the play and they did not chant"four legs good, two legs bad". Instead, we were the sheep as they asked us to chant "four legs good, two legs bad". Moreover, the battle of the windmill, where Fredrick attacks animal farm and destroys the windmill and is driven away in the end, is not portrayed.

Most memorable character

I think that the most memorable character is Mollie. This is because during the entire play, she is the most spoiled character and she almost threw temper tantrums. She is like a vain child. Mollie does not care about the rebellion and feels that life under Jones is fine. Also, Mollie is lazy and she always finds ways to shirk work. She feels that life with eating sugar and tying ribbons around her mane is the perfect world to live in. She does not mind being oppressed and being mistreated, as long as there is an endless supply of sugar and ribbons. I feel that her life was much harder after the rebellion than during Jone's time. Mollie is so addicted to the simple luxuries that she had under Mr. Jones (sugar and ribbons) that she can’t imagine making sacrifices for a social movement even if, in the long run, it’s supposed to be for her own good. Mollie represents a symbol for the bourgeois class in Russia, who were not outright unfaithful to the Bolsheviks, but who contributed very little to the revolution in the long run. Whereas many Russians were actually anti-Bolshevik and fought against them in the Russian Civil War, the bourgeois often were happy enough to nod along to the ideology so long as they didn’t have to make sacrifices in their own lifestyle. When they were asked to make sacrifices, many abandoned the cause and fled to the West.

Review

The play begins with a contemporary dance by all the performers, who are dressed as normal human beings, each with a different clothing that represent people from all walks of life. After the dance, they take off their clothes and this means that on the farm, the animals are the same as humans.

After a while, the animals rebel and drive Mr Jones, their previous owner and they took over the operation of the farm. Snowball and Napoleon, the two main leaders of Animal Farm, then begin to formulate Old Major's beliefs into a set of rules known as the Seven Commandments. Then, they explain it to the animals, in which they have to adhere to strictly. After that, the play depicts how the two leaders have differences in opinions and how Napoleon overthrows Snowball with the help of nine huge dogs to gain ultimate power in the Farm. After which, he becomes the tyrant of the farm.

This is definitely a play worth a watch, with characters full of expression, even though it is a bit contemporary. This performance is something that all of us can definitely relate to, whether at home, in school or in the society. There will always be a person that is more equal than others. Visual effects were also well done, but some parts were unclear.