Reimagining Orwell A New Stage Adaptation of Animal Farm for A Young Audience at “Luceafărul” Theatre for Children and Youth, Iași
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
This paper examines the latest dramatization of George Orwell’s allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945), a production of the “Luceafărul” Theatre for Children and Youth, Iași, written and directed by Victor Olăhuț, marking both the 75th anniversary of the theatre and the 80th anniversary of Orwell’s political dystopia, a surprising choice considering the text’s historical and political weight. The paper will discuss Ferma animalelor. O fabulă (Animal Farm. A Fable, in the original English version) as a creative reinterpretation, a reimagining of the text in order to make it relevant and understandable for a younger demographic and the accompanying adults. The focus in this case study will be on the adapter/director’s creative choices, especially those reflected in the character portrayal and the rewriting of the political fable’s themes for a younger audience, as well as the creative team’s artistic vision reflected in the visual and experiential composition of the performance, highlighting how the production engaged with Orwell’s critique of authoritarianism considering its educational implications (as suggested by the adapter/director in his “Director’s Note”), and the broader significance of staging Animal Farm as a production for a (very) young audience in a post-communist country and in a very complicated geopolitical context.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
References
Animal Farm. Directed by John Halas and Joy Batchelor, written by John Halas, Joy Batchelor, Borden Mace, Philip Stapp, and Lothar Wolff, Halas and Batchelor, 1954.
Animal Farm. Directed by John Stephenson, written by Alan Janes, Hallmark Films, 1999.
Bateman, Ron. “Seven Commandments and Seven Genres.” Animal Farm @80, The Orwell Society, 10 Aug. 2025, orwellsociety.com/seven-commandments-and-seven-genres/. Accessed 25 Aug. 2025.
Bloom, Harold. “The Story Behind the Story.” George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Bloom’s Guides, edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House Publishers, 2006, pp. 14-17.
English, Charlie. The CIA Book Club. The Best Kept Secret of the Cold War. William Collins, 2025.
Hall, Stuart. “Conjuring Leviathan. Orwell on the State.” Inside the Myth. Orwell: Views from the Left., edited by Christopher Norris, Lawrence and Wishart, 1984, pp. 217-41.
Hermansson, Cassie. “Flogging Fidelity: In Defense of the (Un)Dead Horse,” Adaptation, vol. 8, issue 2, Aug. 2015, pp. 147–160. https://doi.org/10.1093/adaptation/apv014.
Hodgart, Matthew. “On Animal Farm as Satire, Fable, and Allegory.” George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Bloom’s Guides, edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House Publishers, 2006, pp. 37-39.
Hutcheon, Linda, Siobhan Flynn. A Theory of Adaptation. 2006. Routledge, 2013.
Karp, Masha. Orwell and Russia. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023.
Kingsley, Martin. “On Orwell’s Cynicism and Benjamin.” George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Bloom’s Guides, edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House Publishers, 2006, pp. 44-46.
Kirschner, Paul. “Dual Purpose of ‘Animal Farm.’” The Review of English Studies. New Series, vol. 55, no. 222 Nov., 2004, pp. 759-786. https://doi.org/10.1093/adaptation/apv014.
Letemendia, V. C. “Revolution on Animal Farm: Orwell's Neglected Commentary.” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 18, no. 1, winter, 1992, Indiana UP, pp. 127-137. https://doi.org/10.1353/jml.1992.0030.
Melrose, Andrew. Write for Children. Routledge Falmer, 2002.
Muller, Anja “Introduction: Adapting Canonical Texts in and for Children’s Literature.” Adapting Canonical Texts in Children’s Literature, edited by Anja Muller, Bloomsbury, 2013, pp. 1-8.
Olăhuț, Victor. “Director’s Note”, “Luceafărul” Theatre for Children and Youth, Iași, luceafarul-theatre.ro/portfolio-view/ferma-animalelor-fabula-spectacol-intreaga-familie/ . Accessed Aug. 20 2025.
---. Ferma animalelor. O fabulă. Directed by Victor Olăhuț, 27 Feb. 2025 and 14 March 2025, “Luceafărul” Theatre for Children and Youth, Iași.
Orwell, George. Animal Farm. Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1946.
---. “Preface to the Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm.” 1947. www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/books-by-orwell/animal-farm/preface-to-the-ukrainian-edition-of-animal-farm-by-george-orwell/. Accessed 12 Aug. 2025.
---. “The Freedom of the Press. Proposed preface to Animal Farm,” Times Literary Supplement, 15 Sept. 1972, with an introduction by Sir Bernard Crick. www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-freedom-of-the-press/. Accessed 22 Aug. 2025.
Quinn, Edward. Critical Companion to George Orwell. A Literary Reference to His Life and Work. Facts On File, 2009.
Rubin, Andrew N. “Orwell and Empire: Anti-Communism and the Globalization of Literature,” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, no. 28, 2008, pp. 75-101. https://doi.org/10.2307/27929763.
Sanders, Julie. Adaptation and Appropriation (The New Critical Idiom). Routledge, 2006.
Williams, Raymond. “On the Struggle between Animals and Humans.” George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Bloom’s Guides, edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House Publishers, 2006, pp. 39-42.
Wood, David. Theatre for Children. A Guide to Writing, Adapting, Directing, and Acting. 1979. Ivan R. Dee, 1999