‘The Journal’ acknowledges that a staff member was a part of the production but wasn’t involved in reporting or writing this story to maintain ethical journalistic standards.
A haunting new Queen’s production blends allegory and satire for a brilliant, must-see performance.
The Dan School of Drama and Music’s winter Major production, Animal Farm, is running at the Rotunda Theatre (the Rot) in Theological Hall from Mar. 5 to 15. The show was adapted from George Orwell’s satire Animal Farm (1945) by Director Craig Walker. The Dan School production is visually stunning and emotionally gripping, using puppetry, elaborate masks, and captivating student performances to bring Orwell’s dystopian fable to life.
Something feels different the moment you step inside the Rot. Perhaps it’s the set, resembling the inside of a barn and towering against the theatre’s back wall. Audiences file into rows of seats mounted where the stage normally sits—priming viewers to the self-reflection that’ll soon be demanded of them.
It could be the music, an eerie rendition of composer Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Waltz No. 2,” performed by Kingston musicians Jan Le Clair on accordion, and Claire Mak on violin. The score later includes works by Prokofiev, Mussorgsky, Bach, and Marcello.
Perhaps it’s the animal masks mounted among the beams of the barn, casting long shadows amongst the Edison-style lightbulbs strung about its rafters. Though cartoonish, there’s nothing cute about these creatures; their twisted snouts, wide eyes, and sunken jowls conjure grotesque, mesmerizing depictions of Orwell’s inhuman characters.
The masks were fashioned by students in DRAM348: Mask Making, led by Clelia Scala. They’re custom-made for each actor, blending elaborate prop-making and unique identity in their artistry.
But the humans who don these masks are the real points of interest, using forearm crutches painted to resemble hooves as they lurch across the space in the style of real horses and pigs. It’s an uncanny effect, and coupled with the beautifully craftedmasks, it works. The viewer isn’t transported into a fantasy world. They’re transported into Orwell’s unsettling nightmare.
The inspiration for Animal Farm came from that unsettling feeling. In conversations with Assistant Director Nic Lindegger, ArtSci ’26, Director Craig Walker found other potential adaptations of Orwell’s Animal Farm to be missing “a feeling of grimness.”
“One of the decisions I made was to keep as much of the narration as possible, because that’s where a lot of the tone is: in the narration,” Walker said in an interview with The Journal. Much of Animal Farm’s dialogue is lifted directly from Orwell’s writing, creating complex monologues that demand viewers’ close attention.
Walker admires Orwell’s work for its decisive nature. “He’s partisan, but he almost can’t help himself but to speak the truth, clearly and bluntly,” Walker said. “That’s something that we need.”
The genius of Animal Farm, as Walker notes in the playbill statement, is Orwell’s attempt to objectively examine the spread of totalitarianism out of revolution. “One seldom encounters real objectivity, but I still think it’s something we should strive for,” Walker said.
The show is perplexing in that it challenges viewers to assume the animals’ perspectives beyond the page. It’s easy to decry Muriel’s slow acceptance of the pigs’ lies on paper, but as viewers watch Animal Farm’s commandments change in real time via clever projection, they’re subject to the same hazy lapses in memory.
“One of the things I love about theatre is that you’re going beyond words, sometimes creating an emotional experience that leads to a different kind of awareness,” Walker said. For example, the actor who plays Snowball (Animal Farm’s smartest character) in the first act plays an unintelligent sheep in the second act.
In one moment during the second act, he lifts his mask to address the audience, warning of Snowball’s continued “ominous presence” on the farm. For eagle-eyed viewers, this is a rewarding visual treat given the actor’s previous portrayal of Snowball.
Ultimately, the audience’s experience is at the forefront of Walker’s direction. He thinks of shows as “exploring” topics. For Animal Farm, he explored questions about the roles we play in our communities, governments, and the ways Animal Farm might reflect the current political climate. Audiences are encouraged to identify themselves within the story, considering how much of the narrative may have “already happened” in real life, Walker said.
As the actors hung their masks back on the barn walls once the show was over, my gaze lingered on the animals’ empty eye sockets, drawn into contemplation by the story I’d been told. Despite its timeless nature, it seems to me there couldn’t be a more pertinent time to revisit Animal Farm.
Like its source material, I won’t soon forget this production.
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