Animal Farm NYC

“… make the effort. It will be worth it”

The current political climate has provided fertile ground for the spate of staged productions of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four that have been sprouting up all over the NY metropolitan area for the past few years. Finding a performance of the equally relevant Animal Farm in the Big Apple, however, has been, well, rather like looking for a needle in a haystack. I was thus delighted to learn that The Seeing Place Theater, a small indie ensemble, would be performing their interpretation of Orwell’s classic at the Paradise Factory, an intimate theater located in the East Village, from February 13-23. And finding out that they would be debuting Brandon Walker’s original stage adaptation of Orwell’s novella at an affordable-for-all price was enough to make any Orwellite happy as a pig in mud.

Brandon Walker

Co-produced and directed by Brandon Walker and Erin Cronican, The Seeing Place production of Animal Farm depends on just four actors to play a total of 28 roles – no easy row to hoe. Eschewing animal costuming for unobtrusive black tights, tops, and fingerless gloves (which enable them to replicate remarkably convincing hooves!), the actors rely simply on voice, body language, mannerisms, and gait to convey character and communicate their animality. On a small, hay-strewn stage arranged with minimal props, a barnyard magically springs to life with all the flapping, neighing, braying, barking, lowing, and romping one would expect. The ungulates, of course, walk on all fours, the only exception being when the pigs don clothes and assume a human posture, as Walker does in his role as the peremptory porker Napoleon. Yet even then, while never unduly hamming it up, his movements display an awkwardness suggestive of the skewed sense of gravity one would expect of a pig parading as a man.

Erin Cronican

The animalism of the entire cast, in fact, seems so instinctive that it was almost surprising to learn that it took some arduous training to pull it off. Reveals Walker: “Oh my gosh…my body hurts!” Though the audience would never know it, he admits, “We didn’t really have a fluidity with being able to sustain the animal bodies until a few days before the first performance.” Echoing Walker, Cronican elaborates: “The physicality is very straining on the body! We spent weeks studying animals, how they move and how they speak, so that we could create faithful embodiments for our stage. We had to work diligently to create animal sounds that would not destroy our voices.”

Laura Clare Browne, Erin Cronican, Brandon Walker

Viewers familiar with the story can easily register the switch in characters, proof that the training in animalism has paid off. William Ketter is a standout and starts the show off on the right foot – eh, hoof – in the role of Old Major, his nasally voice advocating the overthrow of the human race in a speech peppered with subtle snorts. And Ketter is equally adept as both Moses, the orating raven, and Benjamin the burro, whose wisdom becomes particularly obscured by negativity and cynicism in this production. Laura Clare Browne – another ripsnorter – plays the role of Squealer with so much charm that the hornswoggling hog becomes almost loveable, and she is every bit as good playing the egotistical equine Mollie and a fixed-eyed and head-jutting hen. Erin Cronican, convincing as Snowball, tugs at heartstrings as Clover and also makes one feisty feminist fowl, hurling her unborn young and shouting: “My eggs, my choice!” Brandon Walker, cast also as Napoleon and a dejected Farmer Jones who whines of his former livestock: “I didn’t know they all hated me so much,” is especially moving as the woeful workhorse Boxer, whose lifelong efforts are ultimately rewarded with nothing more than a ticket to the glue factory.

Laura Clare Browne, William Ketter

But don’t let my lightheartedness or the barnyard banter deceive you: this is a serious play for serious times, and with the weightiness of the themes the play explores, perhaps one can be forgiven for seeking the solace of humor. Don’t take my word for it, though – if you are in the New York area, experience it for yourself. But you had better hurry: there are only two days left to see this original interpretation of Orwell’s classic. So make the effort. It will be worth it. And you have heard that straight from the horse’s mouth.

Laura Clare Browne, Brandon Walker, Erin Cronican, William Ketter

Photographs by Russ Rowland

George Orwell’s Animal Farm, adapted by Brandon Walker

At The Seeing Place Theatre, until February 23rd 2020

Reviewed by Carol Biederstadt

Uploaded 22 February 2020