My overall impression
Larry Cedar is a wonderful actor. We’re familiar with his work on film, TV, and stage, but this piece is more than entertainment. In excellent characterizations and the first English accents I’ve heard an American actor do flawlessly, Cedar deftly guides us down the dark, sometimes humorous, often harrowing paths of George Orwell’s brilliant anti-authoritarian writings. It’s the first time in a while that I’ve been adequately reminded of the dark infantilism and mindless brutal authoritarianism with which we coexist in our world today. We see flashes of it in still-alive American Puritanism, Arab Theocracies, so-called Communist governments, and fundamentalist movements of all stripes braying at us from dark corners of today’s world. With wonderfully focused acting and character changes, Cedar acts out well-chosen portions of Orwell’s brilliant texts that stand alone as near-perfect theater pieces. Bravo Cedar! Bravo Orwell!
