a new adaptation created by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan, directed by Brooke Lipman, playing from November 20 to December 4, 2026 at Theater Remise in Bern.
Recommended for ages 15 and over. Note that the production may use strobe lights.
| First Act (about 45 min) | 19:30 – 20:15 / 17:00 – 17:45 |
| Intermission (20 min) | 20:15 – 20:35 / 17:45 – 18:05 |
| Second Act (about 65 min) | 20:35 – 21:40 / 18:05 – 19:10 |
From Upstage
Welcome to our autumn production of 1984 ! We are delighted to bring this classic story to life with our talented cast and crew.
Join Upstage! putting on a show like 1984 takes a whole community. We rely on many dedicated volunteers, both on stage and behind the scenes. We offer a variety of opportunities to participate in English-language productions, and are always looking for new talent. Interested in getting involved? Contact us to learn more!
Director
Brooke is a dancer, choreographer and performer whose artistic path has been shaped by dance. She holds a BA in Musical Theatre from Dean College, USA, earned in 2024, where she trained in dance, singing, acting and stage production. Since returning to Switzerland, she has performed with Upstage in Dr. Frankenstein and now makes her directing debut with 1984. Drawing on her experience as a movement artist and choreographer, she brings a strong physical dimension to Orwell’s classic, underscoring its political urgency.
About the Play
Dr. Frankenstein by Selma Dimitrijevic is a reimagining of Mary Shelley’s classic, placing a female scientist, Victoria Frankenstein, at the story’s centre.
Set in the 1830s, the plot follows Victoria, a brilliant and driven woman, who defies her family’s advice and leaves her father, her sister Elizabeth, the housekeeper Mary, and the maid Justine to pursue medical studies and scientific research in Bavaria, as women are barred from such education in England. In Germany, Victoria works on her technique for bringing a dead body back to life, having first succeeded with a rabbit. Determined to defeat mortality, she succeeds in reanimating a corpse, creating the Creature.
As the Creature comes to life and threatens her, Victoria unsuccessfully attempts to restrain it — it overpowers her and escapes. Elizabeth’s fiancé, Henry, brings Victoria back home to recover, but the Creature finds her again. Wounded, rejected, and mistreated, the Creature longs for the only person who does not despise him. Yet after the tragic death of her young brother, William, even Victoria no longer believes in the Creature’s innocence.
Our adaptation relocates the Dr. Frankenstein story to postwar Europe, where the aftermath of World War II echoes the story’s moral and emotional turmoil. The atmosphere of the late 1940s — characterized by hope and reconstruction but also by grief, guilt and restitution — becomes the lens through which Victoria’s pursuit of knowledge is seen. Her scientific ambition reflects an era questioning its faith in progress and confronting its ethical boundaries. The Creature in Dr. Frankenstein serves as a warning that new knowledge without moral boundaries can have damaging consequences, inviting us to consider how invention and responsibility intertwine, and how every act of creation carries the shadow of its maker.
About the Authors
George Orwell (1903–1950), born Eric Blair, was an English novelist, essayist, and critic whose work examined poverty, imperialism, propaganda, and the dangers of totalitarian power. His experiences as a colonial policeman in Burma and a fighter in the Spanish Civil War shaped his lifelong opposition to political oppression. Best known for Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Orwell became one of the most influential political writers of the twentieth century.
Nineteen Eighty-Four remains a landmark warning about surveillance, manipulated truth, and the control of language and thought. Many of the neologisms describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices, such as “Big Brother”, “Thought Police”, “doublethink”, “newspeak” and “thoughtcrime” have since become part of the English language.
Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan’s adaptation brings Orwell’s dystopian vision to the stage, placing Winston Smith’s struggle for memory, love, and independent thought at the center of a society ruled by Big Brother. Ike and Macmillan also co-directed 1984, which has been staged internationally and earned the pair a UK Theatre Award for Best Director.
Robert Icke is an English playwright and director known for bold, contemporary reimaginings of classic works. His adaptations include Oresteia, Mary Stuart, Hamlet, Oedipus, and The Doctor; he became the youngest-ever winner of the Olivier Award for Best Director in 2016.
Duncan Macmillan is an award-winning English playwright and director whose work often explores contemporary social and political questions. His plays include Lungs, People, Places and Things, and Every Brilliant Thing.
Roles and Actors
| Winston | Severin Troesch |
| Julia | Anina Hug |
| O’Brien | Claire Edwards |
| Parsons | Kieran Kläy |
| Mrs Parsons | Anja Beven Eberle |
| Charrington | Anna Goetz |
| Syme/Martin | Saul Gomez |
| Child | Daria |
Cast Profiles
By day, Severin works in AI for a Zurich-based company – a field that keeps running into the same questions that 1984 raises: who controls information, and what happens to independent thought once they do. After performing in theatre as a child, he rediscovered his love for acting in 2024 and played The Creature in Upstage’s Frankenstein in 2025.
Claire has loved acting since her first role as “Grosi” in a primary school play. She has since performed in German, English and French, and has directed productions with teenagers and with adults with intellectual disabilities. After a break, she returned to the stage in 2024 as Mother in Upstage’s musical A New Brain, and later co-directed Jekyll and Hyde. In 1984, she makes her debut as production manager while also appearing on stage as an actress.
Kieran is an American living in Switzerland since 2013. They are an active member of Bern’s tabletop role-playing games, film, and theater communities. He is used to wearing black and hiding behind curtains, so please do not look at him. This is Kieran’s debut both on stage and with Upstage Theatre.
Growing up in London, Anna was always drawn to the bright lights of the West End — but spent the past 15 years backstage, usually dressed in black or covered in paint. During Covid, an acting course tempted her onto the stage and sparked a love of acting and improv. Upstage audiences may already know her set designs; now they get to see her on stage too.
Saul, born and raised in Switzerland by his Spanish Immigrant family, is a nerd with a passion for roleplay and art. With his love for stepping into the shoes of all sorts of different characters, it was only a matter of time until he finally decided to do so on stage; Especially after witnessing the many great shows the theatre-groups in Bern had to offer.
Crew List
| Director | Brooke Lipman |
| Production Manager | Claire Edwards |
| Stage Manager | Eliane Baumann, Myriam Schleiss |
| Introduction for school classes | Myriam Schleiss, Eliane Baumann |
| Set Design | Anna Goetz |
| Set Building, set dressing and scenic painting | Anna Goetz, Marie-Luise Oswald |
| Prop Design | Anna Goetz |
| Props Assistants | Marie-Luise Oswald, Claire Edwards, Suzanne Seiler, Eliane Baumann |
| Light Design | Max Protzen |
| Video and Sound Design | Joel Strübi |
| Light, Sound & Video Operation | Clément Mura/ Andrew Capps |
| Costumes | Carla Carlucci |
| Intimacy Director | Max Protzen |
| Front of House Coordination | Carla Carlucci |
| Poster and Program | Tamar Richner |
| Ticket Sales | Tamar Richner |
| Social Media | Brooke Lipman, Tamar Richner |
Financial Support
We are grateful for financial support from / Dieses Projekt wird unterstützt durch
Photo Credits
- Director and cast photos: Massimo Lüdi
- Photo of George Orwell: Wikipedia
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