If you're a fan of George Orwell's work, then an upcoming performance in the city will make your weekend better. For, it will be shown how the concept of surveillance that the author spoke about, is relevant even today. Conceptualised and directed by John Britton, Whirlpool, a Company Theatre Production, is about four actors — played by Avantika Bahl Goyal, Srishti Shrivastava, Abhishek Krishnan and Manjari Kaul — prepa­r­ing for a show with a director who wa­t­ches the rehearsals on surveillance ca­meras. It shows how the voice of the director goes from instructional to controlling to abusive, over time.

Those who have read 1984 will know that Orwell understood that sur­veillance was the main tool that totalitarian governments increasingly employed as they sought to control the populace. He also came to the conclusion that privacy, freedom of thought and unrecorded interpersonal communication were all anathema to state control. "What he didn't see was how the birth of the Internet would change the nature of surveillance. In his time, it was intrusive and violent. The Internet has made it pervasive and 'user-friendly'; but the intention stays the same — control," says Kaul.