In George Orwell’s classic novel “1984,” a slim literary masterpiece whose relevance continues to assert itself with each passing year, there’s a dreadful place called “Room 101.”



It’s a space not much bigger than a closet to which uncooperative prisoners are dragged against their will. There, they experience whatever happens to be their deepest, darkest, most harrowing fear, be it drowning, death by fire or, say, an endlessly repeating loop of Miley Cyrus’ “Party In the USA.”



For lovers of theater, however, Room 101 might bear a striking resemblance to the Manny Fried Playhouse, where one of the most tedious and ill-conceived theatrical productions of the current season is now under way.



The show is Subversive Theatre Collective’s production of “84: A Tribute to Orwell’s Dystopia,” an original adaptation of Orwell’s page-turner by Brian Zybala, the young director who stepped onto the theater scene a year ago with his original experimental piece “Ouroboros.”



With this version of “1984,” Zybala is aiming for the hearts and minds of the “MTV” generation, that group of attention-challenged youth reared on the unreality of reality TV and the soul-weirding influence of the Internet. His solution was to weaken the innate power of Orwell’s narrative by splintering it into a variety of interpretations, including interminable stretches of physical theater, half-hearted video projections and polyphonic shouting matches of unnecessary length.



Zybala and his collaborators toss around so much visual and vocal information, and so haphazardly, that the emotional impact of Orwell’s masterpiece becomes lost in a roiling sea of theoretical exercises that distance the piece from its audience rather than draw it into the fold.



The result is not a reinterpretation of this age-old morality tale for a new generation of Adderall-popping teens, but the unnecessary splintering of a story whose power flows from its own linear simplicity.



One can certainly envision a production of “1984” in which a significant video component and the use of physical theater might serve to highlight the way in which technologically enforced oppression creates a sort of mechanized populace. Subversive’s production is not it.



That said, Zybala’s head is in the right place. The mistake he makes is not modifying Orwell’s narrative, but including far too much of it. If the end goal is a moody piece meant to communicate the horrors of totalitarianism to a digitally literate generation, Orwell’s role as a storyteller need not be so prominent. As it is, Zybala’s piece tries to be at once experimental and conventional, but winds up being neither.



A successful production that used this very approach was Torn Space Theater and Dan Shanahan’s “Area,” in which a short story by Raymond Carver appears only as a brief accent in an atmospheric piece that communicates its message perfectly well with both physical theater and the integration of video. It can be done.



Productions like “84,” admittedly, are some of the most daring, and therefore the most difficult to realize. There is no tried and true formula for success, no predecessor upon whom to rely for inspiration. In that regard, we should cut Zybala a bit of slack and look forward to what he has in store for next time.



Theater review



“84:A Tribute to Orwell’s Dystopia”



?



(out of four)



Now playing at Subversive Theatre Collective, 255 Great Arrow Ave., through Jan. 31; 408-0499 or www.subversivetheatre.org.