In Taiwanese theatre troupe Peng Nei Ren’s immersive theatre experiment Animal Farm, George Orwell’s canonical text on authoritarianism is the starting point for a formally audacious exploration of the nature of power itself.
“Orwell asks whether power ever truly disappears, or merely shifts and transforms. We relocate this question into a contemporary context and re-examine it through the lenses of body, language, and labour,” show creator Liao Ssu-Chia shares over email. “Rather than watching a fable unfold, audiences form a dialogue with the original text through participation.”
Below, Liao and troupe leader Chen Ta-Chan tell us about how inspiration struck, and how live theatre can illuminate mechanics of power today.
Could you tell us about Peng Nei Ren Theatre Company?
Chen Ta-Chan: Peng Nei Ren is founded on the belief that theatre can be a space one can enter at any time – a free and open place for speaking, listening, and thinking. The name evokes the image of a tent: a structure that can be easily entered and exited, allowing theatre to blend into everyday life.
We focus on how theatre can invite audiences to slow down, think deeply, and discover moments of resonance through the act of watching. In a time when slowing down is difficult, persuading audiences to remain present inside a theatre space requires a strong sense of attraction. Our ambition is to make a wide range of texts and ideas engaging and accessible, while retaining their depth.
What were the initial seeds of inspiration behind Animal Farm?
Liao Ssu-Chia: The initial inspiration came from a seemingly insignificant urban moment. One day in 2024, while walking through the city, I looked up at a glass high-rise and saw people on different floors practising yoga, eating, and working long hours. These vertically stacked activities formed an ‘artificial jungle’ made of steel, concrete, and glass. Even in highly technologized societies, humans discipline themselves through systems of self-evaluation and productivity, turning themselves into measurable, operational units. Perhaps the difference between humans and animals is not whether we are domesticated, but whether we believe this domestication is voluntary.
Months later, during a casual team dinner, we discussed whether swimming could be a form of performance. This brought to mind dolphins in marine parks or circus animals trained to jump through hoops. No animal chooses these actions, yet when raised entirely within a system of rules, can they still imagine alternatives? This question became the true starting point of Animal Farm.
Instead of being passive spectators, audiences are recruited into the performance itself. Could you tell us about the importance of this participatory element, and how it links to Foucault’s theorising of power as a decentralised network?
LSC: The audience’s choices directly shape the progression of the performance. This allows audiences to experience how they are shaped by an operating structure, rather than simply understanding a story being presented to them.
Foucault’s analysis of decentralised power strongly informs our theatrical structure. In contemporary society, power rarely appears as direct commands or violence; instead, it operates through self-management, internalised norms, and aspirations toward improvement — processes we often perceive as natural or necessary.
Power is not represented by a single authority figure, but distributed across rules, rhythms, and the audience’s own actions. There is no visible ruler in the performance, yet the system is constantly operating. Through ongoing participation, they gradually perceive how power functions through structure itself rather than direct instruction.
Could you describe Animal Farm’s aesthetic world?
LSC: The visual and sonic language of the work is rooted in East Asian labour ethics and linguistic power. These elements emerge from my embodied memories of growing up within systems that emphasise efficiency, obedience, and silence. Aesthetically, we adopt strategies of restraint, compression, and symbolism, avoiding excessive narration or emotional guidance. The performance space becomes a highly managed environment. Through rhythmic sound patterns, repetitive movement, and spatial limitation, audiences encounter – on a sensory level, even before conscious understanding – how order and constraint permeate everyday life.
How do you explore the hierarchical relationship between language and labour?
LSC: In Animal Farm, language functions as the origin of command, while labour becomes its continuation. We often learn how to speak not to express ourselves, but to prove that we are competent or worthy of remaining within a system. Through audience participation, language shifts from a tool of communication into a mechanism of discipline. Each response, choice, or silence is absorbed into the live operational logic of the performance. Theatre becomes a real-time social experiment, where power is not explained but enacted.
When survival and social value are quantified, human bodies, time, and emotions are inevitably re-coded to meet demands for productivity. We grow accustomed to evaluating ourselves and others through output and obedience, rarely pausing to ask whether this still constitutes living, or merely functioning. The work amplifies this structure so that audiences can encounter it through embodied experience.
Your staging examines authoritarian dynamics in East Asia: what do you hope it illuminates about contemporary life in this part of the world?
LSC: Our focus is not on overt authoritarian symbols, but on forms of obedience deeply embedded in everyday life — often perceived as reasonable or even virtuous. An obsession with productivity, endurance, and error-free performance becomes internalised as self-discipline. The work seeks to reveal this subtle texture that exists between systems and individual experience, rather than offering a direct critique of any single political regime.
Why do you think theatre is a particularly apt medium for this exploration – and what do you hope audiences will take away from Animal Farm?
LSC: Theatre operates on the level of the body, time, and collective presence. Within theatre, power is not merely represented – it is experienced. The audience’s bodily responses, hesitations, and decisions become integral to the work, allowing these ideas to be felt rather than simply understood. We hope they depart carrying unresolved questions: which choices were truly mine? Which forms of obedience have become habit? If I am no longer ‘useful,’ am I still allowed to exist as a person?
Animal Farm, The Library at Ayers House Events, 25-26 Feb, 6.45pm; 27 Feb, 6pm; 28 Feb, 5.15pm