Having just seen Wellesley Summer Theatre’s splendid ORLANDO (playing through
Feb. 2nd), I’m convinced that playwright Sarah Ruhl is the perfect
writer to give Virginia Woolf’s novel a life on the stage. (You also may want
to find Sally Porter’s opulent 1993 film with Tilda Swinton as ORLANDO and the late, great Quentin Crisp as
Queen Elizabeth. It’s an extraordinary movie.)
Both Woolf and Ruhl commit fully to fantasy in their writing.
You might say that without Woolf’s experimentation and innovative contributions
to modern literature, Ruhl’s celebrated magical realism would not be possible.
Nora Hussey helms WST’s vivid production of one poet’s “historical” adventure (and
transformation) over the centuries. Woolf deliberately resolved to reduce plot
and story in favor of characters that “experience” life for themselves. Her Orlando explores and
experiences the social and cultural mores of the time, commenting
(delightfully) on the “spirit of the age.”
Except for the character of Orlando, the actors in director Nora Hussey’s
deft production are universal players in a masque, who set a scene and change
character as quickly as they change costumes. Their wry musings as a cheeky
Greek chorus, like the stone chorus in Ruhl’s EURIDICE, are a part of the
play’s many pleasures.
David Towlun’s enormous mirrors at either end of the stage
are the sole set pieces, reminding us that Orlando is searching for his true self, not
just a reflection of the time. (And, of course, we know that a reflection in a
mirror reverses itself.) Woolf, the quintessential feminist, creates a male
character (who despite his sex can think and feel with an acute awareness) who
then, surprise, surprise, becomes a woman. No explanation. You just have to
accept the reversal.
Orlando simply awakens to find
himself a woman—but the feminine
Orlando is not
content to be the “obedient, chaste” creature society would like her to be. Her
rebellion makes the Act II Orlando much more compelling than the male version
…although Catherine LeClair’s adolescent passion is plenty amusing as he pines
for the Russian Princess (a charming Elizabeth Yancey). Their romp under a
blanket of fur is hilarious.
Orlando’s
adventures take him all over the world and through three centuries, from the
Elizabethan to the Jazz age, looking for an “other” self. Woolf fashioned Orlando after her
longtime love, the poet Vita Sackville-West, who descended from a line of
poets, all male until the literary gene switched gender in the twentieth
century, from male to female! Hah!
LeClair glows from within as the female Orlando, enjoying her new body, happily
chiding the male establishment for its strictures. Everyone glows for heavens
sake, in Graham Edmundson’s gorgeous, orangey, Elizabethan lighting and
everyone moves with grace to Sophori Ngin’s choreography.
Lovely performances abound, from John Davin’s delicious turn
as the entitled Queen Elizabeth I (in a regal gown by Emily Woods Hogue); to
Woody Gaul as the outlandish Romanian Archduchess (in a garish gown, on
purpose) and as her alter ego, the dashing Archduke; to the Shakespeareans,
John Kinsherf and Victoria George, in a “non-traditional” reversal of the
Othello and Desdemona death scene.
And I haven’t even credited the hysterical fly, the yapping
dog, the maids or the washerwomen, all exquisitely drawn. Don’t miss this
lively rendering of Woolf’s masterpiece.
