ANZ LitLovers LitBlog

We have just seen a magnificent stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando.  (See my review of the book here).

The performance was a special event for the Auckland Writers Festival, and this is the blurb:

A theatrical triumph and an intriguing exposition of art and identity: personal, sexual, national. Acclaimed British theatre company Dyad Productions present their latest offering – an adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 satire Orlando: A Biography – with their usual elan. The ageless, gender-fluid, immortal fictional poet Orlando, played by Rebecca Vaughan, sweeps through four centuries of English history. Vaughan’s turn is “towering” (The Scotsman), surpassing her artistry in previous Festival favourites Austen’s Women, Dalloway and Jane Eyre: An Autobiography. Written and directed by Elton Townend Jones.

Supported by Platinum Patrons Julienne Brown & David McLean.

Rebecca Vaughan was superb. In a one-woman performance lasting 90 minutes, she captured the playful persona of her gender-bending character, and with minimal costume changes convinced the audience that four centuries of time were passing.  (The credit for these cunning costume changes goes to costume designer Kate Flanaghan from Dyad Productions (see here, and click her name).  With Woolf’s book transformed from ‘biography’ to a confessional autobiography, Vaughan had the audience captivated from beginning to end, making us laugh when she said ‘If I am rambling, the fault is yours for listening to someone talking to themselves!’ The writers among us also chuckled at the satirical commentary on the travails of a poet subject to the whims of a critic.

If you ever get a chance to see this production, don’t miss it! (You may still be able to get AWF tickets here if they’re not already all sold out).

Image credit: http://www.writersfestival.co.nz/programmes/event/orlando-thu-2pm/823905/