Play
Neil Bartlett’s Orlando (2022) is based on the 1928 novel of the same name by Virginia Woolf. Adapted for the stage by Michael Grandage, this play follows the journey of Orlando to the present day in the search for happiness, self-knowledge, and the courage to answer one fundamental question, ‘Who am I?’(2022, p.7). Orlando’s perception of the world and transformation of the body leads to a deep connection or identification with something beyond oneself through a symbolic exploration, which blurs the boundaries between, the body, the mind, and the external situation (Frøsig, 2021, p.36). Whilst the play, has lesbian and bisexual undertones it also explores sexual identity and the nature of gender differences. Pamela L. Caughie argues that Orlando’s modernist narrative provides ‘a different temporality of embodiment’ to offer ‘new configurations of gender and sexual identity’ (Frøsig, 2021, p.32), therefore I argue Woolf is one of the most important modernist 20th-century writers with her fiction illuminating modern and contemporary life. Her well-documented love affair with novelist and poet Vita Sackville-West heavily inspired Woolf, as she wrote in her diary that Orlando was to be ‘Vita, only with a change from one sex to another’ (Winterson, 2018). That said, in many ways, Orlando is both the embodiment of Woolf’s sexual aesthetics and her philosophy of mind (Frøsig, 2021, p.32). Orlando is a play that skirts explicit descriptions of homosexuality and their sex changes implying a love that reaches across gender through an analytical lens.
Photo Available at: https://www.akauk.com/orlando/
(Brenner, 2018)
Playwright
Photo Available at: https://nordiska.dk/en/autorer/neil-bartlett/
Playwright Neil Bartlett has previously written plays exploring identity at its core, one of which is Jekyll and Hyde. Like Orlando, he includes multi-dimensional characters, delving deep into their psyches, motivations, desires, and inner conflicts. He explores masculinity in crisis (2018) through a contemporary perspective, using female characters like Emma Corrin throughout the performance of Orlando. He challenges conventional notions of identity and often portrays characters who defy societal norms and expectations. He notes when dealing with theatrical challenges as the play travels through time, he relied on the language and words themselves to ‘travel through theatrical history’ (2022). Bartlett understood Woolf’s version wasn’t a fantasy, but more of a story that plays with what is fact and what is imagination, with an attempt to understand the ‘mechanics of her own heart’(2022). He is adept at capturing the nuances of human emotions, from love and longing to despair and resilience, with the understanding of gender not being a social construct, ‘I think it is this richness - this all-roundness, if you like - of Woolf's vision that makes this such a great story to be telling right now.’(2022), he says. Ruhl and Bartlett both note how Woolf’s book is a speaking book (2022) and this is reflected in Bartlett’s adaptation, as mainly Virginia, Orlando and Mrs Grimsditch break the fourth wall by speaking directly to the audience.
(Brenner, 2018)
Subject Matter
Orlando is a play, that reveals the various issues of gender and aristocracy. It is important to discuss the explorative theme of gender identity, fluidity, and transformation across time. We thought having male actors play Virginia was a way to connote her encompassing presence as the overarching narrator. Occasionally, Woolf illustrates how “gender” is unmistakably a social construct, emphasizing the absurdity of assuming different values based on whether someone wears skirts or trousers. Yet, in my opinion, she shows us something even wilder and stranger: our perception of “gender” is deeply tied to our individual sense of who we love and how we express it. In the creative process, I’d like to explore how the publication of Woolf’s Orlando allowed lesbianism to enter the public sphere, and how Woolf’s use of humour, satire and fantasy made the story of Orlando more manageable for those conservative views. It’s almost as if Woolf is insisting that we both live with her in the present tense but also travel through the years to the now and I wanted to convey this through our staging of the book motif to emphasise this thoroughly. Moreover, Lesbianism was still considered a taboo subject when Virginia wrote the book and writing the protagonist as a lover of both sexes was a major risk for Woolf. We can see this depicted specifically in Orlando’s titular characteristics, sharing many similarities with Sackville-West, who both came from nobility, were poets, and had many lovers. Similarly, like Orlando, Sackville-West could not inherit her own ancestral home due to being a woman.
Photo Available at: https://www.royaltitles.net/blog/whats-a-typical-aristocratic-lifestyle/
Photo Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/V-Sackville-West