Orlando
Belvoir has had an impressive year, notably in transforming novels into theatre.
Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, with its parade of gender shifting through history, is more prescient than she could have imagined a century ago.
Her novel is a magical satire of patriarchy, a queer love letter to Vita Saville West and a joyous adventure around genders and the globe. This adaptation by Elsie Yager and Carissa Licciardello (who also directs) strips out some of Woolf’s intellectual wit but retains the seductive characters, surprises and dreams met by Orlando in her quest to achieve a full life.
A cast of mostly non-binary or transsexual actors give truth to the voyage, with four of them playing Orlando through time.
Against David Fleischer’s silver walls with wafting horizons lit by Nick Schlieper, Orlando has an optimistic start as a precocious young man (Shannen Alyce Quan), a favourite of the ageing Queen Elizabeth I (Amber McMahon), who promises him great position, property and worldly achievement. Figures adorned as planets encircle them, seemingly sealing the promise with metaphysical authority.
Mysteriously returning as female, Orlando (Janet Anderson) is struggling now against the gendered protocols of the Restoration (it’s a witty dance scene of high wigs and camp affectation). Worse is the news here that gender forbids her to hold property - or seek freedom.
Luckily Orlando ages little, and perhaps sensibly, returns as neither male or female (Zarif), amid the oppressive fog and regimentation of Victorian London. The play then offers some depth of thinking around gender roles, as funereal black-clad Londoners bustle through the dark.
The cast, also including Nyx Calder and Emily Havea, all play other roles and the enlightening individualists, liberated despite their century, who inspire Orlando.
Skipping past Woolf’s time, the final, also non-gendered Orlando (Nic Prior) is lost in the London Underground hearing snippets of contemporary conversation on the platform. The scene keeps going to black and strobe lighting as the trains thunder by between each (quick-change) vignette. Each snippet is often affirming of life and gender identity, ending with a progressive optimism, true perhaps to Woolf’s joyous novel, if not to the scapegoating and violence faced today by transexuals.
Licciardello’s queer adventure is magnificently theatrical, engaging and beautifully costumed by Ella Butler.
Martin Portus
Photographer: Brett Boardman
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