Writer: Virginia Woolf
Adapter: Rebecca Vaughan
The award-winning Dyad Productions return to the York Theatre Royal with their latest offering, a twenty-first century take on Virginia Woolf’s celebrated pre-TED talk. Here, actor Rebecca Vaughan performs Woolf’s 1928 exploration of the impact of poverty and sexual inequality on intellectual freedom and creativity.
The dialogue is colourful, as crisp as an autumnal morning. Vaughan lectures her listeners with an often humorous case study on women and literature. Quintessentially British but with an air of maddening charm, she delivers this one act monologue with a gutsy intelligence. The audience in the packed out studio theatre listen in and are fully invested in her Cliff Notes with themes still pertinent today.
This relevant examination of women is somewhat frantic in delivery and played out with a sense of urgency. Vaughan commands the space with strong physicality and poise reminiscent of Woolf; a passionate performance.
The subject is fully explored in essay-style storytelling, the spectators fully invested in the action and listen intently as the themes are explored.
Poetical history dictates that, in literature and plays, women are colourful characters but as Woolf reminds us this is nothing but fiction and fantasy. Such women (especially those with little wealth) are almost absent from history. There’s plenty of pause for thought here, an intimate but utterly thrilling interpretation of Woolf’s work. She was, after all, possessed with a complex but brilliant mind; compelling and purposeful.
As one would expect from Woolf, the writing is wordy but it is far from heavy. Vaughan never misses a beat as the rhythm of the work flows so brilliantly.
Woolf sadly took her own life in 1941 but the memory of her novels, essays and ramblings have never felt so pertinent in this passionate interpretation of the literary genius. This is a glorious adaptation – thrilling and utterly captivating.
This one act, one woman masterclass runs at just over an hour and 60 minutes never passed so quickly.
Runs until 7th October 2022, before continuing on tour.
