A singular spectacle unfolds as Kit Green takes on all characters in an imaginative interpretation of Virginia Woolf's 1925 day-in-the-life novel Mrs Dalloway at Storyhouse, Chester. Co-written by Jen Heyes, who also directs, and Kit Green, who performs, this playful re-examination is wrapped as a multimedia-driven solo show.
A Playful Re-examination
As Clarissa Dalloway wafts about the stage, welcoming her audience indiscriminately before instigating party games, the essence of Woolf's scrupulous socialite appears to be missing. However, this stage adaptation is a fresh take on the novel, experimenting with cine-theatre, a format Heyes has been developing. It evokes the work of Australian director Kip Williams, though it is simpler than his West End blockbusters like Sarah Snook's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Cynthia Erivo's Dracula.
In Heyes's production, featuring Monika Koeck's video design, Green's Clarissa interacts with many characters on screen, whom she also portrays. Among them are her husband Richard, her old friend Sally Seton, the maid Lucy, and PTSD-suffering war veteran Septimus. Each character study is attentive: Peter Walsh, another old friend, is forever fiddling with his pocketknife while agonising over what could have been. When we reach Clarissa's party, an entertaining montage sees the guests appear to mingle, while Stephen Hull's sound design supplies the hubbub. Elsewhere, his soundscape of birds, bees and Big Ben chimes helps conjure a June day in London.
Strengths and Weaknesses
The show is strongest when led by the book. When Green pauses the narrative to reflect on her relationship with the text, her fear of Woolf, or to check in on our wellbeing, it becomes maudlin. We also do not feel privy to anyone's inner thoughts or sense their perspectives shifting as we do in Woolf's novel. But it is imaginative and often visually powerful. The contrast between Green's tortured Septimus on screen and her breezy Clarissa on stage is heightened by Koeck's sepia colouring for the shell-shocked former soldier, and the thick blue sea that appears to engulf him as he struggles to cling to reality.
Technology and Performance
The technology never overpowers Green's onstage performance, which flirts with cabaret as she sings, and also standup comedy as she roasts her audience about their home city. This may not be the Mrs Dalloway you remember, but as a spectacle it is singular. The production runs at Storyhouse, Chester until 6 June, then at Harlow Playhouse, Essex from 10-11 June; Wilton's Music Hall, London from 16-20 June; and Home, Manchester from 24-26 September.
