| A queer picaresque for the ages. Literally. ORLANDO was so far ahead of its time, it was out of time (or all in time depending on your perspective and probably your experience). In adapting Woolf's reverie of and for her lover, Vita Sackville-West, Sarah Ruhl has exalted its transgressive spirit without sacrificing any of Woolf's impish jesting. Or her wit. The company here, led by the perfectly cast, ever tickling Taylor Mac, seems to make the bounding story up as they go along. This approach is especially apt as it highlights, reifies even, the idea that gender is a construct, a mutable psychological experience as much as anything. Several people around me left at intermission which I guess suggests that the show was either pointless or otherwise dull, or pointed and sharp indeed. Or maybe, given the subject, both. |
