James Wilson takes a look at Orlando at Signature Theatre:
Midway through Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel, "Orlando: A Biography," the protagonist awakes after a long sleep as a different gender. "It is enough for us to state the simple fact," the narrator explains, "Orlando was a man till the age of thirty, when she became a woman and has remained so ever since." In addition to switching genders, the character's life spans several centuries across a couple of continents. For the uninitiated, it's a bedeviling and confusing work. Sarah Ruhl's adaptation of the novel, simply titled Orlando and currently playing at Signature Theatre in New York, revels in this bedevilment and confusion. With whimsical direction and choreography by Will Davis, the play smartly synthesizes the dense, nearly 300-page novel into a fleet 100 minutes (including intermission) performance runtime. |
