Playwright: Sarah Ruhl (based on the novel by Virginia Woolf). At: Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis. Phone: 773-753-4472; $40-$60. Runs through: April 10
The more that has been uncovered about novelist Virginia Woolf's personal life over the years, the more that she and her works have rewritten themselves into history as the early rumblings of the feminist and lesbian literary canon. Since the 1990s, interpretations of Woolf's novels have largely shifted to gender-related perspectives. In that same contemporary vein comes the stage version of her 1928 best-seller Orlando, now at the Court Theatre. Obviously, no medium is more adept at exploring gender-bending themes than the theatre.
Orlando is a nobleman who gains the favor of the Queen of England, falls in love with Russian royalty and evades a Romanian duchess (who later turns out to be a duke), all before falling asleep and waking up as a woman. The Court Theatre takes off on this journey with a great range of comedy and honest reflection, though it never so much as flinches from its focus on gender dynamics.
Through letters uncovered from Woolf to her lover Vita Sackville-West, Orlando has become widely known as a roman à clef, a sort of biographical fantasy about Sackville-West, who according to Ruhl, led the life of a poet, aristocrat and cross-dresser. Vita's son would later perfectly sum up this work about his mother as "the longest love letter in the English language."
Amy J. Carle as Orlando is the focal point of the play, but the Court Theatre's production thrives on its four corset-clad chorus actors who are constantly shifting about and changing their gender about as often as they change character. The results are a production as dynamic, fluid and entertaining as the definitions of gender ought to be.
The first act relies heavily on the charismatic performances of the chorus, but after Orlando's transformation the play blossoms with equal humor, sweetness and even melancholy. Carle's full acting range comes on display when she's playing her sex of origin as opposed to her time as a young man, but in all other instances the versatile ensemble effortlessly melts away traditional gender lines. Even Erica Elam as the Russian princess, the most "traditionally gendered" character in the story, adds a boyish charm to her fleeting yet vital character.
Director Jessica Thebus expertly choreographs this fast-paced production that is as much of a tonal whirlwind as Orlando's many romances. Despite the way the second act, for example, fast-forwards through time to show how an un-aging Orlando copes with her identity in an ever-changing world, each scene receives its own distinct flavor and imagination.
The set is nothing more than an Elizabethan boudoir with two four-poster beds rotating in and out, but that very intimate setting becomes everything from the festivals of London to a frozen Thames to Constantinople. It's not about make-believe, but rather the notion of building a fantasy with remnants of the stuffy old social norms and constructs of previous centuries.
Orlando possesses a bold feminist spirit, oftentimes done tongue-in-cheek, but it also stays honest and open with characters who are all but definable yet leave distinct impressions. The Court Theatre's production manages to keep its audience in step with its whimsical vision that asserts Ruhl's play as a truly progressive interpretation of a literary classic.