More inspired by Orlando than a faithful adaptation, the play, directed and co-adapted by Carissa Licciardello, sweeps across several English eras: Elizabethan, Restoration, Victorian, and present day. Orlando, the eponymous protagonist, is at once changing and unchanging as they move through these periods, embodied by different actors at different times. In an ode to Virginia Woolf, this play becomes an homage to feminism, queerness, and reinvention.
Orlando (Shannen Alyce Quan) begins as a young man, the favoured courtier of Queen Elizabeth (Amber McMahon), bound by duty and his ordained place within Elizabethan cosmology. In the Restoration era, Orlando (Janet Anderson) reappears as a woman, a beautiful and admired debutante, hemmed in by the objectification of women as the muses of men, yet carves private space to pursue the ambitions of the Elizabethan Orlando: poetry and adventure. In Victorian England, Orlando (Zarif) is neither man nor woman, yet legally deemed a woman by virtue of not being a man – de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex comes to mind. Finally, in the present day, Orlando (Nic Prior) appears in a bustling London Tube station, accepted as neither man nor woman but as Orlando, though more lost than ever in the modern age.
Time in Orlando may be linear, but both Orlando and society are fluid, shaped by shifting relations between the sexes and institutions, and internalised into what it means to be. This is conveyed in Elizabethan cosmology, baroque excess, Victorian rigidity, and the contemporary struggle for elusive self-actualisation. Strikingly, the further the story moves toward the present, the more Orlando feels out of place, and yet the need to externalise the act of being becomes more urgent and pressing for us all. With the winds of change blowing through society, one is left to wonder how Orlando might emerge in another decade, refracted through the spirit and tensions of the age.
The stagecraft in this production is of the highest calibre. Writing, acting, sound, lighting, and costumes all work in harmony to deliver something rare and extraordinary: that feeling of true immersion. Particularly outstanding is the sound design (Kelly Ryall and Sam Cheng), indispensable in drawing the audience into Orlando’s world, and the sumptuous costumes (Ella Butler and Hailley Hunt) which made each era authentic and yet fantastical.
The cast is formidable, demonstrating the exceptional range demanded of actors playing multiple roles. Typically, it’s easier to single out one or two notable performances, but it is hard to mention one actor without mentioning all, for every performance was first-rate. I would, however, observe the particular strength of the supporting cast who built the inhabited worlds of Orlando so aptly and gave the marvellous Orlando actors so much to work with.
I would gladly sing the praises of this production to anyone and everyone who would listen. There truly is something here for everyone, and it would be difficult not to be dazzled by the magic and exceptional stagecraft on display.
