Orlando Explores Changing Gender and Time

Classic Stage Company's production of Orlando, based on Virginia Woolf's novel, is conventional Sarah Ruhl adaptation. By conventional Sarah Ruhl, I mean entirely unconventional storytelling. Eschewing traditional limits of time and gender, Orlando tells the story of a Seventeenth Century English nobleman, Orlando, who wakes up one day to find that he's actually a woman. After the transformation, every now and then Orlando also finds herself in a different century. Trying to convey the idea that human identity shouldn't be restricted to the period or gender that we're born into, Woolf's novel was an homage to her progressive friend, Vita Sackville-West.

Ruhl faithfully brings Woolf's post-modernist concepts to the stage. Supporting Orlando (Francesca Faridany), Ruhl has created three male ensemble characters who take on different roles. The actor with the most speaking parts, David Greenspan, plays a Queen who favors Orlando in the Seventeenth Century. He then morphs into a man playing a woman to woo the female Orlando in the second half. All three Ensemble members and Orlando narrate their actions as they perform them to advance the plot. For example, Orlando describes how he ice skates with his love interest, Sasha (Annika Boras), as they mime ice skating.

The first half of the play takes place in the early Seventeenth Century, letting the audience get well acquainted with Orlando before the gender/time-bending shenanigans begin. Orlando lays on the grass in the opening scene, trying to compose a poem. His rhyming "green" with "green" shows us that he still needs to get in touch with his inner artist. This quest to find himself essentially guides the rest of the play.

A story that's so much about the inner life of its eponymous character needs a strong actor. Francesca Faridany fulfills the role well. Known for playing gender-bending parts--I last saw her as Rosalind in All's Well That Ends Well--Faridany gracefully transitions from male to female here while retaining one personality. She convincingly plays a former man puzzled by the new constraints on his life. At one point, Orlando describes her newfound role of pouring tea and asking men how they would like it. While she doesn't seem to mind her new role, it makes us wonder how much of the gender roles that we adopt is actually acting. The one drawback of casting Faridany is that she reminds us a lot of Tilda Swinton in the film Orlando. They both have red hair and channel a certain androgyny. Happily, Faridany brings a more playful demeanor to Orlando than Swinton.

While leaving some loose ends open, Orlando is not really about plot, but about mood. Ruhl covers four centuries skillfully, retaining Orlando's consistent character throughout. The audience is left with a warm fuzzy feeling despite its liberal use of metaphysical hijinks.