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Women’s Project Dives Into Freshwater
See Virginia Woolf’s sole contribution to theater, an autobiographical play
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Virginia Woolf is best known for her singular novels. Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse put her on the literary map, as did her association with the Bloomsbury Group. But this gifted writer, who inspired the book The Hours, also wrote a play, which she described as an “unbuttoned laughing evening.” Freshwater—written in 1923 and revised in 1935—will get its first production in the U.S. this January.
The Women’s Project and SITI Company have joined forces to present Woolf’s comedy, which runs Jan. 15–Feb. 15 at the Julia Miles Theater. Freshwater is set in a Victorian garden on a summer’s night, among a charming world of artists, friends and lovers. Woolf, a serious writer who rarely ventured into humorous territory, penned this effort for family and friends. And for Obie-winning director Anne Bogart, that intimacy is the key to the production.
Freshwater represented “the generation Woolf and her colleagues were rebelling against,” says Bogart. “The fact that Virginia Woolf cast specific members of her family as specific characters in the play is also of great interest. The combination of irreverence and awe for these characters is something I want to emulate.”
Bogart, who is also the artistic director of SITI, says her goal is to “channel the humor, intelligence, talent and giddiness of the original Bloomsbury Group.” She hopes to mine their extraordinary sensibilities and “celebrate them in a way that means something to a 2009 audience.”
Certainly, Woolf would appreciate the theatrical setting. The Women’s Project is the nation’s oldest company dedicated to producing and promoting theater created by women. The company was founded by Julia Miles in 1978; several well-known actresses began their theatrical careers here, such as Sarah Jessica Parker, Linda Hunt and Anna Deveare Smith.
Though rare, this isn’t the first time a Woolf work has been staged. In 2006, her novel The Waves was adapted by the English director Katie Mitchell and played to sold-out audiences and rave reviews at the National Theater in London.