REVIEW: ROOM – A Journey into the Creative Mind of Virginia Woolf by Heather Alexander at Jack Studio Theatre
‘a wonderful homage’ ★★★★
Heather Alexander is raw in her delivery, bold in her performance and bewitching on this stage of her own. Emul8 Theatre’s Room, written and performed by Heather Alexander and directed by Dominique Gerrard, takes the audience on a journey through Virginia Woolf’s seminal work A Room of One’s Own. This famous essay is based on two lectures delivered by the author at Girton and Newnham College in October 1928, challenging the injustices faced by women throughout history. Through Emul8’s adaptation, Woolf’s glittering prose is reborn – triumphant and as resonant today as it was a century ago.
It’s refreshing (and Woolf herself would find it so!) that in an adaptation of a text that centres around women’s lack of freedom, Alexander is so courageous and unshackled in her expression. She glides seamlessly between emotions, from frustration and anger in one moment to episodes of complete calm in the next. It’s a testament to Alexander’s skills and Gerrard’s direction that the show rarely feels rushed or repetitive, even when chunks of prose are repeated. The repetition only adds to the neurosis, which in turn adds to her frustration and our understanding of the importance of the issues at hand.
The set is cluttered and inviting, brimming with creativity and littered with all the usual debris you’d expect to find inside a writer’s room. There are two Virginia’s on the stage, as a voiceover reads lengthier chunks of the essay in soundbites and recordings indented between Alexander’s performances. A bold direction from Gerrard, this allows the larger chunks of the text to be performed without interrupting Alexander’s emotional response. This creates an inescapable sentimentality between the two Virginias, as the distance between the corporeal Virginia on stage and the recorded Virginia (also voiced by Alexander) somewhat bridges the distance between the real Virginia Woolf and Heather Alexander. It’s a moving use of voiceover and one that also adds a brilliant pacing to the show.
Room is a thoughtful adaptation and Alexander brings a wonderful vulnerability to Virginia Woolf’s words and character. One moment, we see Alexander sitting on an armchair relaying to the audience stories of fishes and cats that feel like a bedtime story. The next, she is enflamed about women’s poverty and the injustices towards herself and women in history, talking of Shakespeare’s forgotten sister, Jane Austen, and Aphra Behn with tenderness. Often remembered and revered in academia for the bold and complex woman she was, it’s particularly poignant to see her in these anxious and tender moments. It’s in these moments of doubt that the perpetual relevance of A Room of One’s Own breaks through. In Room, Woolf is not relegated to a shelf but brought to life as a flawed and physical individual facing dilemmas that face all women, then and now. It’s a varied and passionate performance and a wonderful homage to a celebrated and important text.
Performance 29th and 30th May, 7.30pm at the Jack Studio Theatre.
Theatre Company: Emul8 Theatre.
