Septimus and Clarissa (Ellen McLaughlin)

We are long-time fans of Red Bull Theatre, which partnered in the production of this play, and Carly Flint, who interned with Ripe Time as assistant director. Conceived as an "In the Raw" presentation, the play and its production were still very much in the development stage. As the title indicates, the play dramatizes Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Because the novel is written as a stream-of-consciousness from the perspective of a third-person narrator, dramatization is more difficult than simply converting dialogue from the character's minds to their mouths. And yet this is the tactic chosen by McLaughlin. Thus characters relate (in third-person) information about themselves (and others), but seldom in terms of a dialogue. This makes it difficult for the audience to associate any actor with any character. Ultimately, this strategy drains the play of any drama, and the production becomes a reading of the novel with parts randomly (or what seems randomly) exchanged from one actor to another.

In all fairness to the playwright and to the director (Rachel Dickstein), these techniques do capture much of what it's like to read Mrs. Dalloway for the first time. But the production provided no insight into the novel, the only justification I know for translating from genre to the next.