Byzantium Productions’ Orlando features two incredible actors – one male, one female – alternating in the leading role. We reviewed both of them.

Lily McIlwain enjoys Dominic Applewhite’s “masterful” take on the eponymous role.

★★★★☆
Four Stars

There were several layers to the feeling of trepidation with which I approached this production of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. To begin with, dramatizing Woolf just seems in many ways like a giant literary oxymoron; a play, in which things by necessity must happen one event after another, just doesn’t seem like the perfect fit for the works of an author who spent the greater part of her writing career trying to escape the constraints of linear time. Secondly, I wouldn’t say I’ve quite surfaced from my state of post-Prelims not-okayness, meaning most mentions of Woolf are enough to bring up vivid flashbacks of wandering up and down outside the M&S in Summertown attempting to learn notes on the aforementioned concepts (English freshers, you’ve got it all to look forward to). It was a relief, then, that this enthusiastic production neither butchered the work of one of the twentieth century’s greatest novelists (I apologise for the note of surprise) nor sent me screaming from the auditorium in a fit of no-longer-dormant post-exam fear; though it took its time to find its feet, this Orlando developed into a personal, thought-provoking, and profoundly moving piece of student theatre.

The play doesn’t have what you’d call a normal plotline to work with. Woolf’s semi-biographical novel centres on a young man, Orlando, whose life spans over three hundred years – oh, and, around the age of thirty, one day wakes up as a woman. This conceit forms the framework of Woolf’s celebrated exploration of how we construct our gender identity, a theme given fresh vigour by an astonishing performance by Dom Applewhite in the androgynous central role. Applewhite’s masterful interpretation ensured that the sudden gender change appeared neither ridiculous nor inexplicable – he perfectly captured the sense of the constant inner self running underneath the restrictions and expectations placed upon the outside body. It would have been a delight to have seen him in the role of Queen Elizabeth I, played tonight by Gráinne O’Mahony – the nuanced performances from both assure me that the play will hold its own with either configuration of actors.

Whilst this may be more to do with the subject matter, or the script drawn from Woolf’s prose, I have to admit that I didn’t click with the play from the very beginning. The opening’s highly stylized melodrama delivered by the onstage chorus just wasn’t the most welcoming entrance, and the cast appeared to move less organically together than they would later in the play (though this may have been as a result of understandable opening-night awkwardness). The production gathered pace and cohesion, though, with the chorus themselves playing a vital part in holding together a storyline that doesn’t exactly welcome dramatic staging. There were some exquisite moments from its individual members – the jealous attempts at attention-seeking by Orlando’s betrothed, Euphrosyne, drew well-deserved belly-laughs from the audience, while the scene in which the female Orlando is dressed for the nineteenth century was unexpectedly a comic highlight of the play, thanks to a jazz hands-infused turn by Benedict Morrison which was more than a little reminiscent of 30 Rock’s Kenneth (and for clarification, this is a very good thing).

Orlando’s transition to female marked the point at which the performance hit its stride, with the cast really starting to give body to the questions and deeper meanings raised by Woolf’s prose. It is a testament to both her and this well-chosen group of actors that the play feels like it could have been written yesterday; the way that Orlando comes to realise what is and is not appropriate to each gender feels astonishingly relevant to an era increasingly adopting an intersectional feminism alert to constructed gender roles (and their resultant impact on an individual’s sexuality). I found the ending of the play strangely disappointing (it seemed to just – well, finish) but this was made up for by the powerful preceding scenes; though not perfect, standout individual performances ensured this production of Orlando was one that stayed with me long after the (metaphorical) curtain went down.

Imogen Lester finds Gráinne O’Mahony’s take on the androgynous protagonist “an absolute joy to behold”.

★★★★☆
Four Stars

“Strength, grace, romance, folly, poetry, youth.” A wizened, stiff Queen Elizabeth I tells of the bright-eyed and whimsical young Orlando, the eponymous hero of Sarah Ruhl’s adaptation of Virginia’s Woolf’s 1928 novel. She also unknowingly perfectly encapsulates the spirit of Byzantium Productions’ take on this rip-roaring rollercoaster ride through five centuries, numerous cultures and the hero (and later, heroine’s) constantly fluctuating identities. The production delivers a constant sense of precariousness from its ever-changing setting and drastically evolving characterisation, ensuring the audience cannot help but be swept up in the sheer chaos and pace of this time-travelling, subversive romp. Orlando is riotous fun and unfalteringly erratic; deftly interweaving moments of self-reflexive comedy and the tragedy which arises from the protagonist’s lost love, deception, crises of  identity and the fragmentation of the self to form a gloriously diverse whole, which is somehow unified in its oppositions.

The Keble O’Reilly is immediately infiltrated by Orlando’s penetrating, dream-like quality, both mesmerising and unnerving, with the chorus, dressed from head-to-toe in white, making their entrance as a video of a germinating seed plays out behind them. This is well-executed, and neatly establishes the motif of evolution which the play seeks to portray. The set is stark and minimal; everything enshrouded in blank, white linen – stripped back, but to good effect, allowing the actors’ talents to shine through. Gráinne O’Mahony is an absolute joy to behold in the title role; her portrayal of the young Orlando with a lust for life and boyish wiles moving seamlessly to all-consuming ennui and raw emotion at the drop of a hat, as her character is duped by Florence Brady’s enigmatic and insincere Sasha. Her strained exchanges with Femi Nylander’s maniacal, infatuated Archduke over tea are situational comedy at its finest; exuding disbelief and mounting frustration.

Overall, the cast’s performances are wonderfully nuanced and fluid, which make the devastating moments of stasis all the more arresting. The chorus prove themselves dynamic and versatile, attacking the fleeting appearances of secondary characters for which they are responsible with gleeful gusto, from gurning, grimacing passers-by as Sasha and Orlando make their entrance to the carnival to Orlando’s jilted lovers and even forming parts of the set themselves.

The closing minutes have a tendency to feel confused at times, although the cast deliver with all their might until the very last, the denouement seems rather abrupt. As the lights dim and Orlando’s final words: “I’m about to understand” ring in the air, the intended closure is replaced by a sense of incompletion. Nevertheless, this ultimately encapsulates what Orlando is: transient, ambiguous, complex, but a production that will no doubt be in the minds of the audience long after they leave the theatre.

★★★★★
Five stars

Earlier this term, as I have no doubt you will immediately recall, I bemoaned the surfeit of First World War drama on stage in this, the conflict’s centenary year. I argued that this glut of like-minded sentiment risked provoking a compassion fatigue amongst audiences, risked depriving these productions’ subject matter of its fundamental poignancy through sheer inundation. “In a climate of commemoration, it is originality that ensures a play has a strong emotional impact”, I concluded, “It is the revelation of a new perspective on well-worn stories that truly engages an audience.”

I am pleased to say that a play with such invigorating vision has arrived. Regeneration, which is on at the Playhouse this week, is a dramatisation of Pat Barker’s trilogy of the same name. It concerns the patients of Craiglockhart Psychiatric Hospital during the summer of 1917, principally Siegfried Sassoon (Tim Delap) and Wilfred Owen (Garmon Rhys), and their various psychological developments under the kindly eye of Captain Rivers (Stephen Boxer). Managing to address multiple moral issues surrounding conflict with refreshing lucidity, whilst simultaneously treating audiences to a performance of genuine emotional integrity, Regeneration is a triumph — a theatrically sound, thought-provoking and subtle production.

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What Nicholas Wright has done extremely well in adapting Barker’s novels for the stage is to merely outline its moral discourse. Refraining from clumsily battering the audience with various socio-political commentaries, Wright instead drip-feeds moments of implicit ethical significance: a definition of the relationship between Sassoon and Owen is never attempted, but snatches of conversation reveal its complexity; another patient’s casual criticism of Sassoon’s anti-war sentiment only hints at the military’s fundamental bloody-mindedness. Wright nudges the audience down one path, before tentatively pulling them down another, gently hinting at a subtext but never doing more than is absolutely necessary.

Such delicacy, such dramatic shrewdness, provides the ideal platform for performance. The cast embrace an understatement, a refinement almost, one both appropriate to the era and to Wright’s script. All are, for the most part, economical with external expressions of emotion, yet without exception, all manage to convey a profound sense of inner turmoil. Behind his clipped accent, Sassoon wrestles with fierce personal demons. Underneath his nervous fidgeting, Owen’s conscience is conflicted. Rivers’ calm, twinkly-eyed exterior belies the crisis of conviction raging underneath.

At times, these inner tempests puncture through their composed exteriors. Sassoon hallucinates, Owen flares up in anger, Rivers lets out a solitary sob. These flashes of emotional colour are sufficient to maintain the piece’s visceral nature. They are regular reminders of the unbearable horrors of the war and they are masterfully realised. The shade of lighting shifts almost imperceptibly, the atmosphere draws closer, and the memories of abomination become tangible.

A set of supporting characters are similarly, if not quite as three-dimensionally drawn. Jack Monaghan’s arrestingly human portrayal of Billy Prior, a northern lad all too aware of his own mortality, is borderline show-stealing, however. His dry, monotonous drawl is just as endearing as Sassoon’s well-spoken earnestness, or Owen’s restless anxiety, or Rivers’ world-wearied good nature.

In truth, there are few characters that do not come across as thoroughly decent human beings, despite their impersonal uniforms; “You do a wonderful impersonation of a stuffed suit”, Prior tells Rivers. This universal good-nature is far from tedious. It lends the play an unexpected wholesomeness that, when combined with Wright’s laudably subtle writing, Stuart Earl’s contemplative score, Simon Godwin’s intelligent direction and a set of memorable performances, makes for a truly engaging production. Forget any misgivings about First World War drama, Regeneration is as compelling as they come.

Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, on in 7th week at the O’Reilly, is a bold and alarming exploration of the dark side of the American Dream, presenting the lives of nine individuals who assassinated or attempted to assassinate the President of the United States. It is a revue-style show, in which the assassins or would-be assassins meet and interact across time, inspiring each other to commit harrowing acts.

With a cast of ten principle roles, eight male and two female, and seven ensemble members, one of my initial questions concerned the logistical difficulties of the rehearsal process.

“The show is actually really conducive to easy rehearsals because it is episodic in nature,” says producer Emily Lunnon. “You can therefore really focus on the individual characters in each episode and work on their scenes specifically.”

Despite its dark and disturbing subject matter, the rehearsals I saw also illustrated the black vein of humour that runs through the show. In the musical, Sondheim bends the rules of time so that the various assassins interact in a limbo-like reality where characters that would never have met in real life have extensive conversations. For instance, in the rehearsal I witnessed, two woman assassins, Sara Jane Moore (Blathnaid McCullagh) and Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme (Heloise Lowenthal), both of whom attempted to assassinate Gerald Ford, meet and discuss their various motivations for wanting to kill him. In reality, the two women never met. Mediating the episodes is a balladeer, played by Niall Docherty, who narrates the successful assassination attempts and provides a defence of the ideals with which the other characters in the play are so disillusioned.

“It is really important to create individual characters in each scene so we’ve relied heavily on Twenty First Century uses of projection,” director Silas Elliott tells me. “For instance, we have the stars and stripes projected onto the back of the set during the play as well as images of the presidents who are to be assassinated.”

The different positions occupied by the different characters in time and space is reflected in a set that has multiple levels. “I thought that Assassins would really appeal to a student audience. We’ve taken advantage of the space to emphasise the ways in which the different characters in the musical occupy different spaces in time. There is a large deck surrounding the stage in a corner of the theatre and we have a viewing gallery on which the presidents are arrayed at the start and at which the assassins shoot.” Silas clearly relishes the thought of taking advantage of the O’Reilly’s large auditorium. He tells me that he was partly inspired to put on the play after seeing a production of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd there last year.

Meanwhile, music director John Warner has been responsible for bringing to life the musical side of the production. Sondheim’s music is based around American themes, which are taken out of their original settings and placed in ironic, sarcastic contexts. The different episodes of the play are also reflected in the different musical styles, embodying the contrasting eras in which the assassinations or attempted assassinations took place.

From the rehearsals I witnessed, this promises to be an exciting, thought-provoking and darkly funny production of one of Sondheim’s more controversial musicals.