STC tackles Woolf's Orlando
Right: Jacqueline McKenzie. Photo by James Green.
Following recent performances in The Present and Children of the Sun, Jacqueline McKenzie is back at Sydney Theatre Company (STC) for the tale of time and transformation, Orlando, Sarah Ruhl’s adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel.
The wild ride spanning more than 300 years also features John Gaden, Matthew Backer, Luisa Hastings Edge, Garth Holcombe, and Anthony Taufa, directed by STC Resident Director Sarah Goodes, at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, from 9 November to 19 December.
Orlando (McKenzie) is a nobleman in the court of Elizabeth I who catches the eye of many, including the aged Queen (Gaden) herself. As his story unfolds a world of ravishing Russian beauties and Romanian aristocrats eventually leads him to a particularly debauched night in Constantinople and a long slumber from which he awakes transformed. Orlando is now a woman and she must find her way to her true self via a glorious journey of time travel from the 16th Century all the way through to the twentieth.
Inspired by her affair with the author Vita Sackville-West, Orlando is considered to be Woolf’s most popular and accessible novel and often cited as a feminist classic. The fantastical escapade was memorably adapted for film in 1992 featuring Tilda Swinton as the eponymous hero.
Director: Sarah Goodes. Designer: Renée Mulder. Lighting Designer: Damien Cooper.
Box Office: 02 9250 1777 or sydneytheatre.com.au
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