Review - Orlando: She Enjoyed Being A Boy

While Sarah Ruhl and director Rebecca Taichman haven't exactly made children's theatre out of Virginia Woolf's transgendering 1928 novel, Orlando (unless you approve of full adult nudity in your kiddie matinees), there are generous doses of playful whimsy in this well-mounted CSC production; though the playwright's approach seems to dilute the material's effectiveness a bit.

Presented as story theatre, Ruhl lifts much of Woolf's narrative text and has it spoken to the audience by a trio of fellows (David Greenspan, Tom Nelis, and Howard Overshown) who also take turns playing multiple roles in the story of an Elizabethan lad - one whose greatest pleasure in life, aside from writing poetry, is to practice chopping off heads in swordplay battles - who, after gaining "favor" with the queen, is set off on an extra-long lifetime of adventure (spanning four centuries), which includes multiple love affairs, a diplomatic mission to Constantinople and having his gender inexplicably metamorphosized into female. (He desires eternal youth and, in a twist, is "cursed" with having to live it as a woman.) While all the romance and sexuality in the story is, technically, hetero, this last detail winks at lesbianism (the book is said to be inspired by Woolf's relationship with Vita Sackville-West) that was covered up just enough to escape serious controversy.

Francesca Faridany, does very well in the title role; believably adventurous and naïve as the young Orlando who grows befuddled, curious and ultimately wiser in the ways of gender politics after his transformation. His romance with a Russian Princess, Sasha (a humorously exotic Annika Boras), set against the Great Frost of 1709, gives scenic designer Allen Moyer and lighting designer Christopher Akerlind one of several opportunities to elegantly transform the simple set; a large framed mirror hanging above a grassy platform.

Greenspan, a familiar and accomplished face in Off-Broadway circles, is given two highlighted roles to utilize his over-the-top comic talents; first as Queen Elizabeth I (Anita Yavich's clever costume makes him a life-sized paper doll) and a show-stopping second act bit has him as a rather unsavory Romanian Archduke/Archduchess (take your pick) unsuccessfully courting Orlando. Even in his narrative lines, Taichman has Greenspan on such a different level of realism from the rest of the company that he doesn't seem to be in the same production. Unfortunately, his seems to be the more interesting one.

Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Francesca Faridany and Tom Nelis; Bottom: David Greenspan.

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