Orlando review

First published in 1928, Virginia Woolf's Orlando spans three centuries and tells the story of a poet who changes sex from male to female. Roughly 95 years to its release, Antipodes Theatre Company present a retelling of Orlando as an electro-folk musical adaptation of Woolf's groundbreaking work.

Written by Rachel Lewindon and Willow Sizer, this reimagining is restrained yet ambitious. There is a focus on access and representation in the cast - both on and off stage - and the performers have combined their own lived experiences into the source material. This has been done with great care and attention to the narrative that feels like it belongs as part of the story and not just wedged in.

A Room of One's Own review

In her essay, Women and Fiction, Virginia Woolf discussed why women throughout history were so limited in achieving success in literature. The essay and the series of lectures it evolved into in 1928, remain a potent feminist examination on three areas: what women are like, women and the fiction they write, and women and the fiction written about them. 

In A Room of One's Own Peta Hanrahan has taken Woolf's words and adapted them for the stage putting her 90-year-old thoughts under a compelling new light. First performed in 2016 at La Mama Theatre, Hanrahan's production returns for a second season at fortyfive downstairs with four actors expressing Woolf's thoughts and ideas as if they were an internal dialogue. Hanrahan eloquently interprets these to present an intelligent and articulate conversation on feminism while ensuring a relevance to the contemporary world we live in.