The Waves review – superb staging of Virginia Woolf’s deep dive into friendship
Jermyn Street theatre, LondonDeft production follows six friends as they morph from truth-blurting children into weary midlifers in effortless and capable performancesRead Virginia Woolf’s experimental 1931 novel, The Waves, and...
By Lucinda Everett · The Guardian Culture
Jermyn Street theatre, London Deft production follows six friends as they morph from truth-blurting children into weary midlifers in effortless and capable performances Read Virginia Woolf’s experimental 1931 novel, The Waves, and the challenges of stage adaptation hit you like thundering surf. There’s its form: a patchwork of six friends’ highly lyrical inner monologues spanning childhood to middle age (no helpful dialogue or action in sight); a linchpin character – seventh friend, Percival – who doesn’t speak at all; and the small matter of replicating Woolf’s near-perfect expression of the human experience. But this deft production rises to meet them all. Flora Wilson Brown’s adaptation appoints Rhoda (Ria Zmitrowicz) – an anxious introvert who feels forever on the outside of life – as chief narrator, using her lens to focus the group’s disparate voices. Zmitrowicz is more than up to it, bringing sensitive introspection and wry observation amid the chattering rush of parties and babies and loss. Woolf’s most beautiful and revealing lines are woven into a naturalistic script that is by turns relatable, moving and extremely funny. “How can people bump into me on the tube […] and they don’t seem to know?” asks a grieving Susan. Meanwhile, the boys’ discovery of masturbation makes it “quite impossible to sleep” because “it is brilliant ”. Crucially, the script introduces dialogue, letting the group’s decades-long connection grow before our eyes. Continue reading...