A list of pronouns for each cast and creative member in this production arrives before opening night. It tells us that Taylor McClaine, the actor playing the show’s titular character, uses they/them, which feels apt for an adaptation of a story about gender fluidity from 1928.
Orlando reminds us that the idea of multiple selves is not a modern invention. Virginia Woolf’s hero who turns into a heroine during the story is also a time traveller. Woolf’s thrilling fantasy of liberation from time and gender constraints begins in the Elizabethan age and ends in the 20th century, Orlando voyaging through it rakishly, having affairs and heartbreaks along the way.
McClaine turns out to be perfect casting: arch, fresh-faced and puckish with a flame of red hair. This is a dinky version of the story that ekes out every last delicious drop of wit from Woolf’s text, as well as the voluptuous beauty of her language. It is an incredibly faithful adaptation by Sarah Ruhl, a feat in itself given the production lasts only 90 minutes.
Stella Powell-Jones’s intelligent direction gives the show a self-conscious sense of story-building. The book’s biographical voice is turned into joint narration between the five cast members, who double up in roles and include Tigger Blaize, Skye Hallam, Rosalind Lailey and Stanton Wright. Each is as sharp and mischievous as the next.
Initially it has the spirit of a parlour game but who can begrudge that when it is so smartly and slickly done? The drama becomes better as it loses the slightly starchy archness and builds on its joyful humour, which is sometimes delightfully physical.
Ceci Calf’s set design creates an almost childlike spirit of make-believe; there is a miniature version of a stage on the set, naively painted, with curtains swinging open and sound effects made by the cast at times (Roly Botha’s sound design on the whole is excellent).
Ali Hunter’s lighting design showers it with yet more magic and Emily Stuart’s costume design is profound. Orlando appears in Elizabethan ruff and knee-breeches at the start but then puts on period frocks and trousers. Despite their playfulness, the onstage costume changes underline not only the passing of time but also how feminine or masculine dress defines us. As Orlando says, it is the clothes that wear us and not the other way around. Femininity and masculinity themselves are, in this world, as slippery, unfixed and multiple as the clothes that are slipped on and off. “Who am I?” Orlando says towards the end, and then realises, ecstatically, that there is no single “I”.
Orlando is at Jermyn Street theatre, London, until 28 May.
