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    ‘Orlando’ Review: A Virginia Woolf Fantasy That Plays With Gender

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    In this revival of Sarah Ruhl’s adaptation of the Woolf novel, now starring Taylor Mac, the flashes of comedy can’t make up for the loss of poetry.There’s a slight pause and a knowingly raised eyebrow — enough to provoke laughter from the audience — when the title character of “Orlando” begins to introduce himself with this line: “He — for there could be no doubt of his sex.”But the play is set in a universe in which there is, in fact, doubt. And this Orlando is played by the protean writer and performer Taylor Mac, who delivers the line while cutting a resplendent androgynous figure in shiny red boots and white, vaguely Elizabethan garb.Sarah Ruhl’s play, in a revival that opened on Sunday at Signature Theater, is an adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s fantasy of the same title. Published in 1928, the book has traversed the decades as seemingly unscathed by time as its protagonist. When it starts, Orlando is a 16-year-old boy during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign. About halfway through, he abruptly wakes up as a woman, and continues on, barely aging, until the story ends in the Roaring Twenties. Orlando might still be at it somewhere, for all we know.In an era of questioning and rethinking gender norms, you can see why this tale would particularly resonate — and indeed we just can’t seem to quit it. In the past few years alone, the philosopher Paul B. Preciado explored his path as a trans man through the mirror of Woolf’s novel in his film “Orlando, My Political Biography,” Emma Corrin starred in Neil Bartlett’s 2022 stage adaptation, and in 2019 the director Katie Mitchell and the playwright Alice Birch offered their own take.Ruhl’s version premiered Off Broadway in 2010, and casting Mac, a shape-shifter of the highest order, in this revival’s main role is certainly a coup. Will Davis’s production, however, seems to think that’s enough.The show gets off to a clunky start, repeatedly breaking the fourth wall and using that device as a crutch. This may be an attempt to echo Woolf’s own distancing technique (she styled the novel as a biography), but it just comes across as broad, as if Davis didn’t trust that the text’s humor would still charm us. Mac is also a little tentative at first, which is odd for a performer known for boundary-crossing fearlessness. (Mac’s most recent creation, the musical epic “Bark of Millions,” paid tribute to queer figures.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Review: In ‘Orlando,’ Emma Corrin Straddles Genders and Centuries

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      In a freewheeling London adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel, Corrin plays a character whose emotions are as fluid as their identity.LONDON — The play comes perfectly matched with its leading player in “Orlando,” a freewheeling take on Virginia Woolf’s gender-bending novel that opened Monday at the Garrick Theater here.Neil Bartlett’s breezy adaptation of its 1928 source is playful, and ultimately moving, but the director Michael Grandage owes much of the production’s success to its galvanizing star, Emma Corrin, who made an acclaimed West End debut last year in the short-lived “Anna X.” Thankfully, this time, Corrin can be seen onstage for considerably longer; “Orlando” runs through Feb. 25.The fast-rising Corrin, who identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, has made headlines recently as much for their gender identity as for increasingly prominent screen roles. After winning a Golden Globe for playing Princess Diana in “The Crown,” Corrin starred in two films this season, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” and “My Policeman,” which was also directed by Grandage.Yet none of those roles has connected as directly to Corrin’s ongoing self-inquiry as the restless, century-straddling Orlando. “Being nonbinary is an embrace of many different parts of myself, the masculine and the feminine and everything in between,” Corrin said in a recent interview with The New York Times.Corrin has obviously spent some time with a question that Orlando asks rhetorically throughout the play: “Who am I?” We first meet the character as a young nobleman, born into Elizabethan-era luxury and a home containing 365 rooms. (The real-life inspiration for this vast property was Knole House, the countryside home of Vita Sackville-West, the author and socialite for whom an adoring Woolf wrote the novel.)But as time hurtles forward, Orlando barely ages and awakens one day from an extended slumber, age 30, as a woman. “Well, knock me down with a flipping feather,” says Orlando’s longtime housekeeper, Mrs. Grimsditch, in response. On the other hand, this loyal sidekick has seemed comfortable with gender fluidity from the start: “Ladies and gentlemen — no, sorry, everyone” she says in an early speech to the audience. The invaluable Deborah Findlay, hair disheveled but her sense of fun unimpaired, is a delight in the role.Corrin is more than game for whatever the play requires. This includes putting on and taking off Peter McKintosh’s ravishing costumes, to keep pace with the passing centuries.The youthful male we glimpse at the play’s start has an impishly androgynous allure, along with a gift for rewriting Shakespeare: “Shall I compare me to a summer’s day?” a glinting Orlando asks early on. But with age comes experience and exposure, not just to royalty (Lucy Briers makes a memorably stern Elizabeth I) but also to lovers and intimates of various genders and circumstances, including a bawdy Nell Gwyn (Millicent Wong) who tells Orlando, “For a lady, you’re really quite the gentleman.”Corrin is in full-throated voice throughout the vicissitudes of Orlando’s fraught love life — when Orlando’s heart is broken, you know it — and in moments when Orlando is taken over by fear. It’s not just that gender is fluid, we feel, but emotions are, too, and the play comes blessed with an actor who can project confidence one minute, and surrender to uncertainty the next. “Orlando” features a cast of Virginia Woolfs, who the titular character turns to to amend or amplify the story. Marc BrennerThe production features a bustling chorus of Woolfs, nine in all, bespectacled and drably attired; each of them adroitly handles at least one additional role, and sometimes more. (That supporting cast includes another nonbinary actor in Oliver Wickham, who plays Clorinda, an early crush for Orlando.)The sobriety of the author on view in this version contrasts with the vivacity of her creation. We see an anxious Orlando interacting with the lineup of women: “Come on, you wrote me,” she says, almost pleadingly, as if Woolf could posthumously amend the story. And yet the play sustains a spryness of tone.Bartlett’s adaptation is more of a sparky, affectionate pastiche, whether invoking another Woolf title, “A Room of One’s Own,” or handing a song lyric from the musical “Cabaret” — another show about shifting identity — to an especially ardent suitor, the Archduchess Harriet. (Richard Cant has particular fun with that role.)We get a synoptic survey of changes in women’s circumstances over time — I loved the sight of the Virginias producing teacups from their bags to signal the arrival of the Victorian era — and there’s a verbal lob in the direction of Britain’s governing Conservative Party that surely owes more to Bartlett than Woolf. But Corrin’s gorgeous performance lifts the 90 minutes, no intermission, well beyond anything resembling a history lesson or a night out requiring preparatory homework.“I once did love,” Orlando says wistfully, and the play leaves us hopeful that this mutable, mesmerizing character will find his, or her, or their, own way to do that again.OrlandoThrough Feb. 25 at the Garrick Theater, London; thegarricktheatre.co.uk. More

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      in Movies

      For Emma Corrin, Identity Is an Ever-Evolving Project

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      The British actor Emma Corrin knew that signing on to star in an adaptation of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” the racy D.H. Lawrence novel, would mean nudity and sex — and lots of it. They were even prepared to be wet, thanks to a pivotal scene in the rain, when the titular couple (Corrin as the lady and Jack O’Connell as the paramour) lovingly frolic naked. “It was that scene in the script that really drew me to the project, because I was like, that’s wild. I haven’t seen anything like that onscreen,” Corrin said.And yet, that sequence was also “the single most terrifying thing I’ve ever done in my life,” they said. (Corrin identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns.) There was no movie magic, no hiding behind camera angles and modesty protectors: It was leaping, dripping, fleshy full-frontal vulnerability. Watching the movie, they said, took “a lot of whiskey.”Corrin gamine-eyed their way to international fame and award recognition in 2020, playing Princess Diana in “The Crown,” their first major role. Though the settings are decades apart, there is a connection between the young Diana, contorting herself to meet an impossible ideal, and Constance Reid, an independent mind who marries into high aristocracy, circa World War I, only to find her Lord Chatterley dismissive of her needs. They are both “trapped women, searching for freedom,” Corrin said.Connie finds it in “Lady Chatterley” — it premieres on Netflix on Friday — through moments of sexual intimacy rarely depicted in period drama. (Masturbation under all those skirts!) Bringing that to the screen, “you know that you’re doing something that is taking up space that needs to be taken up,” Corrin said. “I felt emboldened, with this edge of, ‘Oh, this is a bit terrifying.’ That’s an exciting place to be as an actor.”Corrin opposite Jack O’Connell in “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”NetflixIt’s not a big leap from the projects and characters that Corrin has lately chosen to their own exploration of gender, love, power, and the responsibilities and costs of being heard. They are currently starring in the title role in a West End production of “Orlando,” based on Virginia Woolf’s gender-bending, time-traveling novel.Corrin’s ascent could have been simple: the English rose ingénue, who’s at home in flouncy frocks and looks as if they can blush on cue. (If only, they said.) Instead, Corrin has shared images of their experiments with chest binding and has changed pronouns twice, as their understanding of how they want to present evolved.“My identity and being nonbinary is an embrace of many different parts of myself, the masculine and the feminine and everything in between,” they said. They hoped only for patience, and for roles that encompass the full spectrum of individuality. “It’s hard to be discovering something in yourself at the same time you’re navigating an industry that demands a lot of you, in terms of knowing who you are,” they said.Dan Levy, the “Schitt’s Creek” star, is a friend who has become “a lifeline” for Corrin, as they put it. He said that the expectation, in the social-media age, that all facets of a star be accessible is dangerous, “especially as a queer person navigating your place in the world.”“You want to lend your voice to the conversation,” he wrote in an email, but “doing so comes at the cost of a sense of privacy. Emma has been really thoughtful about what they want to say and who they want to be publicly.” What he admired most, he said, has been “their frankness about not being entirely sure — that who they are is an ever-evolving internal conversation. I know that must be of comfort to many people who can relate.”The Return of ‘The Crown’The hit drama’s fifth season premiered on Netflix on Nov. 9.The Royals and TV: The royal family’s experiences with sitting for television interviews have been fraught. The latest season of “The Crown” explores that rocky relationship.Meeting the Al-Fayeds: The new season includes portrayals of the Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed, his son Dodi and his personal valet — who had all connections with the royal family.Republicanism on the Rise: Since “The Crown” debuted in 2016, there has been a steady increase in support for abolishing Britain’s monarchy. Has the show contributed to that change?Casting Choices: In a conversation with The Times, the casting director Robert Sterne told us how the drama has turned into a clearinghouse for some of Britain’s biggest stars.Corrin, 26, lives in North London, in a décor-jumbled flat (they have a penchant for Lego sets), with three roommates, friends from their school days, and Corrin’s doted-upon dog, Spencer. On a warm fall afternoon, they turned up for lunch in Manhattan in shorts and a sweater vest, with short platinum hair curled, a new style they quite liked. In the group chat with the roomies, they floated the idea of getting a perm. “It’s very Renaissance boy, which I feel like I channel in my soul anyway,” Corrin told me of the look.Corrin spent the summer in New York working on a new series.Josefina Santos for The New York TimesAbsolutely not, came the immediate texted reply: a photo of three blondes in a universal, arms-crossed, N-O. They are, Corrin said, the kind of friends “who know you so well that you can’t get away with anything, which is wonderful.”Their support network is robust, almost to a fault. Corrin’s mother, a speech therapist, and two younger brothers attended the “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” London premiere. “I did give them all the disclaimers,” Corrin said. “And it was, yeah, mortifying. I think worse for my flatmates, to have to sit next to my family watching it.” But they appreciated the film, Corrin added: “I got such sweet texts from my brothers afterwards.”Since their big debut, Corrin has worked nonstop — “I’m a stranger to breaks,” they said. “I’m bad at not doing anything.” They spent the summer in New York to film a coming FX mystery series and to be profiled by Vogue, the first nonbinary star to appear on the cover.Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, the French director of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” understood why Corrin — whose pronouns were she/they during production — is in demand. The star “has a quality of being here and now,” the filmmaker said. “She’s believable in the ’60s, in the ’20s, today, but she has this immediacy and the spontaneity that brings you back to the present with her, and that’s a very strong quality. The singular energy that she has, the way she talks, the way she moves, it’s always surprising.”Physicality is a big part of Corrin’s performances. They have worked with Polly Bennett, a movement coach and choreographer, regularly since meeting on “The Crown,” where they set out to unpack “Diana-isms,” Bennett said, like the princess’s signature head tilt. “When you try to look at it from an actor’s perspective, it’s to understand why Diana did that,” Bennett said. “Match the physical world to the emotional.”Corrin as Diana in “The Crown.” They worked with a movement coach on the character’s signature head tilt.Des Willie/NetflixOn “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” Bennett put the leads through “some really quite outlandish, abstract perspective drama school stuff,” said O’Connell, who plays Oliver Mellors, the solitary but sensitive estate groundsman Connie falls for. “And I don’t have drama school experience, so I was very open to it.”In rehearsals, the leads and filmmakers, along with an intimacy coordinator, Ita O’Brien, blocked out the sex scenes and found their boundaries.For O’Connell, who is from the same part of Britain as D.H. Lawrence and recognized Mellors as a familiar sort of local figure, the coaching helped him “sit with feeling uncomfortable,” he said. “Before every take, there was like an overwhelming sensation that I did not want to do it.”The rain scene, in particular, seemed to test everyone involved.For starters, though they filmed in and around an estate in normally drizzly, muddy Wales, “it was like the most sunny summer of the last decade,” said de Clermont-Tonnerre. Cue the rain machine.The scene, which comes late in the film and serves to amplify Connie and Oliver’s love and connection, lasts 90 seconds. (To skirt an NC-17 rating, de Clermont-Tonnerre had to keep all the most explicit moments trim.) It needed to feel spontaneous and joyful, a natural exhilaration in a verdant field.“That scene was so reliant on two people in physical abandon,” Bennett said. “You can’t just send two people out to do that. We choreographed shapes and moments, and how garments came off.”But much of it was improvised. “We’re in the field and we looked at each other, and I’d never seen my own terror reflected back at me so intensely,” Corrin said. “We were like, what do we do?”For one nude scene with O’Connell, “I’d never seen my own terror reflected back at me so intensely,” Corrin said.Josefina SantosOn a closed set of about eight people, with music blasting to pump them up, Corrin and O’Connell cut loose. “It was scary for all of us,” de Clermont-Tonnerre said. “And also liberating, in the way that we all wanted to get naked and go running with them.”And O’Connell learned to quiet his inner doubts. “Once you get over the initial discomfort and sometimes shock, something really exhilarating can stem from that,” he said. “And that’s quite rewarding.”Lawrence’s novel, originally published privately in 1928, was famously banned for decades, but after social mores loosened, it was the subject of multiple screen adaptations. De Clermont-Tonnerre wanted to ground hers in Connie’s perspective, as she leaves behind the rule-bound grand manor for earthier pleasures.Ecstasy, in all its forms, was what she was after. “I needed this version to be erotic and to actually glorify eroticism as an actual and vital need,” she said. “I want people to get desire, and to really get horny.”The kind of sexual awakening that Connie undergoes, “I think it’s at the center of a lot of our lives, definitely in terms of self-discovery — probably throughout your life,” Corrin said, adding, “I think that her determination to find something that is very genuine, and a real connection, definitely made me want the same. She’s brave in a way that really inspired me.”Corrin hopes that some of the boldness sticks with them in other ways. “I’m very bad at conflict,” they said. At work, when a request feels iffy, they call Levy for advice. “He’ll be like, that’s out of order, you need to say no and set a boundary.” (“Self-preservation is a team effort!” he said.)Getting angry, raising their voice onscreen, still feels foreign to Corrin. “I’m always worried that I’m not landing it, because I’m so unused to that feeling in my own body,” they said.Crying and having sex, on the other hand, “I can do all day.” More