Photo: Lalo Jodlbauer
VIENNA / Academy Theatre of the Burgtheater:
ORLANDO
based on the novel by Virginia Woolf in a version by Tom Silkeberg
Premiere: September 8, 2024
Fooling around the plot
Virginia Woolf invented “genderfluid” before the term even existed. Her novel’s hero Orlando introduces himself to the reader as a young man in the 16th century as a favorite at the court of Queen Elizabeth I and ends up as the heroine Orlando in 1928, the time of the author and the publication of the book. Today’s trans issues, however, deal with sexual identity. For Virginia and her contentious friend Vita Sackville-West, however, it was a sociopolitical question of why they as women should be less valuable than men… although in the author’s time it was also about money, which women were often not allowed to inherit or own.
“Orlando” has been filmed, set to music and dramatized many times. The second premiere of the Bachmann era, the first in the Akademietheater, was dedicated to the Swedish director Therese Willstedt which, in a version by Tom Silkeberg, actually seems to have little more in mind than to recount the stages of the plot fleetingly and, in a sense, as theatrical fun with a lot of nonsense.
It begins with the fact that in front of light grey curtains (stage and light: Mårten K. Axelsson) Figures march up and down – the music (Emil Assing Hoyer) makes such a dramatic noise that you think they’ve come straight from hell. Then the actors line up on the stage – seven ladies and gentlemen, including two older ones. They all wear the same black, curly, half-length wig – all Orlando, or what? After five Hamlets, now seven Orlandos? But they are not differentiated; for the most part they just throw bits and pieces of the novel at each other, dressed in black.
This is, logically, an absurd work, even in the confusing events, due to the immortality of the hero/heroine, although many see the value of the book in Virginia Woolf’s reflections on England over the centuries. The plot is a real mess, and Orlando’s gender change in Constantinople is not explained by the author. A novel on many levels and undoubtedly a masterpiece.
In the Vienna performance, after an hour, one had almost given up hope that anything would happen among the flirting black gentlemen, until the director (Constantinople is colorful) decided to use some theatrical effects (why a swimming ring had to be part of it is not known), Orlando as a woman was then given appropriate clothing, crinolines appeared in the 19th century, and finally, after 110 non-stop minutes, it came to an abrupt end.
The actors usually work together as a collective, but occasionally individuals have a scene that stands out – Elisabeth Augustinwhen she discovers that she, Orlando, has become a woman; the grotesquely dressed Markus Meyerwho realizes that women’s lives are not all that pleasant; Sean McDonaghwhich may indicate one of the author’s critical passages and reflect on the Victorian era; or Stefanie Dvorak with the bold appearance of Marmaduke, who later becomes Orlando’s husband. There are also Nina Siewert, Martin Schwab and Tyrant Eye (which you notice the least).
Of course, the adaptation of novels to the stage can only happen intermittently (which is why one wonders why it keeps happening when the chances of success are so slim). How much of it those who haven’t read “Orlando” will get from it this evening is another matter. Not everyone else will find the interpretation as it is here convincing. Which didn’t detract from the applause – of course. But no one who didn’t know “Orlando” before should think that they know anything about the book after this evening. Read it!
Renate Wagner
