Part performance, part lecture, A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN is a provocative and striking retelling of Woolf’s feminist essay.
October 1928. Virginia Woolf delivers two lectures at Cambridge University on Women and Fiction, which form the basis of her essay A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN, published in 1929. The subject matter, an examination of the role of women in fiction and the premise that poverty and sexual inequality impacts unfairly on women in the areas of intellectual freedom and creativity are revolutionary and are now regarded as a significant work of feminist theory. It is this idea that Dyad Productions explore in their own work, A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN.
Basing themselves on Woolfe’s quote that all a woman needs is five hundred pounds and a room of one’s own to be herself, Rebecca Vaughn, as Virginia Woolf, takes the audience on an exploration of these themes; comparing women to slaves in the ancient world, a compare and contrast exercise with Shakespeare’s imaginary sister right up to the impact the campaign for women’s suffrage has had on the attitudes of men towards the aspirations of women.
In 1928, it was the year with the Equal Franchise Act that women over 21 could vote, and a mere 58 years since women have been able to have their own money and property. Vaughan explains to an audience in Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness style that such advancements are all well and good, but here women are still stymied by place in society, by role, by aspiration and, most of all, by poverty. How many women have £500, let alone a room of one’s own? Still primarily regarded as “decorative” and homemakers, the thought of a woman writing is like a dancing poodle “rarely done well, and you are surprised to find it done at all”. Despite the works of Aphra Behn in 17th century Britain and her role as one of the first women to earn a living by writing, women’s writing is still to be dismissed.
Dyad’s back and forth over the accomplishments and restrictions of women in literature is mesmerising. Yes, the Brontes were published by female authors, but they had to pretend to be male to do so, just as George Eliot did. Woolf herself has by now had major works published and will see Orlando published in 1928. We are on the cusp of the “golden age” of crime writing, with Christie, Sayers and Mitchell all becoming well-known forces in the genre, but still, women writing is regarded with suspicion. Poetry is tolerated, but prose? Works about women are mainly written by men with all the attendant viewpoints that bring, and Vaughan, as Woolf theorises that one hundred years in the future, 2028, women will be coal heavers and writers. Equality will be achieved intellectually and financially – a moot point that further reinforces the idea of poverty and sexual inequality being linked to freedom even today.
The staging of this play is simple. A simple set of a chair and a desk littered with books, the sounds of life played in the background and the use of light to convey the passage of time, but it is, above all, the delivery of the subject by Rebecca Vaughn which stands out. Peppered with quotes from Woolf herself, it is part performance, part lecture, but an hour passes quickly with complex theories dealt with easily and in an amusing and informative manner. This is a provocative and striking retelling of Woolf’s feminist essay and engages the audience with theories on gender and equality in a humorous, deft and relatable way.
A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN run at Waterside Arts, Sale on 9 October 2022
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