Fresh from receiving five-star reviews earlier this year, Heather Alexander’s play Room, her unique dramatised interpretation of Virginia Woolf’s A Room Of One’s Own, is being staged this summer at Brighton Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe ahead of another London run in September. We’ve rounded up some of the show’s recent plaudits. Time to get booking!
Woolf’s fundamental ideas about gender, creativity and thwarted opportunity are explored in this highly recommended witty, fresh and provocative production, starring writer and adapter Heather Alexander and directed by Dominique Gerrard. During the 2022 Brighton Fringe, it runs at Brighton’s Rialto Theatre from 17 to 22 May 2022, presented by Emul8 Theatre Company.
Are you afraid of Virginia Woolf? It is 1929. An androgynous figure cuts a haunting shape in the shadows of Oxbridge. Scorned, ordered off the path; then refused entry to the library. Why? Woolf demands answers.
Room
Woolf prowls the streets of London at dusk. A thousand thoughts consume her. Why is it fatal for a writer to reflect on their sex? Who can measure the violence of the poet’s heart when tangled in a woman’s body? What if Shakespeare had an equally gifted sister?
Woolf unflinchingly interrogates the injustice she encounters. Witty. Relevant. Provocatively funny. Woolf slices through notions of gender disparity with an incisive mix of integrity and ironic charm.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is considered one of the most important English modernist writers of the early 20th century, in particular pioneering the use of the stream of consciousness narrative device in novels such as Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and Orlando. A Room of One’s Own, published in 1929, was one of her best-known essays and has provided inspiration for the feminist movement for decades.
Heather Alexander has played leading roles in the West End as well as Lady Macbeth and Titania. Other stage acting credits include Noises Off, Shirley Valentine Two into One, Annie Brassey, Two, Look No Hands, Are You Lonesome Tonight?, Butterflies are Free and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. She is also founder and artistic director of Hastings Fringe and Theatre Festivals.
Review highlights
