Staged Reading: Virginia Woolf, Orlando

Staged Reading: Virginia Woolf, Orlando
Theatrical monologue based on the adaptation by Darryl Pinckney 

Virginia WoolfΆs masterpiece Orlando: A Biography has been variously described as erotic novel, existential quest, feminist thought piece, work of fiction or magical realism, satire, even as a political work, from its first edition, in 1928, to the present day. This multi-layer novel is unanimously recognized as the most emblematic one on the notion of gender fluidity, and as such, it has not ceased to enthrall readers and scholars for almost 100 years, while also offering inexhaustible stimuli to the visual arts, fashion, photography, cinema, and theater. At the core of WOW Athens 2025, two events are presented this year that are dedicated to this multifaceted work: screening of the documentary film Orlando, My Political Biography, by pioneering thinker of modern queer theory Paul B. Preciado, and a new readerΆs theater approach of the work by leading Greek director Roula Pateraki.

Roula Pateraki, one of the most distinguishable and distinguished figures in the Greek theatrical scene, is revisiting Virginia Woolf and presenting a readerΆs theater stage approach to the superb novel, based on the adaptation by  Darryl Pinckney and translated by Thanassis Hatzopoulos, launching the WOW Athens 2025 events. Pateraki first directed the work in 1998, at Aplo Theatro, with Mania Papadimitriou singularly interpreting the role, in a performance that left its mark.

Furthermore, Pateraki has taken on the form of the monologue on many occasions, both as a director and as an actor, boasting iconic performances that defy the barrier of gender. Standing out among them are her disguise as Marcel Proust for a special presentation of his work; the monologue WittgensteinΆs Nephew by Thomas Bernhard; The Philosopher by Giannis Panou, for which she earned the Karolos Koun Performance Award 2006; more recently, her dramaturgy and direction of Niki, Tonight at the Party; her performance in Loula AnagnostakiΆs leading work Deep Red Sky at the Athens Festival; her reading of T. S. EliotΆs The Waste Land in Eleusis; as well as a theatrical reading of MarxΆs Capital.

“In each of us two powers preside, one male, one female,” said Virginia Woolf. Her hero begins his journey from Elizabethan England, as a charming sixteen-year-old young man, and ends up as an attractive, liberated thirty-six-year-old woman in the early 20^th century. Over the course of these nearly 400 years, he/she will experience loveΆs passion and betrayal; live grandly as a consul in Istanbul; wake up as a woman and live with a Romani tribe in the hinterland of Turkey; return to England and enjoy lovemaking with both sexes; and marry a lord as Lady Orlando.

The novel is a deep reflection on gender fluidity and human identity, which Woolf said she wrote as an “escapade” from her work and dedicated to her lover Vita Sackville-West. The hero/heroine chooses to live as guided by experience and conscience. Through successive transformations of his/her person, times and everything around him/her, he/she seeks and eventually experiences happiness beyond any limit. The author abolishes the notions of gender and time, in order to imagine how wonderful life could be if there were no impermeable boundaries defining us.

Virginia WoolfΆs Orlando is rightfully considered a milestone work, spurring inexhaustible interpretations and exercising enormous influence, not only on WoolfΆs peers, but on all the arts. Typical examples are Sally PotterΆs film of the same name, starring Tilda Swinton (1992); the strong influences on the photographs of Cindy Sherman and Annie Leibovitz; and the direct references in contemporary works, such as the installation MS Orlando by visual artist Trisha Baga (2015). Moreover, thematic exhibitions highlighting the timeless influence of the work include “Orlando at the Present Time,” which was organized in Charleston (a property associated with the Bloomsbury Group, of which Woolf was a member) on the occasion of OrlandoΆs 90 years (2018), and the photography exhibition “Orlando” curated by Tilda Swinton in New York City (2019). The stage version of the work by Darryl Pinckney, which will be presented at the WOW Festival 2025, has been interpreted, among others, by Isabelle Hupert (1993) and Miranda Richardson (1996). Its second theater adaptation, by American playwright Sarah Ruhl, was first presented in 1998, while in 2022, Emma Corin was extolled as Orlando at the Garrick Theatre in London, in a new adaptation by Neil Bartlett, directed by Michael Grandage. In Greece, the work has been staged in theater by several directors, including Stavros Tsakiris, Lilly Meleme, Nikos Kamtsis, and Io Voulgaraki, the latter of whom also directed the reading by Lydia Fotopoulou in the SNFCC series “Faces of the Hero: Readings.”

Virginia Woolf, Orlando
Theatrical monologue based on the adaptation by Darryl Pinckney

Reading by Roula Pateraki.

Translation
Thanassis Hatzopoulos

ReaderΆs Theater Adaptation
Roula Pateraki

Musician
Nikos Veliotis

Roula Pateraki
Roula Pateraki first appeared on stage at the age of 10, as a child prodigy of the theater. A pioneer in the theatrical scene of Thessaloniki, she relocated to Athens in 1987, and is one of the very few women of her time who have been distinguished both as a director and as an actor. A great drama teacher, a bold director and an actor of unique stage intelligence and a rare comprehensive theatrical footprint, she has carved a dynamic path, boasting landmark performances in contemporary Greek theater.

This event is not part of the WOW Festival Pass 2025.

SNFCC Lead Donor: Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) 

WOW Athens 2025 Major Sponsor: Uber