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Resources for multi-media stage adaptation Waves

Posted in play, The Waves, Virginia Woolf, tagged Jane Garrity, Katie Mitchell, Waves on Sunday 22 May 2011| Leave a Comment »

On a regular basis, members of the VWoolf Listserv post queries. Jane Garrity, associate professor of English at the University of Colorado, recently asked for tips about resources for Katie Mitchell’s Waves, her 2006 multi-media stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s eponymous novel.

Today, she sent an email sharing the “wonderful suggestions” she received. I am posting them here, along with a National Theater video about the production itself.

The book, Waves, sold by the National Theater bookshop, contains many great photographs and the text of the production.
You can listen online to a Platform event podcast in which director Katie Mitchell discusses the production.
A resource pack on Waves by the National Theater’s Discover Department is available for free download. Download this file: Waves_workpack.pdf.
A research pack containing photocopies of the programme, approximately 10 national newspaper reviews and a small selection of production shots is available to purchase from the Archive for £7.00 (VAT and international postage included). To order, contact Suzanne Doolin, the National Theatre Archive Assistant, at sdoolin@nationaltheatre.org.uk.

Garrity also wrote that, “According to Suzanne Doolin, no visual recording of Waves is available now–though this is being discussed. She writes:`It is seldom that we release recordings commercially – filming a show to the standard expected by a group, or home viewing public, is an expensive business and is beyond our standard production budgets. Such filming must be carefully weighed with the fact that the works are created for a live and relatively intimate audience, cameras alter the nature of a performance.

“`We have made a number of commercial releases in the past in partnership with commercial distributors, and you’ll be pleased to know we are exploring the technicalities of an ‘educational release only’ phase as an initial step. With the huge popularity of NT Live, we are also considering the potential for later DVD sales of such broadcasts, however there are numerous legal, and artistic implications which must be navigated amongst the many involved groups and this is something which takes time.'”

Doolin said the National Theatre Archive holds visual recordings of all NT productions from mid 1995 onwards that are made available to view in the archive upon appointment.

Read more about the Mitchell production of Waves on Blogging Woolf:

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Virginia Woolf, Phi Beta Kappa?

Posted in The Waves, Virginia Woolf, Woolf sightings, tagged Doris Grumbach, The Waves, Virginia Woolf Phi Beta Kappa, Woolf quote on Wednesday 23 March 2011| Leave a Comment »

No, not really, I’m just making a playful leap.

I read a wide assortment of literary journals for the purpose of finding appropriate targets for my own creative nonfiction. Among them, though far beyond my present aspirations, is The American Scholar, the publication of Phi Beta Kappa.

A writer friend, my mentor and model, has the talent and the good fortune to have been published there a number of times, and I’ve found it to be a brilliant periodical. It’s no surprise, then, to come across Woolf in its august pages, cited twice in the Spring 2011 issue.

Doris Grumbach writes with wit and wisdom about old age in “The View from 90,” taken from her memoir, Downhill Almost All the Way, (ironic in itself, considering Leonard Woolf’s volume of autobiography, Downhill All the Way).

She tells of Somerset Maugham being asked to speak on the virtues of being old. He stood at the podium and said, “I cannot think of one,” then stepped down.

The elderly commune together socially to combat their segregation from the general population, Grumbach says, and notes that “In Mrs. Dalloway someone says that parties are held ‘to cover the silence.’”

Also in the issue is a collection of quotations on Patience collected by Anne Matthews. Along with passages from Marcus Aurelius, Walt Whitman, Garrison Keillor and others, she includes the following from The Waves:

“Certainly one cannot read this poem without effort. The page is often corrupt and mud-stained, and torn and stuck together with faded leaves, with scraps of verbena or geranium…One must put aside antipathies and jealousies and not interrupt. One must have patience and infinite care and let the light sound, whether of spiders’ delicate feet on a leaf or the chuckle of water in some irrelevant drainpipe, unfold too.”

These sightings that I stumble across, that seem to merge different areas of my life, are the ones I enjoy the most–they give me a sense of continuity and reinforcement. And as we discover repeatedly and see in the sheer numbers as well as the broad range of the sightings that Paula posts so prolifically, Virginia Woolf’s after-life is unending.

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A fresh new take on Woolf dust jackets

Posted in art, Mrs. Dalloway, The Waves, To the Lighthouse, tagged Behance Network, McKenna Kemp, Virginia Woolf dust jackets on Sunday 9 January 2011| Leave a Comment »

Artist McKenna Kemp has designed clean, fresh book jackets for three of Virginia Woolf’s stream of consciousness novels.

The white jackets feature simple typography. Their graphics — in yellow, grey and green — highlight the interior narrative aspect of the novels, as well as the focus of each. The artist says her covers for Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and The Waves also recognize the much earlier dust jacket designs by Vanessa Bell.

Kemp designed the jackets last April as a creative, rather than a commercial, project.

If you are interested, you can follow McKenna Kemp’s work on the Behance Network, which showcases the work of creative professionals, according to its website.

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Virginia Woolf’s New Year Resolutions

Posted in The Waves, The Years, Virginia Woolf, Woolf diary, tagged Virginia Woolf's New Year's resolutions on Monday 27 December 2010| 5 Comments »

Once again, Virginia Woolf has said it for me – her words expressing my mind far better than I can do it myself. Thinking about the new year and what it might mean for me, I thought I would see what Woolf had to say. I found two witty and wonderful examples in her diary.

January 2, 1931:
Here are my resolutions for the next 3 months; the next lap of the year.
To have none. Not to be tied.
To be free & kindly with myself, not goading it to parties: to sit rather privately reading in the studio.
To make a good job of The Waves.
To stop irritation by the assurance that nothing is worth irritation [referring to Nelly].
Sometimes to read, sometimes not to read.
To go out yes—but stay at home in spite of being asked.
As for clothes, to buy good ones.

January 4, 1936:
To read as few weekly papers…as possible [until The Years is finished];
to fill my brain with remote books & habits;
altogether to be as fundamental & as little superficial, to be as physical & as little apprehensive, as possible.

Five years apart, these entries have a common theme – reminders of what’s important: her work and well-being, an appreciation of simplicity. And that works for me too. Happy New Year!

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The Waves on stage in Toronto

Posted in performance, The Waves, theater, tagged Brenley Charkow, The Waves stage adaptation on Tuesday 1 June 2010| 2 Comments »

A new stage adaption of The Waves is playing at the Factory Theatre in Toronto, Canada, June 30 through July 11.

The Waves: First Tide is written and directed by Brenley Charkow. The Factory Theatre is located at 125 Bathurst St.

Advance tickets for both matinee and evening performances can be purchased June 15 through the Toronto Fringe Festival online or by calling 416-966- 1062.