ORLANDO (adapted from the original by Virginia Woolf)
Orlando was first produced at Classic Stage Company in New York City in September 2010, directed by Rebecca Taichman.
Excerpt
Orlando (played by a cis-woman, gender fluid or self-identified woman)
Sasha (played by a woman)
THE CHORUS
(may be cast without regard to gender and
may be double-cast.
May be played by as few as three actors and as many as eight, but
the author suggests a chorus of three gifted men to play all the roles)
Queen Elizabeth
Shakespeare
The Archduke/Archduchess
Miss Penelope Hartopp
A washerwoman
Favilla
Clorinda
Euphrosyne
A Russian Sea-Man
Othello
Desdemona
A Sea Captain
A maid—Grimsditch
A maid—Dupper
Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, Esquire
A Salesperson
ACT I: The Elizabethan Age.
SCENE 1: Orlando.
CHORUS:
The age was Elizabethan.
Their morals were not ours.
Nor their poets, nor their climate
nor their vegetables even.
Everything was different.
The rain fell vehemently or not at all.
The sun blazed or there was darkness.
Violence was all.
And, standing next to a large oak tree,
was a boy, called
Orlando.
Orlando jumps on a chair.
ORLANDO:
HE—
CHORUS:
HE!
ORLANDO: (to the audience—a conspiracy)
He—for there could be no doubt of his sex...
CHORUS:
Though the fashion of the age did something to disguise it—
Orlando raises his sword and swings it.
CHORUS:
Was in the act of slicing at the head of an infidel!
Orlando looks at the audience. “He” is surprised and a bit crestfallen.
Orlando is constantly surprising him/herself in the act of performance.
ORLANDO:
I do so long to chop the head off an infidel,
but I am, as yet, only sixteen.
Orlando looks into a mirror.
CHORUS:
sights exulted him—
the birds and the trees—
ORLANDO:
and made him in love with death....
Orlando looks at the chorus. They disperse.
ORLANDO:
I am alone.
CHORUS:
He sighed profoundly.
Orlando sighs profoundly.
CHORUS:
And flung himself
on the earth
at the foot of
the oak tree.
Orlando flings himself down in front of an oak tree.
ORLANDO:
And in his mind, image followed image:
THE CHORUS:
The oak tree was
the back of a great horse
that he was riding
or
the deck of a tumbling ship
it was anything indeed
so long as it was hard
ORLANDO:
for he felt the need of something
which he could attach
his floating heart to.
I will—
CHORUS:
Orlando thought—
ORLANDO:
I will write a great poem
about the Oak Tree.
CHORUS:
And he tried to describe—
For all young poets are forever describing—
Nature.
ORLANDO:
He wanted to match the shade of green
Precisely—
The green of the grass, the green of the grass…
The greeny greeny green of the grass—
CHORUS:
But green in nature is one thing
Green in literature quite another.
When—
(A trumpet sound)
A Trumpet Sounded!!!
ORLANDO:
Tomorrow.
I will write a great poem
About the oak tree tomorrow.
More trumpets.
Orlando leaps to his feet.
ORLANDO:
Orlando saw that his great house—
in the valley—
was pierced with lights.
CHORUS:
Coaches turned and wheeled.
Horses tossed their plumes.
And why did horses toss their plumes?
ORLANDO:
Christ Jesus!
ORLANDO AND THE CHORUS:
THE QUEEN HAD COME.
CHORUS:
Orlando dashed downhill.
The chorus dresses Orlando.
CHORUS:
He let himself in at a wicket gate.
He tore up the winding staircase.
He tripped.
(He was a trifle clumsy.)
He reached his room.
He scoured his hands.
He pared his finger nails.
With no more than six inches of
looking-glass and a pair of old candles
to help him, he had thrust on
crimson breeches
a lace collar
and shoes
with rosettes
as big as
double
dahlias.
He was ready.
He was flushed.
He was excited.
ORLANDO:
But he was terribly late.
He reached the banqueting hall only just in time
to sink upon his knees and, hanging his head in confusion,
to offer a bowl of rose water to the....
ORLANDO AND CHORUS:
great
Queen
herself.
SCENE 2: The Queen
The Queen extends her hand.
Orlando kneels before her.
ORLANDO:
Such was Orlando's shyness that he saw no
more of her than her ringed hand in water, but
it was enough.
CHORUS AND ORLANDO:
It was a memorable hand.
THE QUEEN:
a thin hand with long fingers always curling as if round orb or sceptre;
ORLANDO
a nervous, crabbed, sickly hand;
QUEEN:
a commanding hand, a hand that had only to raise itself for a head to fall; yes, the Queen had a hand—
ORLANDO:
—Orlando guessed, attached to an old body that smelt like a cupboard.
THE QUEEN:
Come.
Orlando approaches the Queen and kneels at her feet.
QUEEN:
The Queen studied Orlando.
She read him like a page—Eyes, mouth, nose, hips, hands...
By God! He has the shapeliest legs of any nobleman in England!
ORLANDO:
He only felt something press against his hair...
(The Queen kisses Orlando's hair)
CHORUS:
He had been kissed by a queen without knowing it.
THE QUEEN:
What is your name, dear boy?
ORLANDO:
Orlando.
THE QUEEN:
Orlando! And what do you want to be when you grow up, Orlando?
ORLANDO:
I would very much like to be a poet, your Highness.
THE QUEEN:
Ah, romance, folly, poetry, youth! I think you would make a fine poet, Orlando. And I have always wanted a gentleman just your age. How would you like to come to Court, Orlando?
ORLANDO:
To court—that's a very great honor, your Highness.
THE QUEEN:
Yes.
QUEEN:
The Queen plucked a ring from her finger—
The joint was rather swollen—
Orlando, I want to give you this ring. I hereby name you my Treasurer and Steward.
ORLANDO:
Thank you, Mum.
CHORUS:
And the Queen took Orlando to Court.
THE QUEEN:
For the old woman loved Orlando.
CHORUS:
Lands were given him
A great house assigned him.
QUEEN:
He was to be the son of her old age.
CHORUS:
And the flower bloomed and faded.
And the sun rose and sank.
The Queen leads Orlando to her bedroom and pulls him down among the cushions.
QUEEN:
I hope that you will stay with me always.
ORLANDO:
Yes, mum.
CHORUS:
And the flower bloomed and faded.
And the sun rose and sank.
THE QUEEN:
Shall we play a game, Orlando?
ORLANDO:
Yes, mum. What is the game?
THE QUEEN:
First you recite a Petrarchen sonnet on my eyes, and then I challenge you to an ode upon my feet.
ORLANDO:
Yes, mum.
THE QUEEN:
And if they are very good, you may kiss me.
ORLANDO:
Yes, mum.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate...
THE QUEEN:
That's enough, Orlando. I believe I've heard that one before. But it was very, very good, and you may kiss me.
She kisses him, passionately.
THE QUEEN:
This—
CHORUS:
The Queen breathed—
THE QUEEN:
Is my victory!
CHORUS:
And the flower bloomed and faded.
And the sun rose and sank.
Orlando sighs.
THE QUEEN:
What is the matter, Orlando?
ORLANDO:
Mum?
THE QUEEN:
Are you quite content? You don’t seem your usual self. Did you enjoy the parakeets from the Azores?
ORLANDO:
Very much, mum.
THE QUEEN:
Perhaps you are bored. Perhaps you do not play with boys your own age quite enough.
ORLANDO:
How could boys my own age compare with a Queen, Mum?
THE QUEEN:
That’s the spirit, Orlando.
SCENE 3: Man's Treachery
CHORUS:
The long winter months drew on.
ORLANDO:
Frost covered all the trees—
THE QUEEN:
And the nights were of perfect stillness.
CHORUS:
One morning...
THE QUEEN:
The Queen was getting dressed.
CHORUS: (dressing the Queen)
Your stockings, Mum—
Your farthingdale, Mum—
which was tightened
and fastened—
QUEEN:
Not too tight!
CHORUS:
until the Queen floated
as if on her own island.
THE QUEEN:
She powdered her face
CHORUS:
She was practicing a speech.
THE QUEEN:
My loving people. I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too—
ORLANDO:
When all of a sudden—
THE QUEEN:
the Queen saw in the mirror...
CHORUS:
Which she kept for fear of spies...
QUEEN:
through the door...
a boy...
ORLANDO:
Could it be Orlando?
THE QUEEN:
kissing a girl—
Who in the devil's name is that brazen hussy?
Snatching at her golden sword she struck violently at the mirror.
CHORUS:
The glass crashed.
People came running.
She was lifted and set in her chair again.
But she was stricken after that
and groaned for many years:
THE QUEEN:
Man's treachery.
THE CHORUS:
It was Orlando's fault, perhaps.
ORLANDO:
Yet, after all, are we to blame Orlando?
He was young, he was boyish.
He did as nature bade him do.
CLORINDA, FAVILLA and EUPHROSYNE:
It is certain indeed that many
ladies were ready to show him their favors.
(They giggle. )
SCENE 4: Orlando Grows Tired of The Queen.
Or: Clorinda, Favilla, and Euphrosyne
FAVILLA:
Favilla’s grace in dancing had won the admiration of all.
EUPHROSYNE:
The second, Euphrosyne, was by far the most serious of Orlando's flames.
CLORINDA:
And the third, Clorinda, could not bear the sight of blood, and the smell of roast meat made her faint. She took it upon herself to reform Orlando.
ORLANDO:
Orlando did not much regret it when Clorinda died soon after of the small-pox.
Clorinda falls dead to the floor. Favilla and Euphrosyne look at her, not a little pleased.
FAVILLA:
Once, however, Favilla was so ill-advised as to whip a spaniel—that had torn one of her silk stockings—beneath Orlando’s window.
ORLANDO:
I love animals.
FAVILLA:
Oh...
ORLANDO:
Orlando now noticed that her teeth were crooked, which is a sure sign of a perverse and cruel disposition in a woman.
I'm sorry, but I'm forced to break off our engagement forever.
(Favilla exits, lips trembling)
EUPHROSYNE:
Euphrosyne sang in Italian well—
(a snatch of a song in Italian)
And she was never without a spaniel.
She fed them white bread from her own plate—
(to an imaginary spaniel, in Italian)
Come here my darling...
Euphrosyne would have made a perfect wife for a nobleman such as Orlando—
ORLANDO:
I will have my lawyers draw up the settlements, darling.
Orlando kissed Euphrosyne on her serious white cheek.
CHORUS:
When, with suddenness and severity, came
The
Great
Frost.
SCENE 5: The Great Frost. The Russian Princess.
Sounds of wind and skates scraping against ice.
CHORUS:
Birds froze in mid-air
and fell like stones to the ground.
It was no uncommon sight to come upon
a whole herd of swine frozen immovable upon the road.
The fields were full of shepherds all struck stark
in the act of the moment
one with his hand to his nose
another with the bottle to his lips
a third with a stone raised to throw at
a raven who sat, as if stuffed, upon the hedge.
But while the country people suffered,
London enjoyed a carnival
of the utmost brilliancy.
(Music and trumpets.
Flowers fall from the sky.
A Great Spectacle.)
Frozen roses fell in showers when the Queen and her courtiers walked abroad.
Colored balloons hovered motionless in the air.
Lovers dallied upon divans.
The ice went so deep and so clear that there could be seen, congealed at a depth of a few thousand feet,
here a porpoise,
there a flounder!!!
ORLANDO:
Orlando was gazing at a frozen flounder five fathoms beneath the frozen sea...
An androgynous, captivating figure —Sasha—skates by in slow motion, circling Orlando.
SASHA (in a Russian accent) :
When a figure skated by him...
CHORUS:
Orlando, upon seeing the figure, shouted in his own mind,
ORLANDO: (shouting at the girl)
Melon, pineapple, olive tree, emerald, fox in the snow—
CHORUS:
All in the space of three seconds.
He did not know whether he had heard her,
tasted her,
seen her,
or all three together.
CHORUS:
And then the boy skated by—
for alas, Orlando,
a boy it must be.
Orlando looks at the chorus—incredulous.
CHORUS
Legs, hands, and carriage, were a boy’s.
No woman could skate with such speed and vigor.
ORLANDO: (To the audience)
Orlando was ready to tear his hair with vexation that this fine person was of his own sex.
He asks the Queen:
All embraces are out of the question?
The Queen nods.
SASHA (in a Russian accent)
But no boy ever had a mouth like that—
CHORUS:
no boy had those breasts—
ORLANDO:
no boy had eyes which looked
as if they had been fished from the bottom
of the sea.
SASHA:
The unknown skater came to a standstill.
ORLANDO AND THE CHORUS:
SHE WAS A WOMAN.
The blue background you see is a close-up of a tile from a production of Eurydice at Second Stage,
directed by Les Waters and designed by Scott Bradley.