Review: Mrs Dalloway at Storyhouse Chester

“…unsettling…will stay with you long after you have left your seat…”

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf adapted by Jen Heyes and Kit Green, Storyhouse Chester

By Melissa Molloy

Mrs Dalloway is not your typical night at the theatre. There is no big set reveal, no big ensemble, no wild attire.  What there is, however, is something unsettling yet interesting; a production that gets under your skin and stays there. I’ve come to realise over the years that there are plays you watch, and there are plays you feel. Mrs Dalloway, adapted and co-written by Jen Heyes and Kit Green, is the latter.

Based on Virginia Woolf’s novel of the same name, this adaptation wisely makes no attempt to turn the book into a conventional play. Woolf wasn’t really writing plot; she was writing psychology. She focuses on the interior life of her characters, the weight of memory, the anxiety of getting through a single day, and the small, insignificant things that often go unnoticed. The vision for this show leans into this analysis of character and almost does its own analysis of not only Clarissa Dalloway, played by Kit Green, but also Virginia Woolf herself.

The staging is minimal by design. Supporting characters, all played by Kit Green, don’t appear on stage at all. Instead, they are presented via short film footage on screens that either slide in from the sides or lower from the ceiling to sit against the back wall. It is an unusual choice, yet an effective one. These characters, by not appearing on stage in person, feel like they are obscured somewhere in the distance of Clarissa’s memory and are also just in her reality.

Costume-wise, Clarissa has two outfits across the whole production. That might sound restrictive or even lacking in creativity, but it works. One is for the organised woman the world sees while she is prepping for her party; the other is for when she is trying to portray the perfect host, yet we are let into her inner insecurities during the party scenes. Given that the entire play is essentially about the two sides of Clarissa’s personality, it works.

The themes in the play circle around anxiety, trauma, death, the creeping fear of becoming irrelevant, the question of whether the choices you made were really your own, and an overarching central question running through Clarissa’s story: am I good enough?

There is a dream-like quality to the whole thing. The use of the film screens to shift time, focus, reality and expectation is quietly jarring – the past intrudes into the present. It is definitely not a play with a clear beginning, middle and end, but life does not follow this traditional arc either. Instead, it feels like an array of fragments and feelings. I’ll be honest: it was not always easy to watch or follow, but I left Chester Storyhouse quietly altered.

What set the narration apart was how it refused to stay within the confines of the stage. Between scenes, Clarissa stepped out of the story and Kit Green addressed the audience directly. There was audience participation at points, which always has the potential to feel awkward, but here it felt oddly intimate. Kit Green also sang. Not in the full-throated musical theatre sense, but a more informal, cabaret-style way. It gave the whole thing a slightly surreal edge that suited the material perfectly. That, along with the moments of pulling audience members on stage to act out ‘party games’, made it feel as though Kit Green wanted the audience to be physically as well as emotionally pulled into Clarissa’s world.

Mrs Dalloway is not a play for everyone. But if you are willing to let yourself simply experience it and to open yourself up to feeling – rather than watching – the play, then it will stay with you long after you have left your seat. Go and see it for yourself and give it the attention it deserves.

Mrs Dalloway plays at Storyhouse Chester until Saturday 06 June. Tickets are available here.

Melissa Molloy is currently masquerading as a special needs teacher, having previously spent 10 years teaching English, media studies and drama. In her spare time, she offers editorial reviews, beta-reads and guidance to new authors who wish to self-publish their writing. In lieu of sleeping, Melissa often finds herself with her head buried in her laptop – slowly writing her first novel. When she isn’t drowning in work, Melissa can be found paddleboarding and kayaking in local lakes, usually accompanied by at least one or two of her four children.