The Royal Shakespeare Company has unveiled plans for a new season featuring ambitious adaptations of two novels separated by nearly a century of literary history. Co-artistic directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey highlighted the significant challenges posed by staging Susanna Clarke’s 2020 award-winning novel Piranesi and Virginia Woolf’s 1925 stream-of-consciousness classic Mrs Dalloway.
Evans and Harvey described both works as engaging with a long-standing theatrical challenge: portraying the inner lives of characters. The season also features notable performances, including Elizabeth Debicki in Richard II and Damien Molony in Coriolanus.
Tamara Harvey will direct Mrs Dalloway, with an adaptation by Zoe Cooper. Harvey acknowledged the difficulty of translating Woolf’s interior narrative style to the stage. The novel follows Clarissa Dalloway as she prepares for a party, while her thoughts merge with those of the guests. Cooper’s script aims to create a fluid experience for the audience, moving between different minds and historical moments.
Set to open at the Swan theatre in April, this production marks the third major adaptation of Mrs Dalloway to appear in England in less than a year. Kit Green recently toured a one-woman performance of the novel, and a new version by Holly Robinson is scheduled to open at the Yard in London in March.
The company’s decision to stage Piranesi alongside Mrs Dalloway underscores its commitment to tackling complex literary texts that resist traditional dramatic structures.
Piranesi on stage sounds eerie and dreamlike. I cannot wait to see how they handle The House.
Wait, a third Mrs Dalloway adaptation in less than a year? Aren’t we overdoing it?
Brilliant. Staging the inner life is RSC at their most courageous and necessary.