Mrs Dalloway: Virginia Woolf's story of queer love and war trauma In new RSC adaptation
Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway gets a new RSC stage adaptation exploring memory, queer love, trauma and the lives of two people changed by war.
Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway is coming to the Royal Shakespeare Company's Swan Theatre in a new stage adaptation exploring memory, queer love, trauma and the hidden lives of two people living in post-war London.
The story takes place over a single day in 1923. Clarissa Dalloway, a wealthy socialite and political wife, is preparing for a party she will host that evening, but ordinary preparations repeatedly take her back into memories of her younger life.
At the same time, First World War veteran Septimus Warren Smith is waiting to meet his doctor. He is suffering deeply from the psychological effects of his wartime experiences, creating a second story that runs alongside Clarissa's.
Two lives connected by memory
Clarissa and Septimus live very different lives, yet Woolf gradually brings their experiences together. Conversations, memories and chance observations cause characters to move between the present and the past, revealing feelings that are rarely expressed openly.
The new adaptation by Zoe Cooper places that movement between reality and memory at the heart of the theatrical experience. Characters move in and out of each other's thoughts as the day progresses towards Clarissa's party.
The production also puts queer love at the centre of the story. Clarissa's memories of Sally Seton are an important part of her emotional history, giving the adaptation a way to explore love and desire alongside the social expectations surrounding her life.
When is Mrs Dalloway on?
Mrs Dalloway runs at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon from 16 April to 12 June 2027.
RSC Co-Artistic Director Tamara Harvey directs Cooper's adaptation, with the production bringing one of Woolf's most celebrated novels into a new theatrical form.
