Reviews

To the Lighthouse

This stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s groundbreaking 1927 novel simply cannot overcome its built-in obstacles.

Monique Fowler and Rebecca Watson in To the Lighthouse
(© Kevin Berne)
Monique Fowler and Rebecca Watson in To the Lighthouse
(© Kevin Berne)

Author Virginia Woolf shook up the literary world with her works that sought to accurately portray society, and within that, draw out all of its hypocrisies, injustices, and conflicts. She got her start with Mrs. Dalloway, but many might say she left her imprint with To the Lighthouse, the novel she penned in 1927 that defied conventional storytelling and helps usher in the era of “stream of consciousness” writing, in which bits and pieces of the plot unfold as each character’s inner thoughts are revealed.

So one must wonder why playwright Adele Edling Shank, whose stage version of
To the Lighthouse is now at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, has chosen to adapt a text to the stage that is bereft of almost every element often required of a successful live theater production. Unfortunately, it becomes clear almost immediately that the series of mounting obstacles Woolf’s novel poses for the stage are even too much for an accomplished playwright such as Shank to overcome.

Besides logistical complications however, the biggest shortcoming of Shank’s adaptation is its utter lack of warmth. So austere is this production, directed by Obie winner Les Waters and well acted by the company, that it makes it very difficult for the viewer to become engaged.

Set in 1910, the piece opens with Lily Briscoe (Rebecca Watson), an earnest painter and strident feminist struggling to crystallize the Ramsay family in a painting while vacationing at their summer home on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Standing on one corner of the stage, Lily laments the difficulties of capturing this family chockfull of quirks, nuances, and unclear relationships on canvas.

The action then turns to Mrs. Ramsay (Monique Fowler), mother of eight and doting wife to Mr. Ramsay (Edmond Genest), an insecure, albeit successful philosopher. The backbone of the family, Mrs. Ramsay knits stockings for the keepers of the lighthouse a short boat ride away from their holiday home. The lighthouse is also the fixation of her young son, James (Jack Indiana), who harbors a burning desire to visit the structure, but won’t do so.

From there, the story reveals a cast of characters each struggling within their internal worlds. Not that they ever tell this to one another; rather, it is only the audience that is privy to each one’s innermost thoughts and ordeals. One quickly realizes that this isn’t a play as much as an exercise in elaborate storytelling. Moreover, there is no natural rapport between the characters, making the cast disconnected from one another.

Equally troublesome is the tendency for characters to revert back and forth between the first and third person in telling the story, making it difficult to understand what is in the past and what is in the present. The use of back-to-back soliloquies — where all of the characters come together to relay to the audience their respective storylines — also makes the action and relationships quite confusing.

Also interesting if problematic is the choice of an incredibly sparse set design. Modern touches such as a live string quartet — which plays intermittently through the show’s first act and then almost continuously through the second — and large video screens that serve as backdrops for the stage do not inject a contemporary feel to the production, which is presumably the intention. Further, when Shank’s play transitions into a full-fledged musical, the progression is jarring and confusing.

In the end, Shank’s play becomes a lot like James and his yearning to get to the lighthouse. The point is within sight, but dreadfully out of reach.