Septimus and Clarissa

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Septimus and Clarissa, actress Ellen McLaughlin's new adaptation of Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway now at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, thrills occasionally. But the work more often drags along due to a too-literal script filled with long sections of descriptive prose.

McLaughlin tries to substitute these words as dialogue and has the actors speak these descriptions to each other. At first, it comes off as a slick device, but ultimately it distances us from the characters in a way that we're no longer invested in their fates, even Clarissa Dalloway, who's played by McLaughlin and in her youth by LeeAnne Hutchison.

Hutchinson glows as the younger Dalloway and in her budding lo[...]