Une chambre à soi

I went to see a stage production of A Room of One's Own last night. The good thing about it was that it was really nice to go out and see a play in Paris. The bad thing was that it was boring -- it was just Woolf's text read out loud and kind of acted out. The actress, Edith Scob, stood in the middle of a set designed to look like a cozy old British study with wooden desks, book shelves that reach to the ceiling and a really nice leather sofa. But, as my friend pointed out, she didn't do anything with this room of hers. She just walked around in it and made us imagine other rooms and other places (Oxbridge, British Museum, etc.). Scob's version of Woolf was also really annoying -- she made her shrill, fragile, and annoying. And finally, I wish the playwrights and the director could have imagined someway to make this text -- which is still relevant today -- actually appear relevant. They had us approach the text -- which dated itself Oct. 26, 1928 -- as an historical artifact, but the problem was that it (the text and the play) was trying to make universal claims about what men do (use women as mirrors) and how women should write (androgynously). But there is a way to make Woolf's text speak to a post-feminist audience. But it would probably require actual writing, not just transcription (ooh, damn).