A Room of One’s Own by Dyad Productions is at Prestonfield –The Marquee (Venue 105) from 18 to 25 August, and if you have any interest in the works of Virginia Woolf, the struggle of women across the centuries for financial and artistic freedoms, or just a tightly scripted and wonderfully performed work of theatre that passes all too quickly in time, then this could be the show for you.
Over the years, I have always tried not to miss any work that Dyad Productions brought to the Fringe and one big reason for that is Rebecca Vaughan and her chameleon-like ability to become so many different people, so many different personalities on-stage, and today her performance as Virginia Woolf was simply another masterclass in performing a solo show on-stage to a live audience.
“A Room of One’s Own” is based around the published version of two lectures that the author Virginia Woolf had given to various women’s colleges in 1928. Written within a decade of women gaining the right to vote (even then a limited right), Virginia Woolf speaks again through Rebecca Vaughan who asks many questions about how women have been portrayed in the arts throughout the centuries and how this often conflicts with a woman’s legal status, educational opportunities and, perhaps most of all, their ability to generate an income of their own completely independent of any men.
Rebecca Vaughan has a gift for not only making any character that she performs believable, but also for absorbing any audience into the world that she is creating using only words, her performance skills and the most minimal of stage sets. There is a carefully constructed background audio soundscape to this performance, but you have to listen very closely at times to realise it is there, as it is very subtle and used sparingly.
Virginia Woolf/Rebecca Vaughan is, during this performance, inviting everyone to guess at how the world will have changed for women 100 years forward in 2028. We are so close to that date that I wonder just how she would have reacted. A mixture of sheer delight and sheer disappointment I think would have been her reactions.
On the 7th of September I had the privilege of being taken as a guest on press night to see A Room of One's Own at the Malting's Theatre in St Albans, produced by Dyad Productions.
This was an hour-long, one-woman show, derived from Virginia Woolf's 1928 exploration of women, poverty, literature and art throughout history. I'll admit now - I went in blind. I knew nothing of the show, the company or the writers so I had no expectations to be wowed. But this show did so much more than wow. It silenced me entirely.
From the outset, Vaughan gripped us with her charm and confidence. As an audience we knew that we were in safe hands and that we'd understand this story being told to us. Vaughan didn't miss a single beat.
Powerful message
It's hard to formulate exactly what I thought of this show, purely because it's the first time I have walked away from a piece of theatre feeling like it has actually changed me - or rather, woken me up.
Woolf's dramatized exploration of how few women there are in art throughout history was almost like a sad song, before morphing into a call to arms. Hearing out loud, in such an eloquent way, that women are all but non-existent in the history books - unless spoken about in relation to men - was utterly heart-breaking.
The silence in the auditorium was palpable as every single one of us realised the gravity of what we were being told. For centuries women were possessions - objects of intrigue and fascination - not people with the ability to feel and create and destroy as they saw fit.
Despite the sadness of this initial message, there was no sadness in the character of Virginia Woolf on stage before us. The most fitting term would be a fire in her belly. Vaughan could have chosen to be melancholic, she could have mourned all of the lost work of these women but she didn't. Instead, she kept us moving forward, and excited for the conclusions she was going to draw.
She quickly established the connection between creative freedom and financial security, and therefore established that because women were not financially independent, they could not be creatively free. This revelation turned the mirror on us as the audience. The first thought in my head was "how privileged I am to be in a position where I can create". This related directly to something repeated through the whole show - "all you need is £500 a year and a room of one's own". (I may be paraphrasing but the sentiment remains).
Freedom to create
One of the main points raised in the show was that despite many artists distaste for material things and money - every artist needs those material things and money to be able to be truly creative and free. And despite the feminist-leaning nature of the show, this is a non-gendered sentiment. It became something to really reflect on - how many glorious stories are going untold because the authors do not have the means to explore that side of themselves? How many songs not sung? How many paintings not painted? How many stages empty of performers?
My favourite part of the show was when the idea of Shakespeare's fictional sister was introduced, named Judith. She had all the same natural born talents and inclinations as him but, as a woman in the 1500s, was not afforded the same privileges as he was. Forced to live out her life as a housewife, she became sad and eventually took her own life - only memorialised on her tombstone as someone else's wife.
The final build of the show centred around the resurrection of Judith Shakespeare, and how female-identifying writers today can honour her memory by doing the things that she couldn't do. Vaughan presented this in such a way that it truly felt like a call to arms, and I personally felt a great sense of responsibility fall onto my shoulders.
Even if we do not become the greatest writers that ever lived, as women and female-identifying people, we have a duty to honour those that had their voices silenced before us. And this isn't about going out and protesting in the streets; it's about being authentic and independent and creative. Allowing ourselves to channel the spirits of the huge sisterhood of creative women over the centuries and creating our own art.
Reflections
I think one of the most poignant things about this show that will forever stay with me was the quiet reflectiveness with which we left the theatre. Although Vaughan had rallied us to be the people that we dream of being, there was also the lingering knowledge of women being used as toys in literature and a means to ensure the creation of more men.
Due to the nature of the show the audience was about 95% female. My partner was one of the only men there and one of the things he said to me as we left made me realise how important this piece of theatre actually was.
He was very quiet as we left which initially led me to thinking he hadn't enjoyed it, but he informed me that he was trying to formulate into words how he was feeling. He said to me that it had made him realise how badly he himself had been writing women and how he still had plenty of blind spots to navigate when it came to his writing.
I've spoken a lot about the thoughts and feelings that this show conjured in me, and I think that is a massive credit to the show itself, and in particular to Rebecca Vaughan. The story was so engaging, and Vaughan was exciting to watch, she had such a strong charisma and charm and was so easy to understand.
Honestly I have to say this is by far the best one-person show I have ever seen and the sense of passion and understanding that I left it with was utterly unparalleled.
Rebecca Vaughan’s adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 Cambridge lectures is a brilliant production. Her script and performance are extraordinary – a sixty-five-minute monologue which keeps the audience enthralled to the very last moment is no slight achievement. Her words, costume, gestures, in fact, everything takes us back to 1928. Then she transports the audience to 2028 with a vision of what creative women’s lives a century hence might be like.
Along the way we meet the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen and Aphra Behn who was one of very few women who managed to make a living by her writing. We hear of George Elliott (Mary Ann Evans), who lived openly with the married writer George Lewes which provided her with the freedom to write but scandalised Victorian society by which she was shunned. Vaughan compares this to society’s reaction to Tolstoy’s many affairs, even an illegitimate child, which drew no opprobrium. The straight-jacket of acceptable female behaviour for middle class women prohibited them from gaining the sort of knowledge and experience which drove and inspired male writers like Tolstoy.
The section on Shakespeare’s mythical sister Judith, from Woolf’s original essays, was especially thought-provoking. What might have been possible if Judith’s similar gifts had been developed? But she would be offered no opportunity. No school for her. Betrothed as a teenager. Beaten (quite legally) by her father when she objected. Ran away to London and finds herself pregnant by the only actor-manager who did not laugh at her ambition. In the end, she kills herself.
The production is very timely in an era where funding for all types of creative pursuits is rapidly diminishing. The opportunities for all practitioners are disappearing but women are particularly affected because, even almost a century after Woolf’s original essays, Vaughan shows us how poverty and gender inequality still stifle women’s creativity.
October 1928. Virginia Woolf delivers two lectures at Cambridge University on Women and Fiction, which form the basis of her essay A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN, published in 1929. The subject matter, an examination of the role of women in fiction and the premise that poverty and sexual inequality impacts unfairly on women in the areas of intellectual freedom and creativity are revolutionary and are now regarded as a significant work of feminist theory. It is this idea that Dyad Productions explore in their own work, A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN.
Basing themselves on Woolf's quote that all a woman needs is five hundred pounds and a room of one's own to be herself, Rebecca Vaughan, as Virginia Woolf, takes the audience on an exploration of these themes; comparing women to slaves in the ancient world, a compare and contrast exercise with Shakespeare's imaginary sister right up to the impact the campaign for women's suffrage has had on the attitudes of men towards the aspirations of women.
In 1928, it was the year with the Equal Franchise Act that women over 21 could vote, and a mere 58 years since women have been able to have their own money and property. Vaughan explains to an audience in Woolf's stream-of-consciousness style that such advancements are all well and good, but here women are still stymied by place in society, by role, by aspiration and, most of all, by poverty. How many women have £500, let alone a room of one's own? Still primarily regarded as "decorative" and homemakers, the thought of a woman writing is like a dancing poodle "rarely done well, and you are surprised to find it done at all". Despite the works of Aphra Behn in 17th century Britain and her role as one of the first women to earn a living by writing, women's writing is still to be dismissed.
Dyad's back and forth over the accomplishments and restrictions of women in literature is mesmerising. Yes, the Bronte's were published by female authors, but they had to pretend to be male to do so, just as George Eliot did. Woolf herself has by now had major works published and will see Orlando published in 1928. We are on the cusp of the "golden age" of crime writing, with Christie, Sayers and Mitchell all becoming well-known forces in the genre, but still, women writing is regarded with suspicion. Poetry is tolerated, but prose? Works about women are mainly written by men with all the attendant viewpoints that bring, and Vaughan, as Woolf theorises that one hundred years in the future, 2028, women will be coal heavers and writers. Equality will be achieved intellectually and financially - a moot point that further reinforces the idea of poverty and sexual inequality being linked to freedom even today.
The staging of this play is simple. A simple set of a chair and a desk littered with books, the sounds of life played in the background and the use of light to convey the passage of time, but it is, above all, the delivery of the subject by Rebecca Vaughan which stands out. Peppered with quotes from Woolf herself, it is part performance, part lecture, but an hour passes quickly with complex theories dealt with easily and in an amusing and informative manner. This is a provocative and striking retelling of Woolf's feminist essay and engages the audience with theories on gender and equality in a humorous, deft and relatable way.
A Passionate performance: this is a glorious adaptation - thrilling an utterly captivating.
The award-winning Dyad Productions return to the York Theatre Royal with their latest offering, a twenty-first century take on Virginia Woolf's celebrated pre-TED talk. Here, actor Rebecca Vaughan performs Woolf's 1928 exploration of the impact of poverty and sexual inequality on intellectual freedom and creativity.
The dialogue is colourful, as crisp as an autumnal morning. Vaughan lectures her listeners with an often humorous case study on women and literature. Quintessentially British but with an air of maddening charm, she delivers this one act monologue with a gutsy intelligence. The audience in the packed out studio theatre listen in and are fully invested in her Cliff Notes with themes still pertinent today.
This relevant examination of women is played out with a sense of urgency. Vaughan commands the space with strong physicality and poise reminiscent of Woolf; a passionate performance.
The subject is fully explored in essay-style storytelling, the spectators fully invested in the action and listen intently as the themes are explored.
Poetical history dictates that, in literature and plays, women are colourful characters but as Woolf reminds us this is nothing but fiction and fantasy. Such women (especially those with little wealth) are almost absent from history. There's plenty of pause for thought here, an intimate but utterly thrilling interpretation of Woolf's work. She was, after all, possessed with a complex but brilliant mind; compelling and purposeful.
As one would expect from Woolf, the writing is wordy but it is far from heavy. Vaughan never misses a beat as the rhythm of the work flows so brilliantly.
Woolf sadly took her own life in 1941 but the memory of her novels, essays and ramblings have never felt so pertinent in this passionate interpretation of the literary genius. This is a glorious adaptation - thrilling and utterly captivating.
This one act, one woman masterclass runs at just over an hour and 60 minutes never passed so quickly.
In this age of TED talks and podcasts, Rebecca Vaughan’s passionate transformation of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own into a theatrical monologue is perhaps the perfect form to bring this feminist classic to contemporary audiences. In this age of TED talks and podcasts, Rebecca Vaughan’s passionate transformation of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own into a theatrical monologue is perhaps the perfect form to bring this feminist classic to contemporary audiences.
Since its original publication in 1929, Woolf’s long-form essay on the economic and educational barriers confronting women and their impact on artistic freedom and creativity has become a foundational feminist text. If you think the previous sentence sounds a little dry, you will be astonished by the vitality Vaughan infuses into this work as she brings the history of women’s artistic oppression to life.
As the performance begins, the stage is bare but for a single chair and a small desk stacked with hardbacks. Vaughan enters, dressed in the unassuming attire of an Edwardian bluestocking. Using the structure and central arguments of Woolf’s famous essay, Vaughan brings the words to life, passionately making the case that women writers need the freedom to think and explore their craft without interruption. And to do this they need financial independence. As Woolf’s own experience demonstrates, an income of £500 a year and a room of her own are the essential factors granting her the intellectual and financial liberty to write.
Putting forward Woolf’s analysis and arguments with clarity and without stridency, Vaughan carries us along as Virginia Woolf strides through the quadrangles of an Oxbridge University, dines, chats with friends, conducts research in a London museum and gazes from the window of her home. All the thoughts, musings and analyses that form the core of the text of A Room of One’s Own are translated into a passionate spoken-word exploration of the factors historically holding women back and the slow amplification of women’s voices in literary history.
It’s utterly compelling. Vaughan guides us through Woolf’s identification of the barriers historically facing women (some heartbreaking, some laughable) before laying out the major voices in the history of women’s writing. From musing about the hypothetical existence of Shakespeare’s equally talented sister, through the much-maligned female poets of the 1600s, Vaughan celebrates the career of the first female writer to support herself and her family through her art: Aphra Behn.
While listening to Vaughan give voice to Woolf’s almost century-old concerns, it would be a grave mistake to think these passionate arguments about women’s access to education or financial independence are outdated or no longer valid. Pay inequality is a current issue with Australia’s gender pay gap still at almost 12% in 2024.
Vaughan is captivating, her delivery of this hour-long monologue flawless as she paces the stage, occasionally dipping into the books on the desk for pithy quotes. Beneath the faultless execution, the writing of this piece was an unsung champion. The distillation of Woolf’s words without any loss of the vitality or cadence of the original was itself a work of art.
If you’ve yet to read Woolf’s classic text (or even if you have) this is a glorious way to encounter one of literature’s great treasures.
Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Saturday 22nd February 2025.
Dyad Productions presents the second of its three productions for this year’s Fringe, with Rebecca Vaughan, directed by Andrew Margerison, in A Room of One’s Own, based on the September 1929 essay drawn from two talks on Women and Fiction, given by Virginia Woolf to the Newnham Arts Society at Newnham College, and the ODTAA Society (One Damn Thing After Another) at Girton College, Cambridge University, in October 1928.
Vaughan has used this extended essay as the basis of her script, recreating much of those two talks, and she takes on the role of Virginia Woolf in an energetic and enthusiastic performance. Her use of body language adds much to the spoken part of the performance. A chair, and a desk littered with books, form the setting, but Vaughan makes use of the entire stage, returning only to sip from a glass and occasionally pick up books from which she extracts quotations to support her argument.
The basic premise is that a woman “must possess £500 a year and have a room of her own” if she wants to become a writer. The history of women, going back over several centuries, shows that such a situation is a relatively recent possibility. Not too long ago, only men went to university as it was felt that women needed no education to look after a husband, children, and the home. They had no possessions of their own, and any money they might earn belonged to the husband. They certainly lacked any private space.
Woolf posited that if Shakespeare had had a sister, the fictional Judith, equally as gifted as William, and one was to compare their two lives, he having the freedom to do whatever he wanted, and her restricted by being a woman, it could be seen why she would never have produced works such as his, even though she had the potential.
Vaughan assumes the mantle of Woolf, engaging, not only with the text, but with every emotion behind the words. She makes a strong connection with the audience by treating them as those who attended Woolf’s talks, making eye contact and speaking directly to individuals, or to the audience as a whole. This is a highly effective strategy that ensures the audience gains an extra level of involvement with the performance.
Vaughan gives a wonderful performance as the iconic writer and philosopher, conveying Woolf’s thoughts and conclusions with clarity through a thoroughly committed characterisation. Every move, every gesture, every facial expression, is important, and not a word is wasted. It is a master class in acting.
It has been too many years since Rebecca Vaughan appeared at our Fringe, performing only a few metres away at what was then Higher Ground, a venue long gone, sadly. We can only hope that we do not have to wait so long to see her here again.
‘A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction’ says Virginia Woolf, as part of her talk given to two female colleges at the University of Cambridge in 1928. Rebecca Vaughan is Woolf, delivering a TED-talk long before they were a thing, about the challenges facing women in society – particularly creative and intellectual women, who legally still needed a man for many things now independent of gender.
Dyad Productions have a strong pedigree in presenting dramatisations on historical figures such as Elizabeth I, Jane Austen’s women and now Woolf’s famous essay/book from a hundred years ago. It’s delivered simply, as a monologue, with simple period costume, minimal props and relying instead on the strong and powerful words lifted from that famous publication.
Vaughan delivers an incredible hour, never missing a step as she inhabits Virginia and gives us the context and personal philosophy of how the world could work. It’s a dense treatise, but rarely does it do anything but hold the attention, discussing her personal experiences of being told that as a woman, she was not permitted to go into the library, and the differences between the lunches at indulgent male colleges compared to those much plainer held at female establishments.
Vaughan/Woolf argues that without the same access to education, there is no opportunity to write; she speculates that if Shakespeare had a sister (whom Woolf called Judith), then even with the same innate talent, she would never have been permitted to be as successful as William.
Vaughan brings to life the words of Woolf with passion and humour, and with hopeful references to what the world will be like in a hundred years (2028, three years from now).
An intellectual hour for fans of Virginia Woolf, expertly performed by Rebecca Vaughan.
In September 1929, Virginia Woolf wrote "It is a perennial puzzle why no women wrote a word of that extraordinary literature when every other man, it seemed, was capable of song or sonnet." 83 years later, Rebecca Vaughan uses this exact concept - taken from Woolf's essay A Room of One's Own - to open her own theatrical performance, inspired by Woolf's work.
To answer her own "perennial puzzle," Woolf explains that women must have £500 and, as her essay title indicates, a room of their own, to live independently and write. Using Woolf's very relevant but academic work, Vaughan transforms Woolf's essay into a digestible yet still incredibly important and informative performance.
Formatted as Woolf's own 'TED- Talk', Vaughan successfully emulates Woolf's exploration of the impact of poverty and sexual inequality on intellectual freedom and creativity in her production, which she both wrote and performed.
The simple set of Woolf's writing desk littered with books created an intimate setting in which Vaughan lectured her listeners on a trip through the history of literature, creativity and sexual politics.
In her one-act monologue time was used efficiently as Vaughan listed the successes that women can achieve when they are allowed to write. Starting from the beginning with Margaret Cavendish and Aphra Behn, we were told how flowers should fall on Behn's grave; she gave women the space to write by proving that women could make a living through their writing.
Vaughan then described some of our familiar friends throughout literature including Becky Sharp, Anna Karenina, the Duchess of Malfi, and Lady Macbeth who are all women that certainly do not lack character. This led Vaughan to persuasively describe Woolf's fictitious persona of Judith Shakespeare, the famous playwright William Shakespeare's sister, to explain how women writers have been excluded from the literary canon.
Such a pertinent examination of women in literature was splendidly performed by Vaughan who commanded the stage, creating a perfect balance of passion and urgency. Intelligent and provoking, Vaughan's solo show was definitely not one to miss.
Inspirational A Room of One's Own lets women's creative voices be heard.
The inspirational performance of 'A Room of One's Own', was the perfect way for the Open House Festival to return to Bangor Space Theatre after a three-year hiatus.
The covid-19 health crisis may have put paid to stunning actor Rebecca Vaughan and Dyad Productions performing in 2020 but this week's audience will agree it was well worth the wait. With a performance time of just over an hour, this was an enthralling performance by Vaughan in her one-woman show that was enlightening, disturbing at times and ultimately inspiring.
As the award winning creators of 'Female Gothic', 'I, Elizabeth', 'Christmas Gothic' and 'Austen's Women', this was a 21 st century take on Virginia Woolf's celebrated pre-Ted talk. 'A Room of One's Own' is a published version of two lectures Woolf gave to women's colleges including Newnham and Girton in 1928 and the play was created specifically in response to the changing shape of theatre during the covid-19 pandemic. Dyad's overarching remit is 'to showcase the voice of women' and Vaughan gripped the audience with her confident performance as we jolted back in time to nearly a century ago when women had just secured the vote, in the Equal Franchise Act of 1928.
In essence, the play's main theme is that a woman 'must possess £500 a year and have a room of her own' if she wants to become a writer, and explored the impact of poverty and sexual inequality on intellectual freedom and creativity, shining a light on the suffocating nature of patriarchy throughout the ages.
The audience was taken on a wry, amusing and incisive trip through the history literature, feminism and gender and met the greats such Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, Aphra Behn and Shakespeare's sister - Judith.
In this superbly delivered monologue, Vaughan moved effortlessly from her chair and side table filled with books, to strolling through the college library, and looking out the window of 'A Room of One's Own'.
The play gave us a valuable insight into Woolf's character, as an independent and passionate woman, who championed the idea that women of all classes should be able to 'write what you wish, create what you wish'.
It was disturbing to be reminded that it was just 150 years ago that married women were only able to own their own property and a further five decades would pass until women were given the right to vote.
As the play drew to a close, Woolf certainly gave her modern day audience plenty of food for thought. We have certainly come a long way in the past century, but we all know we still have a long way to go to ensure a fair society for all.
Subscribe to Our Mailing List
Please enter your town so you never miss a show close to you.Our Latest Tweets
Tweets by dyadproductions