"All a woman needs", Virginia Woolf once wrote, "is a room of her own and £500." And yet the circumstances of her own life, as revealed in Historyonics' All a Woman Needs, show that Woolf needed far more than that. Afflicted with spells of what early 20th-century doctors called "neurasthenia" (translation: "a bunch of symptoms for which we have no known cause or cure") and what contemporary doctors call bipolar affective disorder (translation: "a bunch of symptoms for which the cause is still obscure but which we can treat with drugs"), Woolf relied heavily on the emotional support of her sister, the talented painter Vanessa Bell, as well as on her long-suffering husband, Leonard Woolf. The fact that, in the end, even they could not prevent her from taking her own life just short of her 60th birthday is a reminder of the often-unbearable burden of that form of mental illness.
The script, by Historyonics Artistic Director Lee Patton Chiles, picks up Woolf's story shortly after her arrival in London's Bloomsbury neighborhood with her sister Vanessa. From there it chronicles the joys and sorrows of the sisters' personal and artistic lives, largely using material from the voluminous journals and letters kept by Vanessa, Virginia, and their husbands Clive Bell and Leonard Woolf. The close relationship between Virginia and Vanessa is sharply drawn, as is the oddly platonic yet deeply felt love between Virginia and Leonard. The relationships among Vanessa, Clive and their various friends and lovers in the Bloomsbury circle are less clear, which is probably just as well; attempting to do justice to that chaotic web would draw the play long past its current two-hour running time.
Kari Eli and Jenn Loui are very compelling as Virginia and Vanessa. The deep affection between the two comes through clearly. As written, the role of Clive Bell doesn't appear to offer much for an actor to sink his teeth into, but Jerry Vogel is quite effective in it nevertheless. There's more wisdom and heart in the part of Leonard Woolf, and Travis Estes brings out both in a fine portrayal. Carrie Hegdahl completes the cast as an anonymous narrator and as Vita Sackville-West, whose affair with Virginia is treated with, perhaps, a bit more discretion than in necessary. Joe Dreyer provides appropriate bridge and underscore music from the piano.
As fascinating as the show is, however, there's a curious coolness to even the most objectively heart-rending scenes of grief and madness. I think this stems, not from any inadequacy on the part of the actors or the script, but rather from the fact that dialogue drawn from letters and journals is always going to be at least one degree removed from the emotions that prompted those letters and journals; it's emotion considered, distilled, and crafted into prose. Placed into the mouths of characters on stage, it's always going to be slightly less convincing than dialogue written with the stage in mind; another case of how fiction can be more true to life than fact.
Once you accept this conceit, however, I think you'll find All a Woman Needs to be an intriguing and, yes, educational look at the life of one of the great literary minds of the previous century. Just think of it as the theatrical equivalent of a PBS documentary and remember that, as Chiles says in her prefatory remarks, "this is history speaking to you". You'll want to listen.
All a Woman Needs: Virginia Woolf continues through April 13th [2003] in the Des Lee Auditorium of the Missouri History Museum. Call 314-361-5858 for ticket information.