''Freshwater: A comedy'' is a play written and produced by

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...

in 1935, and the only play she wrote. Although only performed once in her lifetime, it has been translated into many languages and produced in many countries since.

Alfred Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of ...

appears as a character in this play.

History

Virginia Woolf researched the life of her great-aunt, the photographer

Julia Margaret Cameron Julia Margaret Cameron (; 11 June 1815 – 26 January 1879) was an English photographer who is considered one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She is known for her Soft focus, soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorian era, ...

, publishing her findings in an essay titled ''Pattledom'' (1925), and later in her introduction to her 1926 edition of Cameron's photographs. She had begun work on a play based on an episode in Cameron's life in 1923, but abandoned it. Finally it was performed on 18 January 1935 at the studio of her sister,

Vanessa Bell Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; 30 May 1879 – 7 April 1961) was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury Group and the sister of Virginia Woolf (née Stephen). Early life and education Vanessa Stephen was the eld ...

on Fitzroy Street in 1935. Woolf directed it herself, and the cast were mainly members of the

Bloomsbury Group The Bloomsbury Group was a group of associated British writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the early 20th century. Among the people involved in the group were Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, Vanessa Bell, a ...

, including Vanessa, her daughter Angelica Garnett, Virginia's husband

Leonard Leonard or ''Leo'' is a common English language, English masculine given name and a surname. The given name and surname originate from the Old High German ''Leonhard'' containing the prefix ''levon'' ("lion") from the Greek wikt:Λέων#Greek, Λ ...

and

Duncan Grant Duncan James Corrowr Grant (21 January 1885 – 8 May 1978) was a Scottish painter and designer of textiles, pottery, theatre sets, and costumes. He was a member of the Bloomsbury Group. His father was Bartle Grant, a "poverty-stricken" major ...

, Angelica's father. ''Freshwater'' is a short three act comedy satirizing the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the ...

. It was not performed again in Woolf's lifetime. It was found among

Leonard Woolf Leonard Sidney Woolf (; – ) was a British List of political theorists, political theorist, author, publisher, and civil servant. He was married to author Virginia Woolf. As a member of the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party and the Fabian Socie ...

's papers after his death in 1969 and was not published till 1976, when the

Hogarth Press The Hogarth Press is a book publishing Imprint (trade name), imprint of Penguin Random House that was founded as an independent company in 1917 by British authors Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf. It was named after their house in London Boro ...

produced an edition, edited by Lucio Ruotolo, who was living in Virginia Woolf's home,

Monk's House Monk's House is a 16th-century weatherboarded cottage in the village of Rodmell, three miles (4.8 km) south of Lewes, East Sussex, England. The writer Virginia Woolf and her husband, the political activist, journalist and editor Leonard W ...

, at the time. The edition was illustrated by

Edward Gorey Edward St. John Gorey (February 22, 1925 – April 15, 2000) was an Americans, American writer, Tony Awards, Tony Award-winning costume designer, and artist, noted for his own illustrated books as well as cover art and illustration for book ...

under the pseudonym Loretta Trezzo.

Dramatis personae

* Charles Henry Hay Cameron, her husband * G. F. Watts, painter *

Ellen Terry Dame Alice Ellen Terry (27 February 184721 July 1928) was a leading English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born into a family of actors, Terry began performing as a child, acting in Shakespeare plays in London, and toured ...

, actress, his wife *

Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of ...

, poet, a neighbour * Mr Craig * Mary Magdalene, housemaid

Plot

The play is named after

Freshwater, Isle of Wight Freshwater is a large village and civil parishes in England, civil parish at the western end of the Isle of Wight, England. The southern, coastal part of the village is Freshwater Bay, named for the adjacent small cove. Freshwater sit ...

, where Julia Margaret Cameron lived in a somewhat bohemian atmosphere at her home, Dimbola Lodge, surrounded by a number of artists and literary figures, including George Frederick Watts and

Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's ...

in the 1860s. Tennyson's nearby home, Farringford was another artistic centre. The plot revolves around the attempts by the young actress

to escape from her marriage to the much older Watts, partly family history, partly mocking the conventions of the Victorian times that the Bloomsbury group had fought to escape. The Camerons are set to embark for India, while both Mrs Cameron and Watts are intent on portraying Ellen in their respective media. Ellen on the other hand views a young naval lieutenant as her escape, with an offer to escape to

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...

. This collapses a number of historic events into a single afternoon.

Performance

The 1935 version had a rehearsed reading in Melbourne, Australia by Performing Arts Projects at the Linden Gallery in 1989. In New York in 2009, both the 1923 and 1935 versions were combined for the first time in an

Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

production to celebrate Woolf's 128th birthday,

Charles Isherwood Charles Splaine Isherwood Jr. (born October 1964) is an American theater critic. Career A graduate of Stanford University, Isherwood wrote for '' Backstage West'' in Los Angeles. In 1993, he joined the staff of '' Variety'', where he was promote ...

praising the wordplay. In London the play was performed in Virginia Woolf's former home, 46

Gordon Square Gordon Square is a public park square in Bloomsbury, London, England. It is part of the Bedford Estate and was designed as one of a pair with the nearby Tavistock Square. It is owned by the University of London. History and buildings The sq ...

(now part of the School of Arts,

Birkbeck College Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a public research university located in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. Established in 1823 as the London Mechanics' ...

) in 2012. ''Freshwater'' has also been performed at

Rodmell Rodmell is a small village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. It is located three miles (4.8 km) south-east of Lewes, on the Lewes to Newhaven road and six and a half miles from the City of Brighton & Hove and ...

, Sussex. The play has been translated into French (1982), Spanish (1980) and German (2017). It was performed in Paris at the

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

in 1982, and in

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

, Germany in 1994. The French production was revived in New York in 1983, starring

Eugène Ionesco Eugène Ionesco (; ; born Eugen Ionescu, ; 26 November 1909 – 28 March 1994) was a Romanian-French playwright who wrote mostly in French, and was one of the foremost figures of the French avant-garde theatre#Avant-garde, French avant-garde th ...

Alain Robbe-Grillet Alain Robbe-Grillet (; 18 August 1922 – 18 February 2008) was a French writer and filmmaker. He was one of the figures most associated with the ''Nouveau Roman'' () trend of the 1960s, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and Claude Simo ...

Nathalie Sarraute Nathalie Sarraute (; born Natalia Ilinichna Tcherniak (); – 19 October 1999) was a French writer and lawyer. She was nominated in 1969 for the Nobel Prize in Literature by Nobel Committee member Lars Gyllensten. Personal life Sarraute wa ...

, Joyce Mansour, Guy Dumur and

Florence Delay Florence Delay (; born 19 March 1941 in Paris) is a French writer. She has been a member of the Académie française since 2000. She has notably written novels, essays and plays (in collaboration with Jacques Roubaud) and has translated texts f ...

Reception

Although a slight work not intended for publication, and easily dismissed as frivolous, it has been given a larger meaning when placed in the broader context of Woolf's work and views. For beneath the comedic elements, there is an exploration of both generational change and artistic freedom. Both Cameron and Woolf fought against the class and gender dynamics of Victorianism and the play shows links to both ''

To the Lighthouse ''To the Lighthouse'' is a 1927 novel by Virginia Woolf. The novel centres on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920. Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel P ...

'' and ''

A Room of One's Own ''A Room of One's Own'' is an extended essay, divided into six chapters, by Virginia Woolf, first published in 1929. The work is based on two lectures Woolf delivered in October 1928 at Newnham College, Cambridge, Newnham College and Girton Co ...

'' that would follow. Ellen's flight to Bloomsbury symbolising freedom from

patriarchy Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of authority are primarily held by men. The term ''patriarchy'' is used both in anthropology to describe a family or clan controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males, and in fem ...

References

Bibliography

* *
Digital edition
* * * * * * * * * ** Websites * * * (includes invitation to first performance in 1935 and Lucio Ruotolo's introduction to the 1976 Hogarth Press edition) * Editions * * * * ** {{Virginia Woolf 1935 plays English plays Works by Virginia Woolf