Z Space

Word for Word presents:

4th Anniversary Festival

A Co-Production with Latina Theatre Lab
Stories by Virginia Woolf and Julia Alvarez

August 14 - 31, 1997
at Magic Theatre

 "The Introduction", "The Man Who Loved His Kind", and "The New Dress" from Mrs. Dalloway's Party by Virginia Woolf, directed by Delia MacDougall

"Floor Show" from How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez, directed by Wendy Radford

This was our 4th Anniversary Festival, and we chose to perform stories about parties—uncomfortable, awkward, self-conscious!  We paired two stellar writers: Virginia Woolf and Julia Alvarez, and we had a cast of 17! Choosing stories from two novels of interconnected stories, we presented pieces ranging from 1923 London to 1960 New York. The three by Virginia Woolf were taken from Mrs. Dalloway's Party ("a landmark modern novel"). We collaborated with the Latina Theatre Lab for Julia Alvarez' "Floor Show", a story of a Dominican family who has immigrated to New York, and whose experiences are chronicled in How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents  ("simply wonderful"—LA Times).

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Virginia Woolf was born into an affluent household in South Kensington, London, the seventh child in a blended family of eight. While the boys received college educations, the girls were home-schooled in English classics and Victorian literature. Her childhood ended in 1895 with the death of her mother and her first mental breakdown. Encouraged by her father, Woolf began writing professionally in 1900. His death in 1904 caused Woolf to have another breakdown. Following his death, the family moved from Kensington to the more bohemian Bloomsbury, where, in conjunction with the brothers' intellectual friends, they formed the artistic and literary Bloomsbury Group.

In 1912, she married Leonard Woolf, and in 1917 the couple founded the Hogarth Press, which published much of her work. Woolf also had romantic relationships with women, including Vita Sackville-West, who also published her books through Hogarth Press. Both women's literature became inspired by their relationship, which lasted until Woolf's death. Throughout her life, Woolf was troubled by her mental illness. In 1941, at age 59, she died by drowning herself in the River Ouse at Lewes.

Her best-known works include the novels Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and Orlando. She is also known for her essays, including "A Room of One's Own", in which she wrote, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

Woolf became one of the central subjects of the 1970s movement of feminist criticism and her works have since garnered much attention and widespread commentary for "inspiring feminism".  She is considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.

Julia Alvarez is a Dominican-American poet, novelist, and essayist. She rose to prominence with the novels How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, In the Time of the Butterflies, and Yo!. Her publications as a poet include Homecoming and The Woman I Kept to Myself, and as an essayist the autobiographical compilation Something to Declare. Recent novels include Saving the World and Afterlife: A Novel. Many literary critics regard her to be one of the most significant Latina writers and she has achieved critical and commercial success on an international scale.

Born in New York, she spent the first ten years of her childhood in the Dominican Republic, until her father's involvement in a political rebellion forced her family to flee the country. Many of Alvarez's works are influenced by her experiences as a Dominican in the United States, and focus heavily on issues of assimilation and identity. Her cultural upbringing as both a Dominican and an American is evident in the combination of personal and political tone in her writing. She is known for works that examine cultural expectations of women both in the Dominican Republic and the United States, and for rigorous investigations of cultural stereotypes.