Orlando

Keeping with tradition, Cryptic has yet again delivered a stunning rendition of Orlando, based on the novel written by Virginia Woolf in dedication to her lover Vita Sackville-West. Premiering last year in Edinburgh, it has returned to capture the Fringe audience en masse. Darryl Pickney’s adaptation of the novel carefully molds it into a new shape without breaking its relationship with the old – a true triumph in the world of established theatre, where some stories are so well known that any change would be deemed destructive.

Through his eerie and witty process of self-discovery, Orlando is trapped in time and undergoes a sex-change, showing how alluring a persona can be when left to live for centuries. Dynamic on-stage delivery as well as pioneering technology brings us into a universe where lights, sounds and clever illusions come together from the first moment to offer a Fringe experience set apart from the rest. It is a substantial treat for every sense an audience possesses.

The story of Orlando, first the man, later the woman, truly brings forth Woolf’s eccentricity and love of unconventional beauty. Light and witty, it displays the confusion around sexuality, love and death that only she could have penned. Seeing her work transposed in the modern age with ground-breaking lighting technology can be frazzling but Cryptic succeed in creating something new and exciting without compromising the history behind this decades-old tale.