Dalloway: First Love

Play (2026)
by Lindsay Joelle
Based on characters from the novel Mrs. Dalloway (1925) by Virginia Woolf
A National New Play Network World Premiere
Directed by Rebecca Bradshaw
Gloucester Stage Company
Gloucester, MA
August 15-27, 2026

With Josephine Moshiri Elwood (Clarissa Parry); Haley Dyana Schwartz (Sally Seton); Shobhit Piasa (Peter Walsh); Jesse Garlick (The Slew)

Clarissa Parry (Josephine Moshiri Elwood) is eighteen and has recently lost her sister who fell to her death from a tree. She is visited by her friend, and passionate but unrequited lover, Peter Walsh (Shobhit Piasa), who cannot quite get out the words for a proposal. As well, the fascinatingly dangerous, forthright and outspoken Sally Seton (Haley Dyana Schwartz) comes to visit, pushing Clarissa to the edge of what she dares.

Meanwhile, various suitors, including eventually Richard Dalloway, all played by Jesse Garlick, come to visit in various hilarious hairdos and garbs to woo Clarissa and to fawn before her father, also played by Garlick, whom they think has money to spare. Clarissa is daunted by the attentions of Peter and taken captive by the attentions of Sally. (See spoilers below for a little more about what develops.)

This experiment in narrative extension is charmingly done and gives a little window onto what the fifty-one year old protagonist of Woolf’s iconic novel is all about. We already know from the novel that Clarissa eventually marries Richard Dalloway, so there is no surprise there. But the early passion, either for, with, or by, Peter Walsh, forms a core of this early window into her life. As portrayed here, Peter Walsh is an Anglo-Indian Oxford student, full of passion for Clarissa and tongue-tied in his capacity to express it. What he does not have in money he does have in romance, but Clarissa seems to hover above it.

The run of ridiculous suitors – acted masterfully and with great humor by Jesse Garlick – demonstrate the peculiarity of the custom to which Clarissa must succumb. Meanwhile her passion lies somewhere, and it is curious to see where it is most energetically manifested. She is drawn in both directions – by Peter and by Sally – and her young heart goes energetically forward (see spoilers for more).

The actors do a fine job here. Josephine Moshiri Elwood is a reserved and somewhat innocent Clarissa, but her character eventually shines forth clearly. Haley Dyana Schwartz is a very out-there, full of pizzazz, Sally and she gives her gestures and accents all of the accentuated panache that one would expect of a young woman who has taken on individual style with a rage. And, as Peter Walsh, Shobhit Piasa has a very pleasantly measured quality that gives his character considerable nuance. We watch him squirm with his undeclared passion and manage it beneath an exterior of poise and decency. As noted above, Jesse Garlick does a wonderful job of portraying, with great hilarity, the various suitors, but then complementing it with a wonderfully measured and down-to-earth portrayal of Richard Dalloway.

One particular curiosity about this play is that it characterizes Peter Walsh as Anglo-Indian in the sense that he has one Indian parent. That seems a departure from the novel, which characterizes Peter as coming from an Anglo-Indian family in the sense that his English parents had been born in or spent considerable time in India, which had been under British rule since the 1750s. In the novel, Peter is not an ethnic mix, but English and white. Some amount of the play’s narrative focuses on Peter’s mixed ethnicity, which is, I believe, a departure from the novel, and which does not make this narrative sit as comfortably as a prequel as it might, though it does add an interesting twist on the novel.

All in all: a very interesting take on a classic, with a few interesting gotchas.

– BADMan (aka Charles Munitz)