{"id":37887,"date":"2026-08-22T14:36:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T21:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/?p=37887"},"modified":"2026-08-26T18:47:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T01:47:53","slug":"dalloway-first-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/2026\/08\/dalloway-first-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Dalloway: First Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

Play (2026)
\nby Lindsay Joelle
\nBased on characters from the novel Mrs. Dalloway<\/em> (1925) by Virginia Woolf
\nA National New Play Network World Premiere
\nDirected by Rebecca Bradshaw
\nGloucester Stage Company<\/a>
\nGloucester, MA
\nAugust 15-27, 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

With Josephine Moshiri Elwood (Clarissa Parry); Haley Dyana Schwartz (Sally Seton); Shobhit Piasa (Peter Walsh); Jesse Garlick (The Slew)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Josephine<\/a>
Josephine Moshiri Elwood as Clarissa
Shobhit Pias as Peter
in “Dalloway: First Love”
Photo: Shawn G. Henry
Courtesy of Gloucester Stage Company<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
A nicely acted, interesting dramatic extrapolation as a prequel of the celebrated novel by Virginia Woolf.<\/div>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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.)<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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).<\/p>\n

\"Haley<\/a>
Haley Dyana Schwartz as Sally
Josephine Moshiri Elwood as Clarissa
in “Dalloway: First Love”
Photo: Shawn G. Henry
Courtesy of Gloucester Stage Company<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Extra info: contains spoilers<\/div>
Clarissa’s real passion turns out to be for Sally whom she kisses, with exploratory but intense passion. This appears to take Sally aback a bit, and curiously, when Clarissa proposes that they travel together to Berlin, Sally demurs. It’s not exactly clear from the narrative why Sally withdraws like this; a little more exposition might be helpful. What it seems is that Sally’s demonstrative and iconoclastic behavior has been a bit of a put-on and that Clarissa’s forthright passion has called Sally out on the carpet. But this withdrawal by Sally happens a little too quickly and without enough development for us to understand what has gone on with her. Nonetheless, the idea of this passion between the two young women is innovative and interesting.<\/p>\n

The case of Peter Walsh is a little more complicated. In the novel, Peter is portrayed more as the long-lost passion of Clarissa’s early life. Here, in the play, the portrayal is a bit of a departure from that. Clarissa, in fact, shows very little passion here for Peter, though he is constantly squirming with his unexpressed love for her. Ultimately, she criticizes Peter for talking and lecturing too much and not asking enough about her. This does not seem true to the portrayal of Peter, who comes across as a decent, love-struck, young man who does not really lecture Clarissa, but seems more stymied by his own unrequited passion. <\/p>\n

To boot, Clarissa’s passion for Sally does not seem at all based on Sally’s curiosity about, or questioning of, Clarissa’s feelings. In fact, Sally seems more taken up with her own demonstrative schtick than Peter does about himself. Clarissa seems more taken with Sally because of her brashness and boldness rather than because of Sally’s sensitive curiosity about Clarissa. So, that seems an odd inconsistency.<\/p>\n

When Dalloway comes along, he seems more reasonably modest and willingly gentle, not at all passionate in the way Peter is. But he too is not deeply inquisitive about Clarissa’s feelings. So whatever makes him attractive does not rely on that either. It seems more that Clarissa is drawn to Dalloway’s reasonableness and her interest in working out an arrangement with him that might, conceivably, involve her having continuing relationships with women. Who knows – it’s all unspoken.<\/p>\n

A lot can be explained – as was done in a talkback after the show with the cast and with director Rebecca Bradshaw – by acknowledging the youth of the characters. Even so, some of these narrative turns seem like they could use some further development.<\/div><\/div>\n

All in all: a very interesting take on a classic, with a few interesting gotchas.<\/p>\n

– BADMan (aka Charles Munitz)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Play (2026)
\nby Lindsay Joelle
\nBased on characters from the novel Mrs. Dalloway<\/em> (1925) by Virginia Woolf
\nWorld Premiere
\nGloucester Stage Company<\/a>
\nGloucester, MA
\nAugust 15-27, 2026<\/strong>
\nA nicely acted, interesting dramatic extrapolation as a prequel of the celebrated novel by Virginia Woolf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plays","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37887"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37983,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37887\/revisions\/37983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}