Woolfian Boundaries - Clemson University

Performing the Self
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duced to specifi c moments of action, for example, Ethel Smyth running to catch her train
provokes the refl ection: “It’s odd how little scenes like that suddenly illumine wherever
one may be—Waterloo Station. I could swear a ring of light surrounded you me and the
guard for one tenth of a second” (L4 241). In an account of afternoon tea at the house of
Leonard’s sister the scene is part of a society play: “Th en the servant said ‘Mr Sturgeon’;
Flora cried ‘I will go’ dashed from the room; everyone said Oh! Ah! How splendid! as if
on the stage, which indeed the whole scene might have been. We went, after the 2 nd act”
(D1 68). While in Moments of Being she notes that “Scene making is my natural way of
marking the past” (MOB 142). Th is compartmentalisation of past and present into scenes
and acts helps Woolf to make the transition between her sentient reality and her written
fi ction. By structuring the real world dramatically Woolf can live and relive experiences,
thus smoothing the transition of life into art and vice versa.
Naturally stage, set, lighting, and costume are vital to both Woolf’s “scene making”
and characterisation of real people. Indeed, once Bloomsbury became home, interior design
became increasingly important and evermore theatrical. Painted murals on walls and
furniture formed the ideal backdrop for the life dramas played out within their houses.
Some decorations have a consciously theatrical feel, such as the cupboard doors painted
in 1918 by Bell and Grant. 2 Th e murals and decorated furniture were only a step away
from stage set design and many of the Bloomsbury artists also provided scene paintings
for drama and ballet which suited their talent for interior design, fi ne art, and dramatic
living. 3 In addition to this, the artists also designed costumes for these productions.
Costumes were yet another link between life and art, from the disguises of the Dreadnought
Hoax to the numerous fancy dress parties. Woolf was particularly interested in the
duplicitous nature of clothing, including everyday attire which could be just as much of a
costume as costume. In 1903 she states “Th ough I hate putting on my fi ne clothes, I know
that when they are on I shall have invested myself at the same time with a certain social demeanour—I
shall be ready to talk about the fl oor & the weather & other frivolities, which I
consider platitudes in my nightgown” (PA 169). Th e eff ect of clothing on the performance
of the self is of course an issue explored in her novel Orlando as well in her diaries.
Considering Woolf’s connections with theatre and drama it is not surprising that she
dramatised life in this way. As an avid reader and publisher of drama Woolf was familiar
with the whole range of theatrical movements and genres, she also participated in readings
with the Play Reading Society and wrote the comedy Freshwater (1923, revised 1935). 4 As
a consequence, the non-fi ction demonstrates a clear awareness of theatrical genres: Restoration
farce, Victorian melodrama, Greek and Shakespearian tragedy, the late nineteenth
century comedy of manners, and, particularly in Moments of Being, a hint of the problem
play with herself and her sister appearing as Ibsen’s trapped and desperate heroines. Each
of these genres possesses its own formula which Woolf fi ts onto life. Woolf describes
how “the scene was often fi t for the stage” (MOB 35) in the drawing room at Hyde Park
Gate and, in a paper for the Memoir Club entitled “22 Hyde Park Gate,” the listener was
thrown into the midst of a Victorian melodrama or a comedy of manners:
Suddenly there would be a crisis—a servant dismissed, a lover rejected, pass
books opened, or poor Miss Tyndall who had lately poisoned her husband by
mistake come for consolation…. Cousin Adeline, Duchess of Bedford, perhaps