Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf
Just before she passed away, the author finished writing her final book, which was written in the early years of World War II. In the heart of England, at Pointz Hall, the action takes place on a single summer day. The villagers are performing their yearly pageant on the lawn, this year featuring incidents from English history all the way up to “ourselves,” the audience, in June 1939. The occupants of Pointz Hall, the Olivers, their visitors, and the villagers enjoy tea, go for walks, and converse during the interludes. Isa Oliver, who is miserable, has a strong relationship with her attractive husband Giles, who she both loves and despises, and a visitor named Mrs Manresa, who is after Giles.
Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf
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The procession is interrupted at its last tableau by a storm. Isa and Giles face off as the performers and the crowd leave to return to their regular lives.
I’ve always loved the characters in Virginia Woolf’s writings and how their separate stories are woven into the overall narrative. Between the Acts is a very creative book that takes you through England’s history by using a play performed by villagers on their lawns to depict a day in the lives of a family.
Throughout the narrative, there is a persistent sense that World War II is approaching, that this village event might be its last, and that some of the assembled players and audience members might be there for the last time.
This was Virginia’s final work, and it might provide insight into the issues she was struggling with towards the end of her life. Virginia Woolf immerses us in the thoughts and feelings of her characters as well as the philosophical context of our existence.
The book is set on a single day in June 1939 at Pointz Hall, an English country estate held by the Olivers, a family so attached to its lineage that a watch that stopped a bullet on a long-ago battlefield is considered deserving of preservation and display. The Olivers give the surrounding villagers permission to stage a pageant on their grounds every year around this time in order to raise money for the church. The pageant this year is planned to consist of a number of tableaux honouring England’s history from Chaucerian days up to the present.
The Olivers themselves are the type of tableaux, each a quiet illustration of a different feeling kept apart from the others by a barrier of misunderstanding. Old Bartholomew Oliver and Lucy Swithin, who are both widowers, are reuniting in their childhood home and sharing a cautious romance. Giles, Oliver’s stockbroker son, commutes to London and views the pageant as an inconvenience he must put up with. His unhappy wife, Isa, thinks she must keep her poems a secret from him and considers having an adulterous relationship with a farmer from the community.
A chatty woman named Mrs Manresa who is either having or is interested in having an affair with Giles is present at the pageant. She has brought along William Dodge, whose effeminate sexual ambiguity is noted by Giles with disgust and by Isa with intrigue. Isa appears to have a sexual interest in Dodge, which suggests that she is aware that Giles would be more upset by Dodge’s cuckolding of him than by her infidelity.
