If My Memories Were Yours
STAGE PLAY
Can talking ever prevent a suicide? Have lunch with Virginia and Leonard and see.
Play Overview: Structure + Setting
Format: Intimate two-person drama
Cast: Virginia Woolf and Leonard Woolf
Setting: The Woolf home, Rodwell, Sussex, England
Time: March 28, 1941
The Story
Internationally acclaimed writer, Virginia Woolf, committed to suicide, says good-bye to her unwitting husband over lunch, kisses him good-bye, and goes to her cottage in the garden; her "room of one's own," and completes the final duties of her life. She then fills her coat pockets with heavy stones and walks into the River Ouse.
The play captures the profound intimacy and loneliness of Virginia's final moments with Leonard, exploring how two people who love each other deeply can still be unable to reach across the chasm of heartfelt sadness and a committed choice.
Historical Context
March 28, 1941
Virginia Woolf, one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, took her own life at age 59. She left behind a note to Leonard: "I feel certain that I am going mad again... I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been."
This play imagines Virginia's actions and words on the day she has chosen to die.
The Two Voices
VIRGINIA WOOLF
Virginia carries the weight of her decision as she tries to give Leonard one last gift of normalcy. Her love for him is not enough to continue living.
LEONARD WOOLF
Virginia's husband, publisher, and caretaker. Unaware this is goodbye, he engages in ordinary lunch conversation, missing the subtle signs of her farewell.
The Theater Experience
The audience shares an imagined intimate moment - a conversation where everything and nothing is said. The outcome is known. The theatrical challenge is to make the audience complicit in both Virginia's secret and Leonard's unknowing, creating tension between love and loss and raising compelling new thoughts.
"Sometimes the deepest conversations are the ones we never have."
Anonymous