Waves ends on a dark note. Just after the appearance of the defeated Woolf, the ensemble’s dance on the stage slows to a near stop. Each character appears on the screen, one at a time, and sheathed in darkness, staring straight ahead, looking grim. Little else is happening onstage: two actors film and work a flashlight, one speaks text, and the rest watch the screen and wait their turn. While the actor portraying Neville appears on the screen, the final words of the piece are spoken: “‘The door will not open; he will not come,’ said Neville. ‘And we are laden. Being now all of us middle-aged, loads are on us. Let us put down our loads.'”^[24]

Mitchell and company decided to cut the final chapter of The Waves: Bernard’s identity crisis is not included in the performance. The choice to exclude this final chapter seems to resolve the tension between isolation and communion in the performance — in favor of isolation. The piece ends with little happening on the stage, and all focus on the extremely isolated characters on the screen. There is no amalgamation of all characters into one, seemingly nothing but despair and loneliness.

Waves, its chaotic, whirling, dancing ensemble, its beautiful, complex form, is the singing of Woolf’s view of the world, and its melody is hopeful, remaining with the audience, stuck in our heads, as we return to inhabit the habitable world.

And yet, after leaving the Duke theatre on November 15, what remained with me was not a sense of despair, but the thrill and excitement I felt watching the ensemble create the image on the screen. It did not matter that the characters were defeated. What stuck with me was the process of creation, the connective tissue, the beauty of making the work of art that is the world. The form of Waves is what is central to the performance, not character and plot. Through its form, Waves presents the possibility of an ever-present connection between everything in the world, made visible by the ensemble on the stage, offering a perception of the world beyond the grasp of the characters on the screen. Beyond adaptation and mediation, Waves is a philosophical proclamation. Virginia Woolf wrote in a journal entry, “If I could catch the feeling, I would; the feeling of the singing of the real world, as one is driven by loneliness and silence from the habitable world.” Waves, its chaotic, whirling, dancing ensemble, its beautiful, complex form, is the singing of Woolf’s view of the world, and its melody is hopeful, remaining with the audience, stuck in our heads, as we return to inhabit the habitable world.