When Joan Lindsay first published Picnic At Hanging Rock in 1967, it irrevocably changed the Australian psyche. The famed fable charts the myth of four teenage girls who, along with their teacher, plan a picnic at Hanging Rock. After indulging in their lunch, they beginning to explore the surrounds of the Rock and, one by one, mysteriously disappear in an eery, dream-like event. All but one disappears without a trace.
Now, STC Resident Director Ian Michael is retelling the story on stage, and assembling some of Australia's best and brightest actors to do so: Olivia De Jonge (Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis), Kirsty Marillier (Home, I’m Darling), Lorinda May Merrypor (& Juliet), Masego Pitso (Is God Is), and Contessa Treffone (On the Beach). Here, Michael, De Jonge and Marillier sit down with RUSSH to discuss bringing this archetypal mystery into the twenty-first century.
RUSSH: Ian, your catalogue both as a performer and a director is expansive. Why did now feel like the right moment to revisit this iconic story and tell it in your own way?
Ian Michael: There’s an honest answer to this question,which is I wanted to write an adaptation of Picnic at Hanging Rock about 10 years ago, and I wanted it to be from a blackfella perspective. But as I was planning to write that adaptation, Tom Wright’s one already existed in the world and I was a really big fan of his work. When I saw this production, I was just so taken by it. This was before I had started directing, but I was really interested in the idea of place and what was there before, and also really interested in this fascination we have with the land and how we have this kind of cultural fascination with people going missing, particularly in the bush and rural areas.
So I've always been fascinated by the story, like so many people are. As a blackfella, I've always questioned what was there before everything that we know exists. Like, what was here before this building was here? That's something that I've always asked myself a lot, and I don't know if it's like a bit of a trauma response to existing in this country.
Now, as a director, I’ve thought a lot about what kinds of stories I want to tell, what kind of bodies I want to put on stage, what kind of voices I feel need to be heard and deserve to be. I've been lucky enough to work on a production of Cloudstreet, and as an Aboriginal person in the world of that play, it made me think a lot about myself in stories, and particularly very iconic, classic stories, and stories in the zeitgeist and cultural landscape.
So when thinking about what play I wanted to direct this year at Sydney Theatre Company, I knew I wanted it to be Picnic at Hanging Rock, but that the Picnic I wanted to tell couldn't be five white women on stage telling the story, because it goes in and out of the present and our present day. And the place in which we all live now doesn't look like five white women. So that was really important. That was the most important thing, actually.
And it was all of those other things that I was talking about like, what was on that land before Appleyard College? What happens when we disrupt that land, and we don't tread lightly, and we don't understand it and we don't respect it? So, yeah, I think it was very much about reimaginingi t or reinterpreting it with everything that I carry within myself as a blackfella existing in the colony. And just jumping on the back of everything that Tom's put on the page, because I knew really early on in conversations I've had with him that it is a play about colonisation. And I really want an audience to have a level of understanding that, once they see our production of Picnic at Hanging Rock, they can't think about the original story in the same way
RUSSH: There are obviously two sources to connect with this story–Lindsay’s original novel and Wright’s adaptation. Would you say looked to one more than the other throughout the process?
Michael: Always leading with Tom's adaptation and the words he's put on the page and then filling in the detail with the novel and referencing the film at moments. But really leading with everything that Tom's put on the page, because that’s our map, it's our guidebook. It's our map of how to do it and, also, where to go. But definitely filling in a lot of character detail with the way in which both Tom and Joan Lindsay thought about time. It’s very true to the novel in terms of the ideas of how time operates. I sit at home every night with my script and the novel side by side, and then the film on my laptop, and kind of just kind of going between the three.I think it makes our production richer, because we're kind of just filling it right up!
RUSSH: Kirsty and Olivia, did you have a connection to Picnic at Hanging Rock prior to working on the production with Ian? Were there any practices in particular that helped you prepare for your roles?
Olivia De Jonge: Well, I studied the book and the movie in high school, and so I was very aware of the story and the history around it. Picnic at Hanging Rock is sort of embedded in Australian culture. It's this sort of myth that we perceive as historic, and I think it's a story of the land. So when it came through my inbox, I was just so excited and wanted to do whatever I could to be a part of it. I think in terms of preparation, we're sort of blessed with source material. Obviously, you have the book, the movie, and Tom's adaptation, which is so incredibly expansive on themes and the storytelling and the characters, and also I think the freedom that stage gives you to expand on the character in a different way, and connect with the audience in a different way.
Kirsty Marillier: So, differently to Olivia, I came to this project with very fresh eyes. I didn't study the text in high school, and I hadn't ever read the book. So it was a brand- ew world and I was able to read the novel through the lens of what it might be theatrically, which is a gift. Thew hole world, I think, is sort of glued to the zeitgeist of the Australian consciousness. It’s one of those key texts that we all think of when we think of this land and this country. So I was very excited to be a part of it. And I guess I just threw myself at it. I did my prep chronologically in the sense that I started with the novel, watched the film, then read the play.
But I always had the knowledge in my head that it was going to be directed by Ian, and with me being cast–I'm South African, I wasn't born in this country, I was born in SouthAfrica–and I was very interested in the juxtaposition that could be created with the text, with different bodies, in a different space.
De Jonge: And also told from a different perspective as well. I think having Ian direct it was such a big pulling point for me, you know, having a different gaze on a very traditional story.
Marillier: Yeah and just knowing the power that theatre has to lift and elevate key themes and messages and sort of twist and turn our heads towards certain perspectives that we might not have seen originally. Rereading the novel, after having Tom's text present, and especially after being in the rehearsal room with Ian and the rest of the girls, has completely blown my expectations of what this original text was, and I think it's got multiple meanings and a very deep, horrific meaning at the bottom of all of it, which is a story of colonisation. So I think that we're really diving deep with this production.
RUSSH: Kirsty and Olivia, some of your most recent roles have existed on screen. How has the transition to theatre and the stage been? And is there a part of the experience in particular that you’ve really enjoyed?
De Jonge: I feel like everybody in the rehearsal room has had to console me at some point, being like,“it's okay, it's all right, you're doing great!”It's very different [from screen], just in the sense of taking up space and using your body as a vessel, and not being afraid to express beyond yourself and to tell the story to a group of people. It's also such a gift, because you really get to experience and curate. I mean, rehearsal time in television and film is so rare, and whenever you do have it, it's a gift, but it's very different because with theatre I guess you're really being able to experience the entirety of the story over and over and over again, and that's before you even get on stage! I mean, we're week two [of rehearsal] andI feel like I've already grown so much as an actor. And I think I came into it being like,‘I'm really, really prepared’. And then, day two,I was calling Ian being like, ‘Aaargh! What am I doing?!’
Michael: And Tom [Wright] was like,‘It's a very natural feeling, it’s normal!’
De Jonge: I think as well with film, you go, you do it, and that's it. Whereas with something like this, you're really able to construct something incredibly nuanced and something ever evolving. So as you're evolving as a company, as an ensemble, and as the characters are evolving, you're sort of evolving within the space and you're also able to imbue that into the character. And I think that’s been really quite profound for me.
Marillier: I guess for me, I also came from the pace of Home and Away, where we film a lot in a day, in a week. So I think the thing that’s drastically different right now is just the time spent with the text, because you might sit with a block of television for a while, but on Home and Away it was very rare to sit with something for more than two, three weeks, because you just move on very, very quickly. So I'm enjoying just sitting in the text and drilling down. I described it as getting acquainted with an old friend. I'm just getting to know that person I haven't seen for a while, which is theatre, or catching up on their life. And theatre is very expansive. On the body, the mind, the gut, the soul...
De Jonge: I also wanted to add, and I don't know if you have this experience, it really takes you back to falling in love with the process, and I think that's what's been the most, to repeat the same word, expansive. I feel like a little kid again, like when I first wanted to be an actor, because I started so young with this sort of pure love for the process and discovery. And I feel like sometimes, with film and television, it's so big and so fast and a bit more result-focused than this. It just takes you back to the process and the real, pure curiosity of character and exploration, which I’ve found incredibly rewarding.
Michael: We can sit on a one-and-a-half-page scene for 50 minutes...
De Jonge: Yeah, because on TV too, or movies, you do it and then you move on. Whereas with this, we'll spend like, an hour or two on a scene, and at the end of the day, I'm not going, ‘Oh, I wish I could go back and do that again and do it differently’. It's like, oh no, we will–next week! And then we'll do it again next week and then the week after. So yeah, it's cool in that way.
RUSSH: As you conveyed so well Ian, Hanging Rock is more than just a backdrop in this iconic story. How have the cast and crew come together to convey the gravity of nature and the land in a theatrical setting?
Michael: I mean, in terms of building the world of the play, [designer] Elizabeth Gadsby and I just took all of our ideas in terms of design and concepts from Tom's words and threw provocations at each other. Like, ‘What are the five things that this play is about? What are the three things that this play’s about? What are the two things that the play is about? What's the one thing the play’s about?’ And it was that idea of just placing things on top of things, and the tension within that.
And so, in the design of the play, there are some technical production elements that we needed. For example, there are titles, so we need a projection service. But instead of just doing subtitles, we wanted the tension of this thing suspended over the world of the play, that could potentially be the monolith of Hanging Rock, or it could be colonisation being suspended over the world of the play.
It felt important that we kept talking about land, and we wanted to give a gesture to nature, but it couldn't be Hanging Rock itself. And so we have this leaf matter, and soil and bark that's on the floor. We continually speak about this idea of land and the thing that is overhanging it, or the thing that could potentially fall on top of it or be built up on top of it, is colonisation. The colony itself, and actually in a way, the words of the play, the language, the text in itself, is colonising. So when those titles hang over the space, those too are part of the colonisation of the space.
We just did our first stumble through this morning and very clearly, with Tom’s words there's a sense of like, such a gift, but such a task these five performers have to tell story, paint imagery, connect with the people that they're speaking with on stage, and for it to be for the audience, so that we are not physically climbing a rock. In actual fact, it's quite the opposite. There's a there's an incredible amount of stillness through the play, and it's just allowing the words to do the work. And that's the task of these five performers who doing such a brilliant job of it already, that they just have to build the world through using the words.
RUSSH: Costume design is so central to this iconic story. Olivia and Kirsty, do you often look to costuming to help connect you to a character? And Ian, what was it like working with Elizabeth to reimagine these characters and stories through the craft?
It's interesting,I'd love to hear what it's like to create a character [through costume], because in the world of Tom Wright's adaptation, these five characters, five actors, kind of ‘pick up’ other vessels, or conduits for the story, so they actually activate or inhabit 17 characters throughout the entire piece. So there's a lot of switching. A lot of activating.
De Jonge: Activating is our hot little word!
Michael: The piece is book ended by two scenes that exist in the present day, and in the stage directions, they are girls in contemporary school uniforms. And it was really interesting just to think about, how do we let these characters have a sense of character, without being able to change entire costumes. And so a lot of that work is done through the technique of actors, because, in a way, what we're hoping to do is just provide a chamber for the words.
De Jonge: An echo-chamber...
Michael: And so in terms of building character, it's more about the stripping away of costume.
De Jonge: Often times costume is definitely a way into a character, and that sort of personalisation of a character. And with this, I think the challenge and the attractiveness of the material is the ability to transform using just the words and the connections between the other actors and the way that we manipulate space and time within the play to express shifts in tone and storyline and character. I think that's what's so wonderful about Tom’s adaptation, and obviously, through the lens of Ian, is that it's such a pastiche, and sort of like, what's the word for this? [interlaces fingers]
Marillier: Conglomerate?
De Jonge: Yeah, like a conglomerate of so many different things that work together far beyond, traditionally, how this story has been told.
Michael: I think the thing that came out of this morning, especially, was the task of communicating to the audience that: I am playing a headmistress, I am playing a policeman and then I’m playing a schoolgirl. But mostly it was about, what a gift it is to flex everything you have as an actor, to communicate character, to communicate ideas.AndI guess, in a way, people should not expect lots of flowing white dresses and calico and silk and muslin. But these five women become the vessels, the conduit for the story. Are possessed by it...
De Jonge: I think this story, at its core, is so much more than just five pretty girls running around the bush.
Michael: Yeah, then the moment when we do really acknowledge period costume, that moment becomes quite confronting.
Marillier: Also costume is a signifier of class, gender, place and time, and where you sit in society. And so I think for us, as actors, the costuming in this has helped facilitate where we sit, because it's a very specific element to this play–how we transport the audience back to 1900 and how we bring them back to 2025.
RUSSH: What is one thing you hope the audience takes away from this production and story?
De Jonge: I hope that they go home and think about the history of our country and our evolution as a nation together, and not separate from each other, and what that means and what that requires from each of us as individuals and as a collective. And I think the only way to go forward is together and by honouring our history.
Michael: Yeah, it's all of that. It's all everything that Liv said, and I think this country has a lot of acknowledging to do and that has to happen before anything else can happen. And I really hope that people think about Picnic at Hanging Rock, this kind of colonial story that they know and love and are familiar with, and that the way in which we offer it shifts their perspectives to think ‘maybe that story is our country’, and that we have to acknowledge everything that happened then, because everything that happened then is happening now.
Marillier: I think also as a nation we’re quite obsessed with these stories of the landscape and what it does to the psyche. I guess the question is, ‘why, as a nation, are we so obsessed with these sorts of stories?And is there an alternate perspective we’re not thinking about?’ Because it’s not just Picnic at Hanging Rock, it’s Wake in Fright, it exists again and again. For me anyway, it’s not just about the landscape being spooky.
De Jonge: It's the repetition of the unacknowledged. Like the world is begging us to acknowledge what happened to our land, to our people, and to the people that came before us.
Picnic At Hanging Rock is playing at the Sydney Opera House from February 21. Tickets are available here.
