The story of Picnic at Hanging Rock is seared into our collective conscience, and has become a
key part of our national mythology as both a thing of beauty and a force of
terror. Written by Joan
Lindsay in 1967, the story tells of a group of young women, students from Appleyard College Melbourne
Set on an angular
grey-toned space (Zoë Atkinson), three walls with nothing but a wardrobe to distract the eye,
there is something ghostly about the lack of any discerning features. But of
course, that’s almost the point. There are suggestions of doorways within the
walls, but we never see them; additionally, while we seem to be outside – at
and on the Rock – we ostensibly remain within the confines of the school
building, always being watched even if don’t know when or why or by whom. Above
and behind the stage is a cluster of branches, occasionally seen, an ominous
presence hanging in the void. Part of the terror of this production – as in
Lindsay’s novel, and Weir’s film – is what is not seen, and Lutton and lighting
designer Paul Jackson make full use of this with total blackouts which plunge
the theatre into claustrophobic darkness. Ash Gibson Greig’s compositions –
tortured cello and double-bass (ala Krzysztof Pendrecki), organ-sounds, and
reverberating drones – are deeply unsettling, and when combined with J. David
Franzke’s sound design, the effect is truly and deeply spine-chilling, and
makes full use of the sounds of the Australian bush.
The five girls
here – it is, appropriately, an all-female cast – are dressed in modern
private-school uniforms, and are something between contemporary teenagers, a
Greek chorus, and the characters from Lindsay’s novel – male and female, young
and old alike. We start in what we assume is the present day, as the five girls
– in straw hats, blazers, skirts, long socks – recount to us the events leading
up to the disappearance on the Rock. So far so good. But as we are plunged into
the first of many blackouts, we start to lose our sense of what is normal, of
what will happen, and indeed how it will happen. And this is where Lutton’s
production draws its strength. The five girls seem caught out of time – both from
our contemporary time, as well as that of 1900; as Tom
Wright writes in the program, “in the Rock’s terms, 1900 and 2016 are the
same. It dreams in millions, not split fractions. It is hanging – in time, in
space.” In this sense, the Rock is a portal, a gateway, a liminal place – to another
dimension perhaps, to another time, to sacred and spiritual places we can
barely fathom; it is also an emotional force, our emotional past from which we
cannot hide.
Lutton’s cast are
very strong – as convincing as teenagers as they are as their teachers and
other adults (male and female). There’s a magnetic quality to Nikki
Shiels’ performance, and particularly as Irma – we don’t always want to
know what is happening, but we also don’t want to look away. Elizabeth Nabben’s
elocution in her portrayal of Mrs Appleyard is extremely affective, and there
is a tangible menace to her scenes with Sara. Arielle Gray’s Sara – all
whispers and shyness – is affecting when subjected to Mrs Appleyard’s abuse,
and her bodily contortions are perhaps physical evocations of the Rock, as both
a psychological force, a force of nature, as much as an imagined space. Amber
McMahon is strong as ever, and there is an eerie distance to her portrayal
of Albert.
Part of the terror
present in Lindsay’s novel and also present in Lutton’s production, is in the
psychological torture – amongst the girls themselves, and towards Sara, the
youngest girl, who was not allowed to go on the picnic on that fateful day and
was thus spared the full extent of the day’s events, but who was subjected to a
greater form of torture by Mrs Appleyard herself. Sara, in a way, becomes a
surrogate for the audience – we are subjected to the myriad images and snippets
of information which Wright and Lutton throw at us. We are also afforded
glimpses of the landscape around the Rock, of the Rock itself; of the landscape
of Lindsay’s novel, of our cultural association with the novel (and
subsequently the film); of the psychological landscape of the imagined space…
There is something
genuinely (and intangibly) unsettling about this story, about this production,
and Lutton and his team capitalise on it to full effect. There is one moment in
particular – roughly two-thirds of the way through – which is the closest to
full-blown horror that this production gets, but it is never gratuitous or
forced. Another moment might seem physically and sonically incongruous but it
is leavened out by the production’s surety and dexterity. There are critics who
will argue that third-person narrated theatre is perhaps over-used, but it has
its benefits here: as we are told the story, told snippets of information, only
to have it twist and shift under our feet, in front of our very eyes. And so
the narrated events become a metaphor for the psychological turbulence of the
story itself – we never actually know what actually happened because each
account is different.
Purported to be ‘a
true story’ by Lindsay, the question of whether or not the events of St
Valentine’s Day, 1900 actually took place is best answered by Lindsay herself,
perhaps the most authoritative voice on the subject: “Whether Picnic at Hanging Rock is
fact or fiction, my readers must decide for themselves. As the fateful picnic
took place in the year 1900, and all the characters who appear in this book are
long since dead, it hardly seems important.” Lutton’s Picnic at Hanging Rock is, appropriately, its own force of nature.
And while there are several nods to Weir’s equally beautiful and haunting film,
they only serve to remind us just how truly unsettling and horrifying a story
it is, how uncontrollable and untamable the landscape is, how powerless we are
to comprehend it at all.
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