Picnic at Hanging Rock is that rare thing; a narrative so bound to Australian cultural memory that it has assumed its own mythology. The story is well-known. Three girls go missing with their teacher while on a picnic to Hanging Rock in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges. Only one returns and the mystery is never solved. The thing is, it’s only a story, though commonly thought to be true; another of our national myths built on misconceptions.
Based on Joan Lindsay’s 1967 novel, the stage adaption by Tom Wright was first performed in 2016 at Malthouse Theatre. This revival, presented by Sydney Theatre Company, arrives on the 50th anniversary of Peter Weir’s ethereal, eroticised 1975 film. But don’t come expecting pan pipes and crinoline; this Picnic is a gothic horror with a disturbing soundscape of menace.
Opening from a blackout echoing with eerie bush sounds, five schoolgirls in contemporary uniforms are spaced in a line across the stage. Establishing the play’s characters through voice alone, in direct address, they recount events leading up to the disappearance. As the long opening scene ends, the girls slow-step their spot-lit way towards the audience, swaying like possessed marionettes, as if sleepwalking to their (or is it our) doom.
Theatricality is foremost in this production, and director Ian Michael and writer Tom Wright lean heavily into a post-dramatic ethos. It suits this telling well. Every element in the production is designed to immerse the audience in a world that, while recognisable, also seems unnatural. Characters are not always fixed to a particular actor. The audience is frequently addressed directly with a stillness of delivery that focuses our attention. Light and sound effects saturate our senses. The cumulative effect is unsettling, to say the least.
Design by Elizabeth Gadsby is minimalist but very cleverly conceived. Bark/leaf-like material underfoot, scene props kept simple. Overhead, a large rectangular light box upon which large surtitles are boldly projected announcing each scene with a quote that may be taken from the script, or simply be suggestive. This sculptural omniscient presence looms over the action. You can almost feel the psychological weight of the landscape pressing down.
Picnic at Hanging Rock interrogates the colonial desire to impose order over this landscape – civilisation through repression of thought and deed and the banishment of cultural autonomy. Artistically-inclined Sara (Masego Pitso), brutalised her entire life, is an easy target. She is dismissed as an ‘inconvenience’ by Mrs Appleyard (Olivia DeJonge in a tightly controlled performance.) Her poetry is scorned in a world where learning is understood as repetition upon repetition, and it’s not hard to see contemporary resonances in this view.
Colonialism controls too by naming, overwriting existing culture and banishing inconvenient truths to the past lest they infect the present. In this context, Michael’s decision to surtitle Hanging Rock’s original name, Ngannelong, in the final scene is pointed, speaking both to the lack of indigenous presence in Lindsay’s book and to the resilience of First Nations culture.
In Lindsay’s view, time is fluid, not linear. Expressed theatrically, different time periods exist simultaneously on stage. Girls upstage slow-walk towards the Rock while downstage, post-disappearance interviews are conducted. Kudos to movement director Danielle Micich for the many pieces of well-conceived choreography.
Above all, though, it is the production’s technical brilliance that powers the show in a stunning one-two punch that grabs your throat while kicking you in the nethers. Trent Suidgeest’s lighting shifts from a golden pastoral glow to laser-like vertical and horizontal spotlighting, skewering the actors like mounted insects.
At each scene change, the audience is plunged into darkness. Resembling cinematic jump-cuts, time shifts, actors disappear and reappear. Accompanying the blackouts, James Peter Brown’s heavily amplified soundscape of the Australian bush, at once familiar but rendered alien, is quite overwhelming. It superbly evokes an ancient landscape that we still find fearful (we huddle on the fringes, don’t we?) The electronica composition for the gym scene is nerve-janglingly thrilling.
All the actors give wonderful performances, managing difficult transitions between direct speech and character seamlessly, a few early-season wobbles of tone notwithstanding. Pitso is particularly good, delivering a terrific physical performance that complements her rich, melodious voice.
Contessa Treffone is equally compelling. And under Michael’s direction, the growing horror is paced nicely, even though I felt at times some direct address dialogue was rushed, losing a little of the poetic cadences of Wright’s stunning script. Time in performance will smooth this.
Picnic at Hanging Rock is a wonderfully thought-provoking and utterly visceral production, that asks us to question myths that resonate still in the abyss of our history.
Picnic at Hanging Rock runs until 5 April at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House.
Tickets: https://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/whats-on/productions/2025/picnic-at-hanging-rock
Website: https://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/
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Photo credits: Daniel Boud
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