There’s a lot to be excited about over the next six months in local theatre, with Sydney Theatre Company arguably leading the charge withA Midsummer Night’s Dreamand David Mamet’sSpeed-The-Plow(though the Judy Davis-directed Belvoir production ofFaith Healeris a likely standout).

Another production that has STC audiences talking, however, is an entirely fresh and dark piece by playwright Angela Betzien, The Hanging. Exploring Australia’s captivation with our vast and often ominous landscape, as well as our unsettling fascination with disappearance, it forms part of a lineage that can be traced back to Picnic At Hanging Rock and beyond.

Picnic At Hanging Rock is a seminal Australian text,” Betzien agrees. “It’s part of our obsession with the theme of the lost child in the landscape, and it’s so prevalent in our art, in our film, in our theatre. I think, and many academics have written on this as well, it speaks to white colonial anxieties about the landscape, about our relationship with the Aboriginal owners of the land. It’s this recurring obsession, and I’ve certainly been part of it with my work, beginning with a play that I wrote called Children Of The Black Skirt, which is very much exploring that theme of the lost child. For me, The Hanging was a very conscious interrogation of that idea. It’s something that keeps recurring in all of my plays, and I wanted to look at that up close, see what that interest is. It’s kind of a morbid obsession we have about these young girls dying in the landscape, and I wanted to comment on that.”

Betzien’s comments bring to mind another Australian film about landscape and disappearance, Strangerland, which premiered last year and also touches on these themes.

“I really want to check [Strangerland] out, but I’m a little nervous about it,” Betzien laughs. “Wolf Creek does it as well, the gothic landscape. There’s In The Winter Dark, which is based on a Tim Winton story. Wake In Fright, that’s a classic Australian film in which the landscape is a real character, it’s a real antagonist. There’s a whole line of stories that touch on it, I just love them.”

The Hanging centres on the aftermath of three teenage girls’ disappearance in the outback, as only one of them returns and has no recollection of what happened. Director Sarah Goodes, in her final outing as STC resident director, has described Betzien’s work as being full of “shadowy, unknown elements and the ways in which mystery can exist”. Actually creating such an atmosphere onstage, however, is no simple task. Though we are all strangers gathered in the dark – the perfect breeding ground for fear – scaring an audience is damned difficult.

“Absolutely,” says Betzien. “Darkness is such a key element to theatre, and it’s one of the reasons I like writing for it. If a light isn’t shining on something, it’s darkness, and how our imaginations inhabit that darkness is something I find really interesting. I think theatre can be such a thrilling medium, and the thriller genre can actually work really well there if it’s done in a clever way. I’m interested in using all of those genres that are familiar to us in film and television, but potentially not so familiar in a theatre. “Borrowing the tropes of those genres and seeing how they work in theatre. I love the idea of scaring people; I think it’s a big challenge. Just as much of a challenge as making people laugh.”

A further challenge is the fact this will be the first time anyone has seen this story. There’s no real way of knowing exactly what works and what doesn’t from past productions, no sense of when the audience is most on edge. Betzien has a slew of plays under her belt, but the anticipation for how The Hanging will be received has her tense – about as tense, you imagine, as she hopes the audience will be throughout the show.

“It’s quite terrifying!” she laughs. “The thing about a new Australian play is that you really don’t know what you’ve got on your hands until you have an audience. It’s this magical medium where all of the elements need to collide in the right way. It’s a rare thing when that happens, and sometimes new Australian plays can be imperfect, but wonderfully imperfect, where this might be their first exposure. Usually it’s the second production when new productions really sing. I’ve not been in the rehearsal room as much as I normally would this time, so it’s been a bit of a new experience, allowing this amazing creative team to just play with the work. I’ll see a run [in a few days], but that will be the first time on the floor. It’s exciting, and obviously incredibly nerve-wracking.”

Given the calibre of talent involved – Goodes and Betzien of course, but also cast members Luke Carroll, Ashleigh Cummings and Genevieve Lemon – The Hanging may well emerge as one of the productions of the year, but as long as the audience leaves with its hearts in its mouths, Betzien will be happy.

“That’s the problem. Sometimes theatre can just be a social event, and I’m always mortified if people leave and they’re talking about where they’re going to have dinner. You want people to be stunned into silence or inspired into conversation. It’s about shaking people up a little.”

[The Hanging photo by James Green]

The HangingrunsThursday July 28 – Saturday September 10 at STC’sWharf 1 Theatre.

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