PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK

 

Adapted by Tom Wright

From the book by Joan Lindsay

Directed by Caitlin Baker

Chaika Theatre Production

ACT Hub Theatre to 7 November

 

Reviewed by Len Power 23 October 2026

 

Since Joan Lindsay wrote her novel ‘Picnic At Hanging Rock’ in 1967 and the popular 1975 film was released, this story became a part of Australian folklore. Now it’s adapted as a play by Tom Wright.

On a sweltering Valentine’s Day in 1900, a group of schoolgirls have a picnic at mysterious Hanging Rock. Several girls and a teacher climb the rock, although forbidden to do so, and vanish without a trace.

This intriguing mystery is part ghost story as well as a study in repression, desire, twisted and faulty memories and an inability of a society to adapt to Australian conditions.

Tom Wright’s stage adaptation has five actors playing all of the roles in the story. As the cast rapidly move from character to character, we are quickly disorientated and drawn into the mystery that is told in possibly unreliable memories and fantasies.

Foreground: Jessi Gooding, Breanna Kelly. Background: Karina Hudson, Thea Jade

Caitlin Baker’s set evokes a schoolroom with the blackboard and its chalk writings as well as the dusty, dirty Australian bush underfoot. The clever sound, designed by Paris Scharkie, and the lighting, designed by Disa Swifte, add to the enveloping atmosphere.

Paris Scharkie, Thea Jade

The cast of five – Jessi Gooding, Karina Hudson, Thea Jade, Breanna Kelly and Paris Scharkie – capture the claustrophobic world of a group of boarding schoolgirls very well. With the style of the play, there’s little opportunity for deep character studies and this keeps us at a distance as the story unfolds. Only Karina Hudson has an opportunity to provide a strong character study when she appears as Miss Appleyard, the school’s harsh Principal.

Karina Hudson, Jessi Gooding, Breanna Kelly

The mystery of this story, and the conditions that enabled it to happen, are presented in a kaleidoscopic fashion so that it is difficult to know what is real or imagined. The result is a dream-like production full of unresolved mystery.

Played without a break for 70 minutes, the edginess of the story, the depiction of life in a private school in 1900 and the all-encompassing mystery of the disappearance are very well presented by director, Caitlin Baker, and her cast.

 

Photo by Jane Duong

Len Power's reviews are also broadcast on Artsound FM 92.7 in the ‘Arts Cafe’ and ‘Arts About’ programs and published in his blog 'Just Power Writing' at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/.

 

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK

 

Picnic at Hanging Rock. 

Adapted from the novel by Joan Lindsay by Tom Wright. Directed by Caitlin Baker. Stage Manager Carmen King. Set design. Caitlin Baker. Lighting Design Disa Swifte. Composer and Sound Designer Paris Sharkie. Costume Designer Helen Fojtas. Producer Karen Vickery for chaika Theatre. Production Photography Jane Duong. Chaika Theatre. ACT HUB October 23 – November 7 Bookings: ACTHUB.COM.AU

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

There is an immediate sense of mystery in Chaika Theatre’s haunting production of Tom Wright’s stage adaptation of Picnic at Hanging Rock. A schoolgirl is writing in chalk capital letters on a blackboard. THE ROCK IS A NIGHTMARE AND NIGHTMARES BELONG IN THE PAST. The sentence is repeated over and over until at one stage it becomes distorted before being resumed. There is mystery in its meaning as the rock looms large as a symbol of an ancient geological past rising from the volcanic sediment of a violent and eruptive past. Tom Wright paints a raw poetic portrait of an untamed landscape, ancient and powerful, inhabited by venomous snakes, spiders and crawling insects. It is a landscape, familiar to its indigenous inhabitants and yet alien to author Joan Lindsay’s characters in her classic novel Picnic At Hanging Rock. Lindsay’s plot made popular by Peter Weir’s 1975 film of the same name centres on a visit to Victoria’s Hanging Rock by schoolgirls on St Valentine’s Day in 1900 and the unexplained disappearance within the dangerous rock. 

Tom Wright’s adaptation focuses on the four girls who enter the rock and their French schoolmistress.  Director Caitlin Baker has cast five outstanding actors who also take on other roles including the school headmistress Mrs Appleyard, the coach driver Albert, Sarah a junior student ridiculed by Appleyard and young  Englishman Michael, visiting his wealthy relatives and becoming embroiled in the drama. At the beginning of the play, the actors work as a Greek Chorus, explaining the events against the background of Wright’s vivid descriptions of the environment. The aura is palpable, conjuring images that paint the portrait of a wild landscape perilous to the unwary and unINitiated members and descendants of British colonization. As Sarah defiantly cries out to her authoritarian headmistress, what good is your British education. It is not reality. 

The opening prologue of events then evolves into a number of scenes, atmospherically captured by Disa Swifte’s lighting design and Paris Scharkie’s composition and sound design into the events that follow the disappearance of Miranda, Marion, Irma and Edith. It becomes apparent through the interrogation, the privileged class’s tea party, Appleyard’s rigid approach to learning and Michael’s confusion that the rock stands high as a symbol of Nature’s power over humanity to be respected and shared by a population who had occupied the land for thousands of years and had learnt and earned a respect, the lack of which held deadly consequences for those who ignored the land’s laws. 

Ultimately, Chaika’s thought-provoking and superbly staged production of Tom Wright’s adaptation becomes a beacon of light to expose the cracks in the rock of our societal fabric. What is our relationship to and responsibility for the land? There was no Welcome To Country in 1967 when Lindsay wrote her novel, so some progress has been made, but Chaika’s production reminds us all that we continue to owe respect to those who inhabited and learned to respect the land before an alien and ignorant culture imposed its custom, its education and its laws.

The programme handout out says that Chaika’s production of Picnic At Hanging Rock is an amateur production by arrangement with Origen Theatrical on behalf of Nick Hern books. Chaika Theatre’s production is highly professional in every sense of the word. Baker’s vision and direction is powerfully engrossing in ACT HUB’s intimate space. Her casting is exemplary and performed by a cast who excel in every role. This is ensemble work of its very best. Karina Hudson, Jessi Gooding, Thea Jade, Breanna Kelly and Paris Sharkie give performances equal to any on a professional mainstage. For seventy minutes without an interval the cast take us on a fascinating journey into the mysteries and conundrums of our relationship with the land and people of our nation. Whether it is based on fact or fictitious imagination, the lessons are there to be learned and Chaika’s production of Picnic At Hanging Rock proves to be the best teacher.

Do not miss this excellent production’s short season.

 

 

MOUNTAIN - Canberra Theatre Centre Playhouse

Choreographed by Melanie Lane – Music composed by Clark.

Costume Design by Akira Isogawa – Lighting Design by Bosco Shaw & Nick Moloney

Produced by Freya Waterson, Visions – Assoc.Producer: Chelsea Byrne, Visions

Performed by dancers: Sara Black – Max Burgess – Tyrel Dulvarie -Madeleine Bowman – Yolanda Lowatta.

Musicians – Canberra Symphony Orchestra Chamber Ensemble with Clark – Doreen Cumming (violin) – Bianca Porcheddu (Violin) – Tor Fromyhr (viola)– Samuel Payne (cello) – Susanne Powell (piano)

Canberra Theatre Centre Playhouse – October 17^th, 2026 – Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

"Mountain" by Melanie Lane

There was a great deal of local interest in this work, given Melanie Lane’s strong connections with the local dance community majorly through her work with QL2 Dance, as well as the news that next year she will take over the Artistic Directorship of Lucy Guerin Inc.

But also because the cast of Mountain contained dancers well-known to Canberra audiences in Sara Black, Yolanda Lowatta and Tyrel Dulvarie, that the work had been inspired by the Brindabella mountains, familiar to all Canberrans, and would be danced in costumes designed by Akira Isogawa.  

The highly anticipated work began in a familiar place for Lane, known for her use of sculptural imagery, with the lights slowly revealing what at first appeared to be a silhouette of mountains.

As the lighting level rose however, the shape was revealed as an artful arrangement of the bodies of five tightly grouped dancers, flanked by musicians seated around the perimeter of one corner of the dance area.

Yolanda Lowatta and musicians performing "Mountain"

Bosco Shaw and Nick Moloney’s tightly focussed lighting design allowed the dancers to be isolated when necessary, and the orchestra to be revealed strategically. It worked brilliantly with Akira Isogawa’s extraordinary multi-layered costumes, and Chris Clark’s haunting score performed live on stage, inspiring the five highly skilled dancers to give themselves over completely to Lane’s ever-inventive choreography.

Isogawa’s ingenious costumes, fashioned from found elements, including deconstructed blue denim jeans and discarded ballet skirts, suggesting simultaneously, both the blue haze surrounding the mountains and their ruggedness.  

As the work progressed, various elements of the costumes were discarded until the dancers were left in form-fitting bodysuits painted with rock-art and indigenous motives subtly referencing the mountain’s First Nation heritage.

The casting of Yolanda Lowatta and Tyrel Dulvarie supported this reference, as did a sequence involving Max Burgess manipulating long bamboo sticks.

Sara Black - Tyrel Dulvarie in "Mountain"

Throughout, Lane’s choreography engrossed with its inventiveness, at times rhapsodic and always captivating, with her dancers performing her intricate sequences with effortless skill, as though transported by the music and the mood.

However, it was not only the dancers who responded in that way. Because by the time they appeared for the final sequence, their bodysuits replaced with ghostly diaphanous veils, the musicians, and indeed the audience, all seemed so enraptured by the gorgeous sounds created by Clark’s clever interweaving of electronics and live music, and the ecstatic performances by the dancers, nobody wanted the work to end. 

                                                        Photos by Jackson Loria    

          This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. Link Here

AURORA, Oriana Chorale

 Larry Sitsky Recital Room, ANU School of Music. October 18. Reviewed by DAVID WHITBREAD

Aurora captured the awe and beauty of voices and composers inspired by the dancing lights of both hemispheres. Truly music of the spheres!

Oriana Chorale performing Aurora

Director Dan Walker crafted a program of choral delights with the responsive 38-strong Oriana Chorale in its 49th year. And what a fine instrument it is.

The excellence of their preparation showed in solid parts, mostly well upwards from the traditional four parts, presumably eight and often more in the contemporary works performed here.

Finely rehearsed details included patterned rhythmic chanting, or swooping to notes at different speeds, and against other lines. Rock solid semitones. Fine dynamics, swelling when required to impressive louds and fading to whispering softs. Beautifully controlled long notes. Good diction in a staggering range of languages.

Estonian Veljo Tormis’s Autumn Landscapes was a set of seven charming folk-like songs. Humming created the beginning of the evening’s soundscape to come. At times dance-like, but always evocative, this was a tour de force vocal achievement with crisp group staccato, oohing, whispering… the swoops in Wind over the Barrens building momentum leading to the lovely cool bleak stillness of Cold Autumn Night, punctuated sharply by glittering soprano lines.

Icelander Anna Þorvaldsdóttir’s Hear Us in Heaven had an ancient plainsong base with beautiful rich bass lines and a very peaceful effect.

An Australian work in English and Latin, Alice Chance’s And the Lord Said Fiat Lux for women’s choir had some lovely effects where, for example, wordless rhythms in the altos accompanied the melody in the sopranos.

Winter was written by Oriana member Patrick Baker. It was perhaps the epitome of soundscape in this concert.

Surrounding the audience in one long line, the chorale started very softly with sustained notes which subtly split into semitones, with some percussive tongue technique, all under numbered instructions from the conductor. Choir members timed their lines to fill the space between directions. The mellow chiming of bells. Quite affecting.

For the first time I noticed the ceiling projections of gently rippling images of the northern lights by Scandinavian based Quan Choi.

Two works were titled Northern Lights. Ēriks Ešenvalds featured a Latvian folk solo from David Faraker while the choir sang a story in English with chiming bells that created a magic effect. The second by Norwegian Ola Gjeilo was given a great full choir rendition with a tremendous sustained note held to the end.

Harmonically rich, undulating lines in Norwegian Kjell Flem’s Natten (The Night), also featured an otherworldly bass line intoning “requiem”. Such colours.

After a wonderful wandering vocal opening, Icelander Björk’s Cosmogony indeed “whirled around us and made us wonder” right to its incredible ending with a stunning slowmotion glissando from up high.

A nice Icelandic folk song setting by Scottish John Hearne It is Beautiful in the Fjords led to the finale.

The world premiere of Oriana Composer in Residence Sebastian ‘Bas’ Allen’s Aurora Aurealis. A delightful work, symphonic in scope, and realising effects of “shimmering in a carnival spectacle” from the words by Zoe Withington. Glorious melodies, subtle percussion from a shaker, it featured vocals from whispers to full-bodied singing.

As almost a benediction, the Oriana Chorale again surrounded the audience to sing the moving Underneath the Stars by English composer Kate Rusby. It featured individual voices, including the soloists from throughout the recital, as well as the whole choir intoning “Go gently.”

Photo by Leanne Davidson

This review originally published in Canberra City News Link here 

PARIS AFTER DARK - Milko Faucault-Larche Productions - The Street Theatre

 

Joseph Macri - Milko Faucault-Larche in "Paris After Dark.

 The Street Theatre - October 18th 2026 - Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS

Joseph Macri - Corinne Andrew - Milko Faucalt-Larche in "Paris After Dark"

The promise of an afternoon of authentic French cabaret drew an appreciative audience of Francophile’s to The Street Theatre on a perfect, sunny, Spring afternoon to be transported to the boulevards of Paris with many of the most famous chansons of all time.

They were not disappointed as MO Award winning Mauritian-Australian balladeer, Milko Foucault-Larche, who arrived in Australia as a young man who couldn’t speak a word of English, and his Parisian born leading lady, Corinne Andrew, who’s appeared in the legendary Folies-Bergere, serenaded them with a generous program of songs made famous by the likes of Edith Piaf, Charles Aznavour, Yves Montand, Josephine Baker and Charles Trenet.  

For around 90 minutes, without interval, the pair held their audience enthralled, performing a program of solos and duets on a stage decorated with a Parisian café table and chair, bearing a bowl of red and white roses, to one side, and the genial Joseph Macri providing stylish accompaniments from a handsome grand piano on the other.

Joseph Macri and Corinne Andrew in "Paris After Dark"

Both performers changed costume frequently, each change more glamorous than the last, performing their songs in both French and English, and prefacing many with titillating stories about their creators, or the performers who made them famous.

Among the many expected favourites, Corrinne Andrew delighted with her interpretation of Edith Piaf’s,” Non je ne Regrette Rien”, Josephine Baker’s theme song, “J’ai Deux Amours”, and particularly with her dazzling rendition of “Tico Tico”, a tongue-twister associated with French performer, Dalida.

Milko Foucault-Larche offered masterful versions of songs by Charles Aznavour, Yves Montand and Charles Trenet, then surprised by performing, “The Impossible Dream”, from a French production of the musical, Man of La Mancha, and a rousing rendition of “Stand Up and Fight” from the musical Carmen Jones, justified of course, being best known as “The Toreador Song from the Bizet opera, Carmen.

Even Joseph Macri had his moment in the spotlight offering a charming rendition of Richard Clayderman’s lovely piano solo, “Ballade Pour Adeline”.

But it was two songs from a little-known musical by Charles Aznavour, “Monsieur Carnaval” sung as duets, the first, “La Boheme” and an ear-wig finale song, “La Vie est un Carnaval”, that were most likely buzzing in the heads of their delighted audience as it headed out, hopefully, to round off the night with a delicious French meal. 

                                         Photos by Maureen Wayling 

                      This review first published in CITY NEWS on 19.10.28 Link here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WE COME TOGETHER TO DANCE: Chaos 26 - Quantum Leap Australia.

 

Artistic Director: Alice Lee Holland

Choreography: Pat Hayes Cavanagh – Alice Lee Holland – Gabriel Sinclair – Isabella Stone

Lighting Design: Owen Davis – Sound Mastering: Kimmo Vennonen

Costume Co-ordination: Natalie Wade – Rehearsal Assistant: Jahna Lugnan

Belconnen Arts Centre, 16^th & 17^th October 2026

Performance on 16^th October reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

Each year, Quantum Leap Australia stages an edition of The Chaos Project, an annual creative development process which introduces new members to the Quantum Leap process while allowing experienced members to experiment and explore their attraction to dance.

This year, 40 young dancers participated over an intensive 10-day period, under the direction of four professional choreographers.  The objects of the various segments were reflected in the titles of the five choreographed sections - We Come Together to Dance ‘Til We Drop (Isabella Stone) – We Come Together to Grow (Pat Hayes Cavanagh)- We Dance to Come Together (Gabriel Sinclair) – We Come together to Be Who We Are (Alice Lee Holland) - We Come Together to Dance, to Belong (Isabella Stone).

 Alice Lee Holland also choreographed the opening and closing segments.

As all the segments are marked ‘in collaboration with the cast” it appeared that all of the choreographers had followed the same process of seeking suggestions from the young dancers, then shaping those suggestions into an ensemble work, utilising whatever skills the participants could offer.  

Given the huge variation in ages and experience of the participants for each piece, it was inevitable that the resulting works would bear a similarity to each other, particularly as the costuming for each piece, with the exception of Gabriel Sinclair’s contribution, for which each participant wore similar black pants, white shirts and grey jackets, the dancers in each of the other works wore mis-matched, ill-fitted ‘dress-ups' rather than costumes.

So, while the young participants attacked their choreographed tasks with enthusiasm, and the pieces were doubtless useful as introductions for the participants to the Quantum Leap process, the lack of choreographic variation and attention to presentation detail, meant that as public performance, this year’s Chaos offerings were of limited interest other than to parents and relatives.

                               Images by Olivia Wikner, O & J Wikner Photography.

Cloud Studies

Visual Arts Review | Brian Rope

Cloud Studies | Rebecca Beardmore, Leah Beeferman, Yvette Hamilton, Anna Madeleine Raupach

Photo Access, Canberra, Australia | 24 September - 24 October 2026

The Cloud Studies exhibition is presented in partnership with the Canberra Art Biennial, which is Canberra’s biennial contemporary public art festival. The artworks have as a height datum contour 556, the water level of Lake Burley Griffin, which links the event in name as well as in purpose to the history of the central Canberra landscape. The artworks and installations selected for the festival respond in some way to Canberra’s history, from 65,000 years to the present day. The Biennial, therefore, offers the Canberra, Australian and international community a unique opportunity to engage with and understand the layers of Canberra’s history through art. 

The exhibition is at Photo Access, which is the Canberra region’s centre for contemporary photography, film, video and media arts. It has brought together four artists to imagine the atmosphere as a threshold, where clouds hover between the natural and the technological. They consider clouds not only as weather forms but as symbolic spaces where history, representation, science, and environmental change converge.

The artists photography, video, data visualisation and printmaking artworks in the exhibition echo the contemporary “cloud” of digital and algorithmic technologies. The atmosphere emerges here as a frontier, where earth and sky, human and machine, presence and disappearance intersect.

Rebecca Beardmore’s experimental printmaking practice investigates intersections of photography, materiality, and image-making systems. Current research explores moiré patterns as perceptual thresholds, revealing tensions between analogue tactility and algorithmic translation. She is exhibiting seven photopolymer photogravure pieces. They are all strong pieces, with the largest one shown below being the standout artwork for me. 

Rebecca Beardmore, Plate 4: Cumulus of strong vertical extent, WMO 1956 (1956/2026), Reconstruction (left panel), 2026, photopolymer photogravure, 180 x 107 cm (Installation image by Brian Rope)

Leah Beeferman makes digital images, prints, objects, and videos, records sound and writes texts. She seeks to understand the atmosphere: the ways it makes weather forms, forms landscapes, and alters them. Her contributions to the exhibition are a video with sound, a dye sublimation print on fabric, and a CNC-routed aluminum piece. For readers who do not know, CNC refers to a computer-controlled machine used for cutting various materials

Aluminum is the most abundant metallic element in Earth’s crust. It appears as a silvery grey metal and is known for its low density, high conductivity, and versatility. Beeferman has created a delightful artwork relating to the Kennaook/Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station near the north-west tip of Australia’s island State of Tasmania. That scientific observatory plays a critical role in understanding our atmosphere and monitoring key drivers of climate change.

Leah Beeferman, The Uncertainty Location (Kennaook-Cape Grim), 2026, CNC routed aluminum, 180 x 107 cm (Installation image by Brian Rope)

Leah Beeferman, Shadow Clouds Form (Barbados), 2024, Dye sublimation print on fabric, 335 x 183 cm (Installation image by Brian Rope)

Leah Beeferman, And this atmosphere, an elusive alphabet, 2026, video with sound, 10 minutes (Installation image by Brian Rope)

Anna Madeleine Raupach is a multidisciplinary artist. Her practice engages with science and technology to critically address socio-political issues enmeshed with climate change. Her four pieces in the exhibition include one comprising Fresnel lenses and jump rings which are suspended from the ceiling and fascinating to look into and through – whilst doing so, I couldn’t resist capturing four photographs with my phone camera.

Another Raupach artwork features polaroids, hand-drawn animation and a custom display module. She also is showing a Neural Radiance Field HD video and another created from YouTube videos, electronic display modules, and chalk. Each of these exhibits drew me in and held my attention for some time.

Anna Madeleine Raupach, Still from In an instant, 2026, polaroids, hand-drawn animation, custom display module, 14.5 x 10 cm (Installation image by Brian Rope)

Anna Madeleine Raupach, Still from Places on Earth Where all Forces are Absent, 2025-2026, Neural Radiance Field HD video, 6:55 min. (Installation image by Brian Rope) 

Yvette Hamilton’s photographic practice spans analogue, digital and alternative practices, and is conceptually guided by ontological explorations of photography and the link between vision and knowledge. She is exhibiting several silver gelatin lumen prints, a piece comprising a photographic collage, LED lights and a microprocessor, and The Middle Air, a limited-edition artist book.

The prints are delightful portrayals of clouds wherein viewers might visualise various landscapes. A shaft of light regularly penetrates the collage artwork then fades away. The displayed copy of the book is well worth looking through. Copies of it are available for purchase, with each containing a unique lumen cloud silver gelatin photograph, hand-printed by the artist. 

Yvette Hamilton, Optical Depth #4, 2026, Unique silver gelatin lumen print, digital print on glass, custom frame, 50 x 40 cm (Installation image by Brian Rope)

Yvette Hamilton, Observation Point: Rising Air, 2026, Photographic Collage: Unique C type prints, silver gelatin lumen prints, LED lights, microprocessor (Installation image by Brian Rope)

Yvette Hamilton, The Middle Air, 2026, Artist book, 48 pages, Edition of 50. (Installation image by Brian Rope) 

Overall, this is a most interesting exhibition. It achieves its purpose and is a valuable participant in the art biennial.

This review is also available on the author's blog.