The sun beat down on the faces of the three girls. It was bright and warm with no cloud in the sky, but the black shadow of Hanging Rock glowered over them… even on the brightest of days you can’t escape the dark….
On a summer’s day in 1900 three Australian schoolgirls grew tired of their classmates and yearned for adventure. Escaping their teacher’s watchful gaze they absconded, away from the group and towards the beckoning Hanging Rock – never to be seen again.
Picnic at Hanging Rock has haunted the Australian psyche for over a century both in print and on film. In Tom Wright’s chilling adaptation of Joan Lindsay’s classic novel, five performers struggle to solve the mystery of the missing girls and their teacher. Euphoria and terror reverberate throughout Appleyard College, as the potential for history to repeat itself becomes nightmarishly real.
It draws the audience in and keeps their attention but fails to deliver any real edge of the seat moments.
While this conceptual interpretation of the Australian classic filled with eerie sounds may be thought provoking, it fails to send shivers.
Indeed, the ambition and intelligence of the production are commendable. The main drawback is that it clearly sets out to disturb, and does not manage to do so consistently enough.
It’s a show with a volcanic power.
As devastating as it is delicate.
Unfortunately, the girls’ obvious talent is not enough to overcome the problems in the script and staging, and though the play is a useful exercise in disconcerting theatre, it never quite reaches the heights of terror and panic to which it strives.
An explosion of theatrical power as fierce as it is contemplative, and so original that no-one who sees it is likely to forget it.
Picnic at Hanging Rock is taut, allusive and uses a curdled romanticism to expose the desperate mismatch between colonial aspirations to tame and the unforgiving powers that lurk in the wilderness.
This, the darkest time of year, makes it a great moment to explore the darkest recesses of our imaginations.
As compelling, visceral and insistent as that wasp in your otherwise perfect picnic jam pot. Unmissable.
There are elements to be enjoyed here, it’s just a shame they were not more consistent.
The director has...created a memorable work of unsettling events and unsettled psychology.
Picnic at Hanging Rock is an absolute triumph of the dual power of theatre and horror to manipulate our realities and leave us haunted not by ghosts, but by our own imaginations.
The cast of five...powerfully show the seismic effect of the vanishing on the other schoolgirls, staff and local community.
That this adaptation opts to focus chiefly on a sense of dread is not, in itself, a problem; that it doesn’t always achieve it, though, is.
Flawed, at times overwrought, but at its best it provokes the same shiver of disquiet as Weir’s woozily frightening movie.
A vivid adaptation of the classic Australian tale about the disappearance of a group of schoolgirls in 1900.
Picnic at Hanging Rock is a rich, dark theatrical tapestry that explores the horror of loss, yet never loses the powerful ambiguity or dread of the original text. This is an unforgettable, if not utterly disturbing piece of work.
It is a fascinating and expansive take on Lindsay’s novel, and a penetrating contemplation of the construction of Australia.
Preview: Picnic at Hanging Rock
Theatre Preview--Picnic at Hanging Rock
Picnic at Hanging Rock--Matthew Lutton of Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre on putting Joan Lindsay's novel onstage
Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh from Friday January 13, 2017, until Saturday January 28, 2017. More info: www.lyceum.org.uk
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