by Andrew Bovell
from the novel by
Kate Grenville
Composer Iain
Grandage
The Sydney Theatre
Company
Directed by Neil
Armfield
Artistic Associate
Stephen Page
Designer
Stephen Curtis
With
Nathaniel Dean, Bailey Doomadgee, Lachlan Elliott, Kamil Ellis, Roy Gordon,
Iain Grandage, Ethel-Anne Gundy, Anita Hegh, Daniel Henshall, Trevor Jamieson,
Rhimi Johnson Page, Judith McGrath, Callum McManis, Colin Moody, Rory Potter,
Jeremy Sims, James Slee, Bruce Spence, Matthew Sunderland, Miranda Tapsell, Tom
Usher, Ursula Yovich
His Majesty’s Theatre
Until March 2
The journey of a
well-loved story from page to stage is a treacherous one, with the expectations
of both its audiences – readers and theatre-goers – to be met, and the vasty
fields of the original to be somehow crammed within the theatre’s wooden O.
The Secret River, with
its description of early colonial society and the fatal clash of people and
cultures in our far-from-terra nullius has deeply affected those who have read
it.
The tears I saw last
night in the audience were, I’m sure, from readers whose emotional investment
in the book had been realised on stage. I haven’t, and can only leave the truth
of that to them.
