The Plains: a play is Lachlan Plain’s adaptation of Gerald Murnane’s The Plains: a novel (Patrick White Award 1999, NSW Premier’s Award 2007), via the paintings of Philip Hunter and the music of Sebastian Jorgensen.
A filmmaker travels from his coastal exterior ‘towards the heart of some remote private plain’…
Presented by VCA Drama and Sanctum Theatre as part of the 'VCA Drama 2008 Master of Theatre Practice Performance Season'.
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Cast
Film-maker: Ben Hjorth
5th Landowner: Tim Ratcliffe
Wife: Fleur Dean
Daughter: Ellen Steele
Creative Team & Crew
Director: Lachlan Plain
Set & Puppet Designer: Sarah Barrow & Lachlan Plain
Costume Designer: Michelle Gordon
Sound Designer: Jon Drews
Lighting Designer: Adam Hardy
Lighting Assistant: Kimberley Kwa
Animation, film & projection: Ana Marikit Tiquia
Slides: Lachlan Plain
Puppet Makers: Michael Camilerri & Lauren Redpath
Puppet Construction: Gai Anderson, Sabrina D'Angelo, Rachael Guy & Iris Radovic
Set Construction: Sarah Barrow & Michael Gange
Production Manager: Charlie Golding
Assistant Production Manager: Edward Dowling
Stage Manager: David Haidon
Assistant Stage Manager: Amy Bagshaw
Crew: David Farmer & Alice Ng
Front of House Manager: Daria Wray
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director's statement
I discovered Gerald Murnane’s novel The Plains in 2001 after seeing Philip Hunter’s exhibition, also called The Plains, at the Ian Potter Gallery, The University of Melbourne. In Murnane’s novel, like Hunter’s paintings, one is submerged in a carefully rendered dreaming of those plains one discovers en route to the Interior. Unlike us coastal-dwellers who define our world through contrast, the plainsman understands his land as a subtly undulating vista.
Both paintings and novel are detached and poetic representations of the Other Australia, that ineffable landscape at the heart of our continent. I’ve referenced Sebastian Jorgensen’s Tribute album in the play as it navigates a similar space, where the guitar underlays the retelling of our landscape in English and the languages of the Kulin nation.
In July many of the cast and crew journeyed to The Little Desert National Park in northern Victoria, (the footage contained in the production was taken on this trip.) Further inspiration was taken from the century-old Barwon Park manor where the harsh light of the paddocks outside is turned a gentle yellow by the grand arched windows.
The Plains is a rumination on time… not as a journey but as another kind of plain.
--Lachlan Plain
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Links
- Download Lachlan's exegesis on The Plains 2008
- The Plains on the Sanctum Theatre scrapbook
- Artist's bios
- scrapbook
- Philip Hunter @ Olsen Galleries
- Sebastian Jorgensen on Myspace
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