I record this podcast on Gaetigul Country. I'd like to pay my respect to the traditional.
Custodians, and I'm recording on Urando Country, part of the cooler nation. Let's go.
I know you're gonna dig this. It's like I've been given like an extra sprinkle of something.
You've got layers, Yeah, I got layers. I was just thinking, I'm like, we're just such beautiful storytellers.
You make a lot of sense to that girl. No, I'm done.
I've been too honest to go.
Well, it was Marti Gras on the weekend, and what an incredible year it's been for Mardi Gras. It's such a good turnout. I sat at home and watched it on the TV from Port Stevens. It was on my first nights that I had actually watched it on TV, and it's such a good broadcast. You know, there's no ads.
I know.
I love how it's just bang bang bang bang bang bang.
How did you spend your Saturday night?
Oh? I was God. I was in Brisbane doing a book launch, so pretty exciting. I mean I flew to Brisee on Friday morning and flew out Saturday night. So yeah, that's how I spend it.
How did it go?
Yeah, it was went really well. My girlfriend spontaneously actually booked the wrong flight on Friday morning we want to fly out from Melbourne. I was flying to Brizzy. She was flying back to Sydney. She realized that she booked the wrong flight. So I was like, why did you just come to Brisy and come to the book launch? And she did so I was like, all right, So that was really nice. We got to spend like Marti grad together.
Well, I saw in your story over the weekend that you called her the love of your life. Oh tell me about that. What is that feeling like?
I don't know, just peace.
I don't know.
I think every day I spend with Mia, I don't know, we get closer and we both said I love you over the weekend. So the weekend was filled with lots of loves. But I don't know, it's just like a comfortable feeling. I feel like she's my best friend and I don't I don't know. I just feel like I'm just so excited to build a life with her. I think the only complication is just us living apart from one another at the moment and just trying to figure
out how that looks. I think we just both want to spend time with one another and we just kind of make sure we like book the next trip, you know, as soon as we can, so we can get excited for whenever we get to see each other in person again.
But beautiful. I want to talk about Mardi Gras over the weekend, and there's been so many great posts that people have been doing online celebrating that weekend and especially the parade. We had the first Nation's float and buy Icon Barker. It was one of the people who you know, were the shining figures on that float, but also an ally, Isaac Compton. He was up there with his big ole on the.
I was so happy to see that. That looks so much fun. I was actually getting so much flomo and it looked like, oh honestly, that just the theme Black Royalty with all the mob on the flow, like that would have just been the best vibe, Like I reckon, I would have just been living totally be a fly on the wall, would just be there in person.
And it's so good because they're one of the first floats, so they're actually i think the first float after the Duke's on bike.
They should be first things first. First Nation's mob should be the first, always at the front and center, always.
But I love that because they get it over and done with quickly. By the time you get to number two hundred. When you're watching, I'm thinking his mob look half asleep, like they look tired because they've been in the holding pen since four o'clock.
I know, I remember, I remember being like a part of hours. It is hey, like it's just but you know, when you're first and you're going that first adrenaline if you see, oh I feel a good little goose bumpies.
Yeah it is. It is an amazing feeling. And I wanted to just talk about something that is quite amazing that has come out over the weekend, and it's a post from Felicia Fox, who's a bit of a queer icon.
They are.
They are somebody who has definitely made a mark on the quei scene as a drag queen, Felicia Fox, and I only saw them perform recently, only a week ago at Barker's thirtieth and one of the really beautiful moments that I saw from the weekend was a shot of Felicia Fox.
I know exactly what shot you're talking about?
Yes, and the shot represented the intersection of who Felicia is, so the cultural identity with a cultural garment, the lap lap, and they were also painted up. The intersection was that and their queer identity. So they wore thigh high red boots to match the lap lap. I thought that was iconic.
It's given kinky boots. I was like, I'm here, but I could never walk in them. I love that.
It just to me was such a beautiful representation of pride, of everything that Felicia is, you know, and this intersection that I too resonate with. So the photo was posted online yesterday and it has caused a stir within the community. There are very mixed emotions about this shot. I thought it was amazing. I wanted to get your take on it. You've seen the image, what were your initial reactions?
Well, I think seeing it, I felt a lot of pride because you know that first nation's flow is the first float, and if you know people are seeing Felicia, you know, dressed up expressing themselves. The whole thing, whole point of martigrav is self expression, love, acceptance, right, and that photo just intersects so much of her personality, but I see myself so much in that as well. I see the queerness, I see the cultural, I see the community part. I see like accepting they're a queer identity
and being able to forward and show that. And I feel a lot of like peace with that as well.
But I agree it's showing.
Like an involvement of culture and identity and I think, like I felt really proud. But I have been reading the comments. I'm not on Facebook, so I have had a few people screenshot. I had conversations with Kayla, my housemate, about it this morning, and I can see it from some perspectives, but I don't agree with all of the comments and the hate that she is getting. I'd love to know what your thoughts are, especially as well, because the lap lap is traditionally for men in cultural practice.
What's your take on it.
I also just want to say that you know, the lap lap isn't just worn at ceremony or culture practice. It was traditionally worn always, you know, it was The painting is the cultural element that elevates for ceremony or for you know, a corrobboree that would happen with men's business. But what I want to say, is that for me, this beautiful image and Felicia Fox sharing these parts of her identity, their identity is an expression of pride. This
is culture on display in both aspects. Its first nation's culture and it's gay culture. I think that the views that I've seen online, and this comes from Facebook, there are so many comments that really are trenched in homophobia, and I think that we are ingrained to feel a certain way about certain parts of the community, and when they intersect, it is jolting for a lot of people. I don't think that the later of violence that I'm
seeing is granted. I don't think that it is something that is necessary in this moment, because it's like, this is a person on the one night of the year where they get to express their full set health and you're trying to tear them down. I just think it gives insecure I think it gives a lack of understanding, a lack of empathy, a lack of knowledge. I think that people who have this very black and white view on this, and you know, this is disrespect to culture.
I think it's a pick and choose moment. I think they're choosing this to throw these hateful and derogatory, homophobic, racist.
Violence just contributes to the system that already exists.
Like, but what I'm trying to get at with what I'm saying is the fact that I really feel that these people who are making these comments wouldn't have the same reaction to culture being intersected in other parts of the community. For instance, the football.
Yeah, AFL RL Olympic game.
So that's the intersection of culture and a modern sport is okay, and it isn't disrespectful to our people. Yet as soon as there is this queer take on this intersection, it feels like these homophobic rants are just a tirade because people are so entrenched in their ways of thinking and what it is about. It's about the masculinity element
to it. It's about the fact that a lot of these men and the women who are commenting see this as a blatant disrespect to masculine men and the masculinity of our culture when you.
Can't be both masculine and feminine at the same time.
Of course you can, but their view is that men and culture has to be masculine. You know. It's a very entrenched like view and take on our culture. That is it just excludes the different identities that we all can carry, you know, and like people. One comment that I made is that, you know, gay mob didn't just pop up with the first fleet, and we've been around
for millennia, been a part of culture forever. And people are saying, well, you know what happened to those type of people in our culture when they were taken out to do ceremony? They never came back. And all I think to myself is that's bullshit, absolute bullshit.
And there's like people who come out and make these comments but they don't understand the harm that they could be causing, and you know, because they don't obviously get it from a queer perspective, or why do we have to shrink ourselves to like to fit in to this this box that we're already kind of already trying to like break out of, you know what I mean?
Yeah, And I think as First Nations people, we know what it's like to have to fight to prove who we are, to share our identity, to be proud of who we are. And there is a whole another layer to that when it comes to being a queer First Nations person. So if you're a black fellow. You already know what it feels like to be a press. Don't do that to the people who are within our community but who are even more oppressed because of our sexual identity.
Felicia Fox is free to be who they are. And I want to make a hashtag which is free to be Felicia Fox for the community to show their support. So hashtag free to be Felicia Fox. Show your support for Felicia and get behind this incredible artist because they have brought so much joy, so much beauty to the First Nation's queer community. So I just think it is such an incredible moment of the intersection of who we
are as First Nations and queen people. And coming up is an incredible First Nations person who also happens to be a gay man. It's Ian Michael and the wonderful Larinda May, Mary Paul. This is super exciting. We have some incredible guests. Just before this, the segway was that coming up next is a person who also is is such an icon at the intersection of First Nations in queer culture. So we're talking about Ian Michael and the
incredible Larinda May and Mary Paul. Welcome. The first things First.
Now where you're from.
I'm a woman man from the southwest of w A.
I'm Hungary and Susy Islander woman and I'm from Rockhampton, Queensland.
An earthquake. Oh you didn't know?
Oh wait, no, up in towns Villain.
Sorry is that far away? Queen It is right. I just think North Queensland is just one little spot.
Literally.
Well, welcome to First things First, we're so excited to have you on because we've seen some rave reviews about an incredible show that's happening at the Sydney Opera House. I and Michael, let's go to you first. Picnic Hanging Rock. Iconic title, iconic name, and Michael, I mean these things go together.
I was like, real celebrity if you're saying both names. Michael, welcome. No, yeah, tell us a bit about the players. I've actually never seen it, and I know we've had you on before in talking about Stolen and now you've jumped onto now working as a director at Picnic at Hanging Rock. I don't actually know much about the play. I'm coming and blind, so can you tell us a little bit about it?
Picnic Hanging Rock is an adaptation by Tom Wright and it's an adaptation of the Joan Lindsay novel which was written in the sixties, and it tells the story of a group of school girls from the Appleyard College in the Victorian Highlands and on Valentine's Day in nineteen hundred, they go to a picnic and while they're there, some of them fall asleep and it's this dreamy, lovely, CPR kind of toned world that they're having this beautiful day, and some of the girls decide that they want to
take some measurements of the rock because on Monday morning, when they get back to the college, they have to write an essay and they're they're kind of pulled by this invisible force that takes them higher and higher into the rock and they don't have any control of it. And the four girls fall into this deep sleep that none of them can explain why or what happens to them afterwards.
But I don't want to tell you about the drug they talk.
They fall into this sleep and then they wake up and three of the girls are then taken higher and higher into the rock and essentially go missing.
Wow, what kind of ethereal in like mysterious?
Is it?
Like?
Oh? Like, I don't know how what kind of genre is it.
It's like Australian Gothic.
Okay, yeah, I'm here for the goth Yeah yeah.
One of the girls, Edith, so Marion, Miranda, Edith climb the rock and Edith is the only one that comes back down.
Oh yeah you, Larinda.
Yeah, well I can't exactly tell you because there are seventeen roles in this show and only five actors, so none of us exactly play any one character.
Oh I love this, so you change constantly, okay.
And first, the first section of the play is essentially setting up the disappearance of the girls, and then we spend the rest of the production hearing about the aftermath and the search for them, and how the the traumas and the ripples of that experience kind of start to
affect everybody in the college and the community. And yeah, like Laurendu was saying, these five actors play a various number of roles and it's written in this kind of blank verse, which it's this kind of poeticism with this incredible sense of imagery and rhythms, and it's it's quite.
A thing, Laurinda. When you got the script, when you were cast. What is it that you first reacted to, Like, what was the sort of ah moment for you?
I'm a mystery girl for at heart, like I grew up on Nancy Drew, you know what I mean, Like I love a little mystery. And so I actually didn't know the story of Picnic at Hanging Rock either when I first heard about this when I was first contacted.
So I went in and I watched watch the film, watched the TV show, read the book, read the script, and then I had my meeting with Ian, and we kind of bonded over what we think really happened to the girls, because that was one of the first things Ian asked me, you know, what do you think happened to them? I said, I think the rock kind of just swallowed them up, Like they weren't supposed to be there,
so the earth just kind of took them. And so I think that was what really excited me about the story was just kind of the connection to country and like how it talks about you've got to really respect country and like, yeah, you know know what land you're on.
Yeah, it does sound very sacred, like if they're like trespassing, then there's consequences in some sense, I feel like.
Traditionally hanging Rock is you know, it's on the lands, just want to acknowledge that it's on the lands of the Jada wrong the way were wrung and the ton of wrong people, and Hanging Rock is a significant sacred site, especially for young men for initiation and trade and ceremony, and.
So women aren't allowed there. Would you say, like typically like traditionally.
Or I don't know the full specifics of it, but in terms of like the interpretation of this production, I remember you saying that, And it's the first thing I thought as well, because it's especially thinking about an initiation site for young men that these young you know in the novel there are the five white women who climb this rock and have no sense of acknowledgment or understanding
of what it is and what its purpose is. And so yeah, for me, people always ask me, and it's one of the first things I spoke about with the creative team was like, what do you think happened? And I was like, the rock swallowed them because they were not meant to be there.
You both had that initial thought. I love that, And look that comes I suppose from that first Nation's lens. You know that that connection to country. But you just mentioned there's five white women and cast in, you know, like as the characters. But you've brought this whole other aspect to it. It's a First Nation's aspect. It's you know, a beautiful ian Michael touched to it. What was it
like casting Laurinda? You know, First Nation's incredibly talented actor who's just basically done a world tour, four hundred and eighty shows.
I had the pleasure of watching.
One of them was in Angeliette. She's a superstar. Yeah.
I still can't believe you said yes, yeah, yeah. I mean thinking about the adaptation and the production is the production is book ended by two scenes, Scene one and Seeing fourteen, and they are set in the present day. So when the audience meet five girls in contemporary present
day schoolgirl uniforms. And I took that the note about present day really seriously because I knew that we couldn't retell this story in the same way it was told, you know, even five years ago when the first production went on, and so that our production had to look like the present day. It had to look like the city that we live in and the streets that we
walked down. Yeah, and I knew that I couldn't deal with five white women telling the story, retelling it actually, And when we were casting, we had, you know, this kind of list of incredible actors, and we did a zoom with Lorenda and she like, one of the first things she said to me is like, I've read the book, I watched the film, I watched the series, and I was like, those are the kinds of people that I loved to work because I feel like I've got that
same kind of ethic. And then you did the read and I was like, it's done.
Wow, it was that easy.
Oh yeah, I mean it doesn't. Yeah. Of course I was a and was a huge fan of Lorinda ever since and Juliette and I was devastated. I till learned to this all the time. I was so devastated the night that I went to see it.
She wasn't on what a punch in the gun?
No, I know. And so now whenever times every time she was singing in the rehearsal room, I'd be like, where is it coming from?
Well into speaking of you know, not singing. You've been doing that for so long, but this play, you don't have to sing. And this is your first theater play, is that right?
Or it's actually my second. I did play about four years ago, I think, or and beginning of twenty twenty two called Face to Face, which was actually a play by an Indigenous writer and it was my friend Hannah Blanski, another incredible Indigenous actress, and myself and she was my auntie.
It was awesome.
I just I love working with Blackfellows obviously, you know, because I did the Sappires as well. But yeah, no, this is my second play, but it's very different to anything I've ever done before. Honestly, it feels like I'm really stepping into a totally new genre of performing.
Yeah, it's really changing characters as well, Like, oh yeah, it's really cool, as Ian were saying before.
We kind of start with scene one, which is this sort of a monologue shared by all five of us, and we do the things that are referred to as activations, where we'll be kind of telling a story and then we'll switch into speaking as the character, but then we'll switch back into telling the story, and then we'll switch
into another character. So it's really exciting as an actor because I think during like one paragraph that I say, throughout it, I get to switch into a young girl, an old man, a Scottish lady throughout this one kind of speech. Wow. So as an actor, it's really an exciting challenge.
Do you find that because you're not having to focus on your voice in terms of singing, that you can really hone the craft of acting as a more focal point.
Oh?
Yeah, absolutely.
I think I underestimated how much vocal technique there actually is in acting in theater, like without the singing, because I think when I got cast in this, I was like, oh, I'm gonna be so chill. I don't have to rest my voice anymore, like I'm just talking.
I'm gonna go party.
Yeah.
But yeah, I know the amount of vocal technique that goes into performing and just speaking on stage to get your voice to reach every single one of those five hundred something people that are in the drama.
Theater at the Opera House.
Yeah, it's a It's actually such a big task, and I'm really glad it is, because I think I'd be bored with something less challenging.
I'm glad it is.
Yeah, Brooks new to acting. Just finish the film.
I'm still struggling with the coming to terms with saying I'm an actor. I don't know, I just feel ait unusual. I should owner, and I think I'm like not ready to. I just need to like jump off the cliff, like I just.
Feel like clumb the rock though.
No, absolutely not. Yeah, yeah, no, no no. I love watching theater plays and shows like I'm just so obsessed with the craft. Now. I just finished a feature film, but it was scary. I didn't have much dialogue. So I'm overcoming that challenge that I don't think. I think too much into the words rather than the actual doing part. Yeah,
so any advice for that? I mean, when your words heavy, it's it's you've got to get the words right, obviously, but it's giving justice to the characters in each form. Is the magic in it? Right?
Yeah? This adaptation isn't a very kind of standard piece of complex It's written with hardly any punctuation. It's written in this.
Sort of Shakespearean Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
I can only imagine it's a challenge as an actor. But it's like I think, you know, I always believe if you have a really great piece of text and you put really great performers in it, then you kind of can't really do any wrong. Yeah, And I guess our biggest thing in this production as well was not fighting the text. You just have to yeah, except what you've been given. And you know, Tom Wright is such a genius as a writer and as an adapter, like everything we need to end.
We were so lucky actually to have Tom in the room for the first week when we were really analyzing the text. And I think for me, once I really understood the text and understood the world, it was much easier for the lines to just like settle into my brain once I was really like, oh, I get it.
Yeah. And also, one of the really fascinating things about this text is that there are no character names in the script either.
Oh yeah, that's right.
We put the five actors' names in it, and so you never really know who you're playing.
So I'm playing Laurinda.
I love that well. And I want to ask you a question because I feel like your trajectory in the industry has been so incredible to see. You know, You've gone from strength to strength, from iconic show to iconic show. Last was Stolen. Now it's Picnic a Hanging Rock. It's your first show at the Sydney Opera House. That's a big moment in your career. What does it feel like to be at this moment and look back because you've done a lot in the last few years.
Ah, I mean, I it's still like the play still on, so I haven't really had the chance to think about what it means yet because it's still kind of going. And yeah, and I'm just to be honest, I feel really proud of it. I'm it's I guess thinking about you know, I'm from a town of seven thousand people with one set of traffic lights.
Yea, and so you saw the green light, the one green light.
So I think that directing a play at the opera House was ever going to be an opportunity that would happen for me. And directing is still only you know, Picnics the fourth play I've ever directed, so you know, it's all of visit stills very it feels very new, and even you know, when we were making the play in the room, I would always I never think about it being the opera House. I always just thought it about it being called it the other room. Yeah, yeah, too much about what it meant.
Yeah, doesn't that just get scary?
It was an incredibly iconic Australian story and an incredibly iconic Australian building, both very colonial, but you know it was It's some. Yeah, I'm really proud of it, and I feel really grateful to the actors and the creative team that I got to work with.
I feel like I would love to know what you would want people to be left with from watching this play, not just from you know, obviously as a director, you want people to love your work, but then also this is a story that you're doing in adaptation to what do you what do you want to want people to leave with feeling knowing or even feeling challenged on per se.
Being a very new director, I also have had experiences that aren't so great in rooms, and I want to create spaces where people feel safe, and I want to create and collaborate with people and build trust because I, you know, really love to I love as an actor to be pushed, and I think that's what I love to be able to do with really great actors is kind of push as far as we can go. And so it is a holding space, but creating space so people feel safe and they can do their best work
and can dare to fail. You know, I'm really yeah.
You know that's important that from so many people that have worked with you, is that you create a safe space. You know, Like there's so many people that I've crossed paths with in this industry who've been in your rooms and have just spoken, you know, so highly of you. So I think that like comes very natural to you, Yeah, to be able to create a safe space. Yeah, And I love that because what a beautiful part of your reputation.
You know, great at what you do, a great guy, and you create a safe space.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I can imagine you know, being a shit scared like actor walking into a room, like you want to feel like, Okay, this is like my playground and I get to play and I get to create, and like I don't want to feel judged or I don't want to feel like okay, I would have think about what I'm what I should and shouldn't say, like that just it just it really like fucks up your craft. I think, like it really just fucks with your head. And like being able to just freely do
what you want to do. I can imagine, like that's just so important for just people in the room when you're creating, you know, something all together. I think that's so valuable. I feel like if people could take a little bit of a page out of your book in like, there'd be so much more, you know, we wouldn't have having these negative experiences, like Lorenda was saying, like, not people, not all people are nice.
You know, this cast is stacked so many incredible I mean Olivia de Jong we worked together on Elvis. You know, she was the most down toward humble actor that just lit up the set every time we shot on that film. And working closely with you know, Basloman I could and it was like just seeing this superstar who he fell in love with, you know, be so humble and so nice. She was the person I got along with most on that set. When it came to the actors working with Olivia, I.
Mean, like, to be honest, I can't believe that anybody said yes. I've never known these five people saying yes. And you know the same thing I think because it live's first play crazy, but actually, like every single person entered this room and entered this retelling in the same way that we kind of I guess all believed in it and really wanted to work hard and lift it. I couldn't believe on first preview that was Olivia's first
performance in front of an audience before you know. It was incredible, and I've been really lucky that a few productions that I've done, I've been able to give people their first plays. And that's such an incredible thing because.
That means that Brooke looking at you, we haven't worked together yet.
I would jump off the clue. I'm just I'm just I'm not ready.
I want to ask you, you know, what has the reaction been when you walk out stage door, people waiting, you know, at the end of opening night? Have people what did they say to you?
Oh, it's just been an credible reaction. Honestly, this was, as I've said a few times now, it's such a different thing for me, so I truly was not sure like how people were going to receive it. Like I felt like it was an amazing show, but it's very different to anything I've seen, anything I've been in. So it was like, not exactly nervous, but I was just curious.
And everyone has just been raving to me about it, like they've all been completely shocked because I think it's a hard show to kind of explain to anyone, like it's an experience. In my opinion, it's sort of like it's a work of art. It's kind of like you're going into an art gallery and you're like experiencing and you're working through those different feelings motions. Yeah, the audience is with you on this journey and it's a massive journey up the rock, and I think everyone feels it.
Everyone that sits in that audience really feels the journey and is completely on it with us.
So I think they all come out kind of like.
Heavy, like oh god, that was like really like a journey.
You know. Across the board. The reviews have been incredibly so good.
Oh guys, I really want to go to see it. Where can we see it? I know you guys are in Sydney. Where can people go and watch it?
It's on at the Drama Theater at the Sydney oppera House the.
Room.
Stumping off the back of what Lolly was saying, thinking about the lens of retelling this story and what people should you know, hopefully take away from it is in telling a very iconic Australian story that is about colonization and about land and what it means to not acknowledge it and respect it. That's what I hope people take away from it is that they have to think about country, the acknowledgment, what it means to exist in this place differently.
And that's the thing that I want people to take away, is that they have to think about this story in a different way. They can't unthink about it.
I love that. I want to ask you one final question, and it's very in Michael question. Okay, of course it is come on where the Captain of the Beehive tell me how much of this show was inspired with those visuals by Queen Bee herself?
So much?
I knew it. I knew it, I knew it come on to her.
Every single every single play that I've ever directed has a reference to Beyonce. I love that, you know, but it kind of it comes from the text. Everything in this production that we've made comes from the text that Tom Ryders given the original source material.
The film and the novel and the original destinies che.
And you know, there's there's there's many references to the Hanging Rock being a monolith, and so my first instinct was the monolith from the Formation World Tour, of course, as Devlin designed, and so you know, we thought a lot about portals, as many references to portals and the girls being swallowed up, and so we have this kind of architectural thing that just looms over these women the whole time. Is this for each others? And yeah, we
thought a lot a lot about Beyonce. Elizabeth Gadsby and I who designed Picnic, used Beyonce and the Formation Tour a lot.
I love little.
I said to you one day he will do a Beyonce show, but everything because you can't get the license to it would be this is not Beyonce. Everything about Beyonce, but there is no mention of her. Lorinda, your cast is Beyonce? Done well? No, we want to thank you so much. I mean, such a pleasure and honor to have you deadly talented mob on our podcast. So much love and respect for what you both do. So thank you for spending time with us.
Thank you so feeling very mutual.
Anyways, that's all we have time for today, guys, thanks so much for listening to First things first, if you love what you're hear, leave us obviously a rating and a review because we need want to stars.
Totally and if you want us to cover anything on the pod, reach out by our socials. Brooks handle is at brookdoup Lot and my handle is at It's Mudy Meal. He and Michael Where can they find you?
On Instagram at Ian Michael, Ian Michael, Lrenda.
At Laurinda Underscore Me too Deadly? All right, be mo bu