Six years after the Australian historian Jenny Hocking won her legal battle to release secret correspondence between Queen Elizabeth II, Malcolm Fraser and the governor general John Kerr, her fight to reveal the truth about Gough Whitlam’s dismissal is being adapted for the stage. The Palace Letters, announced on Monday as part of Sydney Theatre Company’s 2027 program, will have its world premiere at Sydney Opera House in April. It will star Georgie Parker as Hocking, with Jonathan Biggins playing Whitlam.
STC’s artistic director, Mitchell Butel, described the play as Hocking’s “Erin Brockovich journey through the court system”, with the first half following the historian’s case and the second taking place immediately after the dismissal. All together, the STC’s 2027 program boasts four world premieres and six Australian premieres, including Robert Icke’s modern retelling of Oedipus, which starred Lesley Manville and Mark Strong in the West End and Broadway productions. The adaptation takes the Sophocles tragedy and propels it into a contemporary setting, where Oedipus is a politician awaiting election results.
It will be staged at Roslyn Packer Theatre in January and February before heading to Adelaide festival in March. The comedian Celeste Barber will make her STC debut in The Book of Liz, a 90-minute off-Broadway comedy written by the sibling duo David and Amy Sedaris. Barber will play Sister Elizabeth Donderstock, a runaway from a religious sect who is “clueless about sex and the modern world but armed with a formidably sunny disposition”.
STC’s global hit The Picture of Dorian Gray will return to Roslyn Packer Theatre, with the former artistic director Kip Williams back in the director’s chair. Nikki Shiels, who was the understudy for the original Dorian, Eryn Jean Norvill, will step into the spotlight for its homecoming run, playing all 26 characters in the marathon cinetheatre show, which will also tour to Brisbane. Norvill is also making her return to STC, this time playing all the characters in Vanya – the Olivier award-winning adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya.
The actor will co-direct the play with Helpmann award-winning director Marion Potts. Tim Minchin – last seen on stage for STC in 2013’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – is taking on the role of Scrooge in the British playwright Jack Thorne’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Matthew Warchus, the British director of Minchin’s hit Matilda the Musical, will direct the Sydney show, which runs from November to Boxing Day.
A brand-new stage version of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries is also on the bill, with Mama Does Derby’s Amber McMahon donning a black bob to play Phryne Fisher. The play takes place on a cruise ship and is adapted from one of Kerry Greenwood’s books which didn’t make it into the Essie Davis TV series. The show premiere will in Brisbane before making its way to Sydney in May.
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