Angela’s plays for adult and young audiences have been produced across the world. Her recent productions include The Hanging at Sydney Theatre Company in 2016, a Belvoir/State Theatre Company of South Australia season of Mortido in 2015 and a Melbourne Theatre Company production of EGG in 2015. The Hanging was nominated for a NSW Premier’s Drama Award and Mortido was nominated for a Victorian Premier’s Drama Award and a Sydney Theatre Award for Best New Australian work. In 2015, The National Theatre of Norway premiered Helicopter, a play originally commissioned and produced by Melbourne Theatre Company.
Angela’s seminal work The Dark Room (Belvoir, 2011) received a Sydney Theatre Award for Best New Australian Work. Her play War Crimes won the 2012 Kit Denton Disfellowship and the QLD Literary Award for Playwriting, and was nominated for a NSW Premier’s Literary Award in 2012.
Angela has been awarded the Patrick White Fellowship at Sydney Theatre Company (2013), the Australian Writers’ Foundation Playwriting Award (2015) and the Kim Williams Fellowship (2017). Angela was also awarded an AWGIE in 2015 for Community and Youth Theatre for co-writing The Gap.
Angela’s plays for young people have featured on high school study lists in four Australian states and are frequently produced by schools across the country. Children of the Black Skirt toured Australian schools for five years and won the 2005 Drama Victoria Award. Hoods toured extensively throughout Australia and internationally to Cortile Theatre Im Hof (Italy) and Dschungel Wien Theaterhaus (Austria) in 2010. Where in the World is Frank Sparrow? was commissioned by and premiered at Graffiti Theatre (Ireland) in 2012 and had a return season in 2014. Girl Who Cried Wolf was commissioned and produced by Sydney Opera House:Ed and Arena Theatre and appeared at the ASSITEJ world congress for children’s theatre.
Eating Our Young
‘We eat them. Our young. Nothing satiates our appetite for dead girls, does it? Their beautiful bodies decorated with a butterfly or a flower or deer antlers carefully arranged, just so. The murderer’s signature. The clue to finding the killer. We enjoy slicing and dicing girls almost as much as we love cooking shows.’
—The Hanging, p.41, Ms Corrossi
We are all familiar with the crime and detective genre where a hard-nosed cop won’t give up until the killer on the loose is safely behind bars. In long-form television series like ‘True Detective’, ‘The Bridge’ or ‘Wallander’, more often than not the crime being investigated is that of the murder of a beautiful young woman. Angela Betzien has for a number of years been working on a cycle of crime plays including The Dark Room (2011), Tall Man (2012) and Mortido (2015). The Hanging is the latest instalment in this cycle.
Angela sees the crime genre as an opportunity to critique social and economic systems:
The psychological thriller or detective genre is simply a frame on which I have chosen to hang a number of ideas and questions. I am interested in interrogating the nature of our obsession with young, lost beautiful girls.
I am also interested in the nature and philosophy of teaching. When writing The Hanging I became very interested in Socrates’ theories on pedagogy and Plato’s theories regarding desire. Interestingly Plato was Socrates’ prized student and Socrates was condemned to death for corrupting the city’s youth.
A key part of my research for The Hanging was Mary Pipher’s seminal book Reviving Ophelia, which explores the psychology of adolescent girls. A quote by French philosopher Denis Diderot also planted a potent seed. In a letter to his young mistress, Sophie Volland, Diderot wrote: ‘You all die at 15’. I seized upon the idea that for many young women, 14 is an age of dangerous transformation.*
* Angela Betzien, interview from Sydney Theatre Company program note.
On one level The Hanging is a crime story: a committed detective, Flint, interviews a young girl, Iris, about her disappearance and the whereabouts of her two friends who are still missing, with her English teacher Ms Corrossi present as her support person. On another level it explores things and people on the cusp, when things stop being one thing and become another. Angela brilliantly uses the detective/crime genre to explore the mysterious internal worlds of young women on the precipice of adulthood.
From the outside, the cocoon-like space of adolescent transformation holds a captivating allure, filled with mystery and fascination. Virginia Woolf writes in Orlando that real romantic power is quite often rooted in intense shyness. And perhaps this is a reason—from the outside it appears unknowing and unknowable, but the experience from the inside can be one of fear—a fear of not fitting in, of not being understood and not being listened to. As Iris says at the end of the play, ‘No-one ever believes the truth’ (p.51). It is interesting to note the parallels between Iris and Corrossi’s situations: both are outsiders, at times in competition for student Hannah’s attention. They recognise and resent their own weaknesses in each other and attack each other accordingly.
As director for the Sydney Theatre Company production, during rehearsals I spoke with Angela about her influences for the playscript: texts like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark, which explores the powerful influence teachers or older people can have on young people as they emerge through the tunnel of transformation from childhood into adulthood. The charismatic teacher Miss Brodie purrs, ‘Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she will be mine forever’. Corrossi, like Jean Brodie, while providing great inspiration and education could also be viewed as dangerous and self-serving.
Other influences we researched during rehearsals were The Catcher in the Rye, The Virgin Suicides and Heavenly Creatures—stories that explore the private worlds that young people create in order to escape the perceived corruption of the adult world. Iris and her friends escape together, venturing out into the unknown landscape away from their school and unhappy home lives. Together as ‘the circle’ they protect each other from the world that doesn’t understand or believe them.
The play also explores the notion of saviours. Both Ms Corrossi and Detective Flint consider themselves guardians, wanting to save children from a loss of innocence and the perceived corruption of the adult world. Flint’s experience through his work in Online Child Protection has had a profound effect on him. He has lost one girl before on his watch and is determined to not let it happen again. Also the fact that he has a daughter around the same age increases the stakes for him—he is all too aware of the potential dark web that they can disappear into. Corrossi perceives the self-enclosed community of an all-girls private school to be a toxic environment and believes literature can save them from its influence, as well as prepare them for the world that awaits them.
The power of Angela’s writing comes through her ability to create dark, tense atmospheres on stage. She explores what is known and unknown and allows dark corners to exist. While the play takes place inside a claustrophobic domestic room, the world of the bush that girls disappear into is very much present. Through using text from the novel Picnic at Hanging Rock, and detailed descriptions, Iris breathes life into the outside world. Our imaginations become engaged in the mystery of the landscape and their disappearance into it. She also takes us inside the circle of the friendship of the girls, the sacred nature of their rituals and desires, enough for us to get caught in their spell and wander with them to the edge. Angela takes us on the tightrope between the mystery and the stark reality of Iris. At times we don’t believe her, we judge her, we are fascinated by her. She embodies the ambiguity that the play explores, and when she eventually states ‘No-one ever believes the truth’, it’s ironically the one thing we know is true.
Sarah Goodes
September 2017
Sarah Goodes is a theatre director. She directed the premiere production of The Hanging.
The Hanging was first produced by Sydney T
heatre Company at Wharf 1 Theatre, Sydney, on 2 August 2016, with the following cast:
DETECTIVE FLINT Luke Carroll
IRIS HOCKING Ashleigh Cummings
MS CORROSSI Genevieve Lemon
Director, Sarah Goodes
Designer, Elizabeth Gadsby
Lighting Designer, Nicholas Rayment
Composer and Sound Designer, Steve Francis
Video Designer, David Bergman
Assistant Director, Priscilla Jackman
Voice and Text Coach, Charmian Gradwell
Production Manager, Kate Chapman
Stage Manager, Tanya Leach
Assistant Stage Manager, Jennifer Parsonage
Venue Technician, Romy McKanna
The Hanging was originally commissioned by Sydney Theatre Company.
CHARACTERS
MS CORROSSI, early 60s, English teacher at Maidstone Girls College
DETECTIVE FLINT, early 40s, Australian Federal Police
IRIS HOCKING, 14, boarder at Maidstone Girls College
TEXT NOTES
A dash at the end of a line indicates a cut-off or continuous line.
A forward slash indicates overlapping dialogue.
A beat is shorter than a pause, it’s an intake of breath.
Lines in italics are quotations.
A voice from the darkness.
IRIS: He picked his way across the ridge.
The air was thick with ash, its taste in his mouth metallic.
The heat bore relentlessly at his back while below the edges of the forest burnt fast and hot and the rock cast its million-year-old shadow.
Flint paused to catch his breath.
When he glanced at his watch he saw that it had stopped.
He pushed on, climbing slowly.
Ants panicked beneath his boots, a bird shrieked …
No.
A bird screamed.
Perhaps a minute or was it millennia that passed before he found it, the place described.
The edge, the mouth.
The right place.
The wrong time.
A bush landscape.
The circular formation of birds and insects.
A scream or the shriek of a bird?
The sound of sudden running.
The ocean.
An affluent, modern property located on the Brighton beachfront.
The room is dominated by a wall of Victorian bluestone.
IRIS enters, running. She stops when she sees FLINT.
IRIS: I want to go back.
FLINT: Where?
Beat.
IRIS: Maidstone.
FLINT: You can.
IRIS: I can’t.
FLINT: Of course you can. I’ll drive you there.
IRIS: When?
FLINT: After I’ve asked you a few questions.
IRIS: You mean as soon as you have answers.
Pause.
FLINT: You’re safe here.
IRIS: Where?
FLINT: Your father’s place.
IRIS: Which one?
FLINT: Brighton.
You’ve been here before?
IRIS: Once. A million years ago. My father stays here when he wants to be alone.
It’s not like I have a bedroom here or anything. All my things are at Maidstone.
FLINT: Well this is just temporary.
IRIS: Purgatory.
FLINT: A place to talk.
IRIS: No-one knows.
FLINT: Knows what?
IRIS: I’ve returned.
FLINT: Not yet.
IRIS: It’s a secret.
FLINT: For the moment.
IRIS: I want to go home.
FLINT: I know. And the sooner we / find—
IRIS: I don’t remember. I already told the other policewoman.
FLINT: You spoke to a constable, correct? In the house at Daylesford?
IRIS: It’s not a house, it’s a hospital.
FLINT: You spoke to a constable at the hospital?
IRIS: Yes.
FLINT: I’m a detective.
IRIS: Am I supposed to be impressed?
FLINT: I thought you and I could have a special chat.
IRIS: Is that allowed?
Beat.
FLINT: There’s an officer outside.
IRIS: Listening?
FLINT: Your English teacher, Ms Corrossi, will be here soon.
IRIS: Don’t call her that.
FLINT: What?
IRIS: You’ll see.
Beat.
FLINT: She your favourite?
IRIS: Ms Corrossi?
Everyone calls her Vinegar Tits.
FLINT: I had a teacher like that.
IRIS: She pretends she doesn’t like us but she does. Some of us she likes quite a lot.
Pause.
FLINT: I hear it’s a prison.
Maidstone.
IRIS: Did Ms Corrossi say that?
FLINT: It’s strict, isn’t it?
IRIS: She’s always going on about it.
FLINT: All those rules and schedules.
IRIS: I like rules.
FLINT: Well that’s rare.
IRIS: I don’t know if it is or it isn’t.
FLINT: Girl your age.
IRIS: Rules protect us.
FLINT: Yeah? From what?
IRIS: —
FLINT: Can I swap you with my daughter?
IRIS: Can I see a photo?
FLINT: —
IRIS: May I please see a photo of your daughter, Detective Flint?
FLINT finds a photo on his phone.
IRIS stares at it for some time. She makes the image larger.
Do you call her your Princess?
FLINT: Nope. I call her Possum. She hates it.
IRIS starts to slide through the images. FLINT quickly retrieves the phone.
IRIS: My father used to call me Princess. Then one day he stopped.
Pause.
FLINT: How long have you been a boarder?
IRIS: Since Year Five.
FLINT: You were what, eleven?
IRIS: Ten.
FLINT: That’s young.
IRIS: I was distracting at home.
Beat.
FLINT: I suppose you miss it sometimes, get homesick?
IRIS: Maidstone’s our home.
FLINT: You ever thought of running away?
IRIS: No.
FLINT: Just for a few hours, just for a day?
IRIS: Why would I do that?
FLINT: You’re a good girl.
IRIS: How do you know?
FLINT: Your dad told me.
IRIS: My father?
FLINT: You’ve never given him a moment’s trouble.
IRIS: He said that?
FLINT: You surprised?
IRIS: Is he watching us?
IRIS scans the room.
FLINT: No.
Pause.
I had a peek at your school record.
IRIS: I’ve never lost a single point the whole time I’ve been at Maidstone.
FLINT: I’m impressed.
IRIS: I’m the only one in my year.
FLINT: Are you afraid you’re going to get into trouble now?
IRIS: —
FLINT: Is that why you can’t remember? What happened to your two friends?
IRIS: Want to see something?
Beat.
FLINT: That depends.
IRIS reveals a circle tattoo on her wrist.
IRIS: It’s a circle.
FLINT: What’s it mean?
IRIS: They go on for eternity. No beginnings no endings. They can’t be broken.
FLINT: When did you get this?
IRIS: A million years ago.
FLINT: Looks fresh.
IRIS: We all got one.
FLINT: Who’s we?
IRIS: Us three. Hannah, Ava and me.
FLINT: You know that’s permanent?
IRIS: That’s the point.
FLINT: Your par
ents give their permission?
IRIS: They don’t understand.
No-one does.
FLINT: I might.
IRIS: —
FLINT: Try me.
IRIS regards FLINT. She offers her wrist.
IRIS: Touch it.
My pulse.
FLINT: No.
IRIS: How do I know I’m alive?
Beat.
FLINT: You are.
IRIS: How do you know?
FLINT: Trust me.
IRIS: You’re a stranger.
FLINT: Why don’t we take some time to get to know each other—
IRIS: How much time?
FLINT: —before Ms Corrossi arrives?
IRIS considers this.
IRIS: What do you want to know?
FLINT: Where’s Hannah and Ava?
IRIS: What else?
FLINT: What else do you think I want to know?
IRIS: If I have a boyfriend?
FLINT: Do you have a boyfriend?
IRIS: Are you asking me out?
FLINT: No. I’m asking if you have a boyfriend.
IRIS: Do you?
FLINT: I’m married.
IRIS: One day I’m going to marry a Princes boy.
FLINT: Princes College, across the road from Maidstone, right?
IRIS: My father was a Princes boy and my mother went to Maidstone.
FLINT: You picked one out?
IRIS: Are you laughing at me?
Beat.
FLINT: No.
IRIS: —
FLINT: I wouldn’t do that.
IRIS: They used to laugh at me.
FLINT: Who?
IRIS: —
FLINT: I had a hard time. At school. Got roughed up—
IRIS: You did?
FLINT: —until I found my crew.
IRIS: —
FLINT: Your friends—
IRIS: They’d do anything—
FLINT: Anything?
IRIS: —to protect me.
FLINT: What would you do?
Beat.
IRIS: How long was I there?
FLINT: Where?
IRIS: The hospital.
FLINT: Couple of days.
IRIS: Days?
FLINT: How long did you think?
IRIS: Fucking forever.
FLINT: They let you swear like that at Maidstone?
IRIS: Don’t move.
IRIS skips towards the door.
FLINT: Where are you going?
IRIS: I’m having a shower.
FLINT: Your teacher’s due here any second.
The Hanging Page 1