Award-winning writer Nigel Featherstone’s The Story of the Oars has its world premiere at The Street Theatre. Photo: Nathan Smith Photography.
Travelling that long stretch of road between Canberra and Sydney, award-winning writer Nigel Featherstone is always smitten by the beauty and expanse of Weereewa – the majestic Lake George.
Whatever the water level, which is often none, for this novelist the lake is a breathtaking sight.
“Thirty years in the region and living in Goulburn for 15 years, I drive by Weereewa a lot and I’m always smitten by it,” he says.
“People from Canberra and the whole region are simply drawn to the lake.
“On one drive I thought to myself ‘what if there were two oars standing up in the middle of the dry lake? What would that mean? What story would they be telling?’.”
From those meanderings, The Story of the Oars was created, a suspenseful play with haunting soundscapes and spoken-word songs.
The play is about to have its world premiere and a short season at Canberra’s very own Street Theatre.
With a working subtitle of A hidden thing can’t remain hidden forever, it is a story of tragedy, the nature of lies, and the repercussions of telling the truth.
The play doesn’t stipulate what lake the narrative is centred around, it just says “somewhere on the east coast of Australia” so it can be relatable to anyone.
Canberrans will definitely relate it to Lake George.
In this story, four teenagers, three of them brothers, drown on this unnamed disappearing lake and no bodies are found.
Thirty years later with the lake now dry, four other people, including a travelling father and son passing by, find themselves gathered at the site discussing the long past tragedy – and unburdening themselves of their own truths.
That’s when all hell breaks loose.
“I don’t think we’re particularly good at dealing with things from our past,” Featherstone says. “Whether as individuals or as a country. This story really explores that concept.
“I was inspired a bit by the 1956 drownings of Duntroon cadets and I put all these themes together and came up with a story full of mystery and challenge – where five boys go swimming and only one comes back – and what that means 30 years later.
“I also wanted to continue to explore new ways that narrative and music could be brought together on stage.
“Music is welcoming and I just adore it. Writing in collaboration with a composer and performers is very exciting.
“The visceral nature of live performance – there’s nothing quite like it.”
Perth-based composer Jay Cameron brings a spectacular score to the play, helping to build the emotion, tension and suspense of the story. He has done it in a brilliantly unique style, pulling apart a piano (there are more parts to a piano than there are car parts) to find different sounds and new levels of haunting music.
He performs it live throughout the play.
“I had to rethink conventional approaches to music-making to create the atmosphere that best served the play, utilising techniques that could draw new and unusual sounds from the piano,” Cameron says.
“Performed live and fully integrated with the staging, the music embodies the character and natural power of the lake.”
Actors Craig Alexander, Sally Marett, Louise Bennet and Callum Doherty make up the cast of four characters, which includes a father and son who are first compelled to make a commemorative visit to the lake.
When they are joined by some local residents, truths are unburdened in the most personal and dramatic ways.
One of those characters is a landowner played by Canberra actor and musician Sally Marett, who Australians first got to know in the late 1990s when she was a teenager with a lead role in television soap series Home and Away.
She says The Story of the Oars has given her one of the most interesting roles of her career (which is already quite impressive).
“My character Piera is a landowner, a winemaker and has lived on the lake all her life,” she says.
“And she has been through a great deal. Hers is very much a story about resolution and peace with the past.
“This story has a wonderful universality about it. It marries the idea of significant land and natural place and how it affects us – bringing together truths as well as turning away and hiding.
“It’s not a musical, it’s a play with music and the music underscores the narrative in such a powerful way.”
Street Theatre plays are renowned for their stunning sets, lighting and costumes, and designers Véronique Benett and Leah Ridley bring bold imagination to this play.
Director Shelly Higgs notes the production is not presented in the typical format one would expect of a stage show.
“This play breaks theatrical form, flowing between scenes of complex human relationships and bold, and powerful spoken word songs,” she says.
“The shifting form is like the lake itself – mercurial and compelling and the deconstructed piano creates music that is surprising and expressive.”
The Story of the Oars runs at The Street Theatre from 19 to 21 September. Tickets cost between $25 and $45 and can be purchased online or at the theatre’s box office.
