This fall’s musicals were rare, but on December 18th, Picnic At Hanging Rock – The Musical opened at Off-Broadway’s Greenwich House Theater, at 27 Barrow Street.
The show is based on a novel that was written in 1967 by Joan Lindsay, an Australian, and adapted into a 1975 film by an Aussie film director, Peter Weir, and helped opened the world to films from “Down Under.”
When I saw Picnic At Hanging Rock, it was still in its tryout stages. A bit haphazard and hodgepodge, but its large cast of 16 talented players wander through it in a state of good nature.
Three girls (played by Gillian Han, Tatianna Cordoba and Kate Louissaint) are warned by their teacher (Kaye Tuckerman) not to visit the foreboding Hanging Rock. Of course, they do — and disappear.
Act Two just expires without any closure. Weir’s film was a stronger telling. What really emerged at Picnic at Hanging Rock was seeing a group of young women who are artists, singers and dancers. You could see the next generation’s potential — Lindsay’s ode to women.
Picnic At Hanging Rock – The Musical closes on Saturday, January 17th.
Photos: Matthew Murphy
