‘Spot-Lit’ has visited MPW college several times in the last four years, bringing literary texts that can seem inaccessible or antiquated to students to life through acting and educational workshops. This year, we were able to use Queens Gate Hall which was transformed into the Hanging Rock as well as representing Appleyard college in the Victorian era as Joan Lindsay’s iconic novel ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ came alive.

It is always intriguing to me as a teacher, which texts seem to resonate most with our students and this gothic text, about three girls (and their teacher) who go missing on the Hanging Rock, near Melbourne in Australia seems to get under our skins!  The loss of a missing child in real life is one of the most shocking and horrifying events, particularly pertinent in our culture as the disappearance of Madeline McCann in Portugal in 2007 is raised again in the press as a new German investigation gets underway.

The three actors deftly embodied and transitioned between the myriad different characters and performed key scenes such as girls’ disappearance on the rock, Mike’s attempt to rescue them, Irma’s discovery and the gymnasium scene as well as Mrs Appleyard’s demise. After every scene, the students were invited to revise key characters, quotations and themes and many intriguing discussions ensued on the gothic genre, the liberal and destructive power of nature, colonialism and how the disappearance creates a destructive ripple effect on the characters and events in the novel.

We discussed whether the menacing rock somehow swallowed the young women (do read the ‘conclusive’ chapter 18, released after Lindsay’s death), why Mrs Appleyard (the seemingly indomitable headmistress), spirals into alcoholism and whether she really did kill Sara Waybourne; one of the most artistically promising and spirited girls in her care? In class, we have enjoyed watching interviews with Joan Lindsay who is an enigmatic writer and has always been unclear whether the novel is based on fact or fiction, given that she attended a school in Clyde (near the Hanging Rock) and many of the characters in the story are based on real people. She also experienced a kind of transcendental event when she visited the Rock as a three year old. During this visit, her mother records that she exclaimed the word ‘beautiful’ (her first word).  We also discussed how the Hanging Rock is a sacred Aboriginal place (as the meeting place for three tribes) and how Mrs Appleyard’s great plan to impose Victorian values (control, self-discipline, rigour) on the girls ultimately implodes and collapses when they go missing; a consequence that the actors depicted in the viscous attack on Irma by the savage girls in the gymnasium.

The addition of haunting pipe music played out from a small speaker from the Peter Weir 1975 film and Victorian costumes enhanced the verisimilitude and students were captivated throughout and joined in with all the discussions. I felt confident that by the end, they felt immersed in the narrative again and left with a sharper definition of the characters and themes which served them well for the exam a few weeks later.