It\u2019s a gloriously sunny midwinter\u2019s day in Sydney. The sky is blue and cloudless, the air is crisp and Blackwattle Bay glimmers in the light.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the middle of the school holidays and Jubilee Park is busy. Kids on push-bikes, toddlers in the playground, old folks out with their dogs. Trams shuttle past. A family of ducks cruises along the canal. Distant traffic moves endlessly across the Anzac Bridge.<\/p>\n
This is Leah Purcell\u2019s favourite place for a quiet afternoon walk with her dog, a Sydney silky terrier called Odie.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like it when there\u2019s no one around,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Purcell has had an incredible career since I first interviewed her in 1997, when she appeared on the theatre scene with the semi-autobiographical one-woman play, Box the Pony. Co-written with Scott Rankin, Box the Pony was based on Purcell\u2019s life, growing up in central Queensland, a harrowing and at turns darkly hilarious story of survival, trauma and the fierce love between a mother and daughter.<\/p>\n
The play went on to win several literary awards and launched her reputation as a versatile actor, scoring key roles in landmark Australian films like Lantana, The Proposition and Jindabyne, as well as stints in network television and prestige dramas alike. Not bad for a Murri girl from Murgon who, as the accolades, experience and confidence have grown, has never forgotten where she comes from.<\/p>\n
Purcell in Sydney\u2019s Jubilee Park: \u2018I like it when there\u2019s no one around.\u2019 Photograph: Joel Pratley\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Purcell is a bright spark on this cool day, fizzing with warmth and good humour. She throws herself \u201ccompletely into\u201d each new project, she says, and her newest one \u2013 an opera version of The Drover\u2019s Wife \u2013 is a leap into the unknown, rarefied world of opera.<\/p>\n
Purcell\u2019s adaptation of the 1892 short story by Henry Lawson has been through many iterations<\/a>. Her version of The Drover\u2019s Wife began in 2016 as an award-winning stage play<\/a>, a bestselling book in 2019, and then a feature film (for which Purcell won an Aacta for best actress in 2023).<\/p>\n In Lawson\u2019s original story, set in the high country of the Snowy River, the Drover is away and his heavily pregnant wife is left to defend herself and her four young children against a snake entering their hut.<\/p>\n Purcell \u2013 a Goa, Gunggari and Wakka Wakka woman \u2013 says she grew up hearing the Lawson tale. Her mother read her the story when she was a child, and in it she could see her mother\u2019s own fight to keep her family safe.<\/p>\n \u2018We\u2019ve got spirit, we\u2019ve got Aboriginal dancers, language, Aboriginal storytelling coming through so it\u2019s very unique,\u2019 says Purcell of the opera. Photograph: Joel Pratley\/The Guardian<\/p>\n In her Indigenous feminist retelling, Purcell gave The Wife a name: Molly Johnson. Molly is the fierce, gun-toting protector of her children, the snake is a totem, and dramatic tension escalates with the arrival of Yadaka, an Aboriginal man. Yadaka is on the run from colonial violence and is seeking safety. He also knows the true story of Molly\u2019s family history. The character is based on Purcell\u2019s great-grandfather, she says, \u201cSo it\u2019s our family story that I\u2019ve woven through the Henry Lawson story.\u201d<\/p>\n Purcell\u2019s version centres the Aboriginal characters, giving them voice and agency \u2013 and along the way tells the harder truths of the impact of frontier violence, racism, gender violence and colonisation. The scale and drama of opera, then, is a fitting new forum for the tale.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to be a part of mainstream and the wider culture and share culture. This is Aboriginal storytelling up against a European opera. We\u2019re a little bit older by a couple of thousand years, but we\u2019ve got two ancient forms coming together, and it works,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I love about the opera is it allows me to dream bigger because it\u2019s an epic world. With the scale and the scope that opera allows, I could dream up the spirit world. So we\u2019ve got spirit, we\u2019ve got Aboriginal dancers, language, Aboriginal storytelling coming through so it\u2019s very unique,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery creative wants to do the wacky, wonderful big thing, and this is it for me.\u201d<\/p>\n