Book adaptations. BookTok adaptations. Book-to-film adaptations. But have you ever heard of the theatre-to-book pipeline?
With stories set in the courtroom, from colonial first contact to a side street in the red light district in 1969, playwrights Suzie Miller, Jane Harrison, and Alana Valentine spoke with Maeve Marsden at the Sydney Writers Festival about their most recent books Prima Facie (2023), The Visitors (2023), and Wed by Wayside (2024), all adapted from successful plays.
Suzie Miller spoke about how her extensive notes for the stage play led her to savour the writing process, despite having to condense the story into a 90-minute production. “I’m a theatre person always first, but it was a lovely relief,” Miller said, but her developing plans of transforming that leftover material into a novel manifested itself into fruition. Miller described writing a novel as like “whispering in someone’s ear a story and giving the explanation as I went” whereas theatre is characterised by the structure of moving from one dramatic moment to the next.
Having spoken to Miller myself previously, hearing this again helped reassure the writer in me that no matter how many words you cut down, you can remain attached to them and repurpose them.
Miller thanked her agent for helping her navigate the literary world — including marketing expectations — and her input which motivated her to complete her vision not only through words but actions that shout, “I can see this as a novel too.” In particular, she drew attention to how she intended to delve into gender and class, with an emphasis on the latter through character development. An element I did not notice having not seen the original staging of the play, was the shift in setting from Australia to the UK. Because of the extensive research Miller put into the UK staging of the play, as well as for continuity, the book remained set in the UK. This fulfilled her desire to delve deeper into class, which in the UK, is more organised and identifiable by the accent. For example, she wrote Tessa’s accent to shift according to where she was; with family in Liverpool, friends in London, and court.
While reading Prima Facie, I also considered the element of intersectionality, and where the story would have gone had race been added. Miller spoke to this unprompted, acknowledging that it would mean an additional conversation but that she can’t add race because “that’s not [her] personal experience.” She intended to not specify Tessa’s appearance because Tessa is “every woman”, and there are many cross-cultural interpretations and women of colour playing her on stage, and Cynthia Erivo will be playing her in the upcoming film adaptation.
Because of Prima Facie’s heavy subject matter, Miller spoke about her interactions with audiences and readers, and how shocking it is to realise their stories are so similar to each other and protagonist Tessa. While Miller identified that she often feels “ill-equipped” to respond to people’s testimonies of sexual assault, her responsibility, as a human is to “read and acknowledge them,” especially if these individuals have felt galvanised by Prime Facie to tell a loved one of a very private agony. “If you’re writing… for anyone, it just gives you such a reason to do it,” Miller admitted.
As for the importance of the legal system and its institutions, Miller noted that we must interrogate it to make a change. She continued by emphasising that the law is only justice for a few and that the conversation should shift to accommodate that reality. Miller then reiterated how we have been led to believe that this constructed system is foolproof and objective, because “it’s held up as this great organised system that actually has truth at the core of it.” In other words, the only way out is through it.
Jane Harrison stated that she was more familiar with writing for the stage but “expanding 15 000 words into 65 000 words” allowed her to research the minutiae of First Contact including accounts of the First Fleet, what plant life existed, the way canoes were constructed, and even, coming across the knowledge that there are around 24 different species of cicada in the Sydney region.
She admitted that the play was not going to happen as she was told it wouldn’t sell seats, and that is how she came to write the book. “I don’t think anyone was interested in a play with seven men,” she humorously said, “I think men were out of fashion…they’ve been in fashion for a while.” However, the play did go on to have a season and female cast members have played the male roles.
Marsden noted the book version exploring masculinity more than the play, and Harrison responded that since historical accounts couldn’t provide descriptions of Aboriginal men, she based the characters on people she knew, especially since this is not a historical novel despite being set in 1788. Speaking to the appearances of and language used by characters, Harrison wanted “to mess with the sense of time in the book, and that’s why the characters, even though it’s 1788, wear suits.” She recognised that if characters were on stage and semi-naked, it would ‘other’ them as primitive and that the suits were in line with her intention of making them seem like “senior statesmen… the senators in all their glory.” Harrison then added, “it was also to mess with people’s heads.”
A lot of her writing came out of her interest in the male response to the Northern Territory ‘intervention’ which problematised Aboriginal communities and was racist in its targeted bans on Indigenous communities. She recounted what was once told to her by “a male Aboriginal colleague who said to [her], ‘now when I walk down the street, people will think I’m a paedophile.’” This was contrary to her experience of Aboriginal men as “clever, funny, resourceful, community men, family men” and in her novel, Harrison used the pages to paint a different story to the media’s portrayal of Indigenous men while maintaining them as flawed and human.
Alana Valentine used a sewing metaphor to describe her playwriting process, comparing it to “spreading Issey Miyake over a Big Dipper” while writing a book is being able to meander into different paths, and taking time to honour more of the story. Both Valentine’s play and book are narrative nonfiction, with the book serving as a memoir of many real life stories.
Her mother, Janice, who passed away 30 years ago, had a photograph of her marriage to Valentine’s stepfather Roy at the Wayside Chapel. The photo piqued Valentine’s interest in the chapel’s unique history. Valentine described Wayside as a place that asks its attendees to bring their best selves, and where they will be shown more of what that is. She spoke with Reverend Graham Long who led the chapel from a small street in King’s Cross. Despite its size, the church has an outsized outreach to people living on the periphery and in the street, while holding “an incredibly radical theology.” Ted Noffs, who founded the chapel in 1964, married “30 000 people” across denominations and sexual orientations, which led to conflict with the Methodist church, and accusations of heresy. By researching this place and its people, it was clear that from Valentine’s capacity as writer, she not only became an observer of this community, but also an keen admirer of the inclusive space offered.
This book also took on an additional layer to Valentine’s writing journey, as she couldn’t ask her mother the questions she wanted to about her interactions with Wayside. By accessing Waysidians from the 1960s and 1970s, she was able to find a “vicarious experience” of her mother, while opening herself up as an author, more so than she would as a playwright.
When asked by Marsden if creativity is a religious experience, especially when inquiring about the universe and questioning God, Valentine responded “Religion can be about vehemence, about courage, about focus, and about purpose and need.”
Marsden also quoted Valentine’s lyrical observation: “It’s a professional necessity sometimes to schedule big chunks of time to do nothing but daydream, to allow the creative brain and breath to ameliorate the pleasant boredom of wondering what to do next.” Sounds like something straight out of a novel. It also saw much of the audience, including myself, nod their heads in agreement and reflect on what creativity means to each one of us.
She concluded that she draws courage from these individuals who stood up to inequality and discrimination, emphasising “the exclusion of lesbian and gay and other queer people from the mainstream church” as one of the most disappointing outcomes of what should be a welcoming and safe place, in the vein of Wayside Chapel.
A statement that rang loud and true by Valentine and perfectly summarised this chorus of truth-tellers, and stayed with me long after I exited the event: “On this panel you have three women who are standing up to the Crown, standing up to the law, [and] standing up to the church. That’s beautiful, that’s what we share as writers.”
Go to your nearest bookstore or local library and pick up Miller, Harrison, and Valentine’s books. Also, remain on the lookout for their stage plays. These seasoned playwrights and respected authors have a lot to say, while you have a lot to absorb.
