Why Ashleigh Cummings Just Wants To Grow

Joan Lindsay's historical mystery novel Picnic At Hanging Rock has assumed mythic status, prompting myriad adaptations — cinematic, theatrical and musical. Yet, as a psychological thriller, Angela Betzien's play The Hanging isn't so much a contemporary interpretation as an abstraction.

Ashleigh Cummings — famed as the diffident maid/assistant sleuth Dorothy "Dot" Williams in the ABC's Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries — plays private school girl Iris. When three friends are lost in the wilderness, she is the only one to materialise. Interviewed by a detective (Luke Carroll), Iris has her equally guarded English teacher Ms Corrossi (Top Of The Lake's Genevieve Lemon) as appropriate adult.

"At a certain age, girls disappear and what that means in terms of the metaphoric disappearance of girls, or the transition into adulthood from being a girl."

The Hanging is, says Cummings, "riddled with literary allusions" to Picnic At Hanging Rock. But the drama shares its theme, too, with The Virgin Suicides or even Twin Peaks — both dark narratives about imperilled girlhood. "I think thematically it still explores the mystery genre, [but] then also the concept that, at a certain age, girls disappear and what that means in terms of the metaphoric disappearance of girls, or the transition into adulthood from being a girl."

Cummings is excited that, because The Hanging is a new production, Iris' character "still isn't completely solidified", allowing her to "create the first incarnation". "She has been an outsider for a very long time, until recently [when] the two 'in' girls at school have included her in their group."

Ostensibly amnesiac on her reappearance, Iris is unsettled by the ensuing investigation. "She likes the rules, she likes schedules, she likes clarity, she likes familiarity and being safe at her school," Cummings says. "The different masks that she puts up when that is challenged, how she evades pain, and copes with this traumatic event that has happened, and how slowly all her layers are peeled back until you get to her epicentre is a fascinating journey."

Born in Saudi Arabia to Australian parents, Cummings spent her early years travelling with family before settling in Sydney. The sometime performing arts pupil guested in Home And Away, later joining the ensemble cast of 2010's blockbuster movie Tomorrow, When The War Began. She scored a lead role in Puberty Blues.

For Cummings, theatre work is a relatively new experience, albeit one that she is "adoring". Cummings revels in the "luxury" of rehearsing over several weeks, and liaising with a sole director in Sarah Goodes — neither always possible in television. Indeed, she can focus on her craft.

However, Cummings may not tread the Australian stage again anytime soon. In June she was named the recipient of 2016's Heath Ledger Scholarship, enabling her to relocate to Los Angeles to study acting. In town for the ceremony, Cummings was surprised to discover she already has a US profile due to the popularity of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries on Netflix. "People would say [adopts American accent], 'Oh, are you Dot from Miss Fisher? We love Miss Fisher over here!'"

So is Cummings seeking US TV parts? "To be honest, I just wanna work on interesting projects — good projects, challenging ones," she ponders. "I know it sounds pretty cliched, but all I want is to grow and whatever projects allow that is where I'll probably turn towards. It doesn't matter to me what form it takes, as such."