Why Director Kim Farrant Is Swapping The Big Screen For The Small Stage

Director Kim Farrant is no stranger to storytelling on a grand scale. As a film and television maker, she has spent her career using the epic scope of those mediums in the service of her narratives, perhaps most strikingly in her recent feature length movie, Strangerland, a tense domestic thriller set against the red desert of the Australian outback, starring Nicole Kidman, Joseph Fiennes and Hugo Weaving.

For her most recent project, however, Farrant has swapped the big screen for the small stage. She makes her theatre directorial debut later this month at the intimate 80-seat Red Stitch Actors Theatre with the Australian premiere of British playwright Sam Holcroft's Rules For Living. Ironically, it's the film world that has led her to this live action career shift. "I've always been intrigued by the theatre, but I've been so focused on my film and TV life that I've never really had the time or headspace to explore it," she explains. Farrant's theatre aspirations might have remained hypothetical, if not for a timely coincidence. "I happened to start work on a film which was set in the world of theatre, and an opportunity came up to work with Red Stitch, so it felt like a good way to immerse myself in that world."

It may be Farrant's first time tackling theatre, but she hasn't shied away from a challenge. Rather than taking on a play with a conventional structure, Farrant's first foray into the world of theatre is an idiosyncratic black comedy anchored to a surreal conceit. Using the familiar scenario of a family Christmas, complete with all the fraught, drama-packed dynamics and quintessential Yuletide stress everyone will recognise, Rules For Living is framed as a kind of subliminal game show. The various characters on stage must abide by certain rules, privy only to the audience, completing certain arbitrary actions - for example, sitting down every time a lie is told. It's quirky yet brilliant writing that has an enticing combination of head and heart, Farrant believes. "It's a very touching work, because it finds a new way to examine a universal idea. As children, we learn certain behaviours that are key to our survival, the most important one being how to keep the love of our parents. We need food and shelter, of course, but love is the most vital ingredient for keeping us alive," Farrant smiles. "We all have rules we live by, codes of conduct if you like, in order to try and keep that love. As adults, we project those behaviours onto everyone we meet. We become master manipulators whether we're conscious of it or not."

"The challenge for me is wrestling what I call the 'slimy pig' of this two and half hour show."

Far from being a mere research exercise, Farrant admits to being "wowed" by the experience of theatre-making and in particular, by the power of Holcroft's text. "I was sent a few different plays to read and Rules For Living totally blew me away. I was simultaneously moved, gutted, at times laughing my head off, so directing this show has become not only a wonderful chance to explore the theatre, but also something that's very dear to my heart." Part of the affinity Farrant feels for Holcroft's narrative is found in this play's darker aspects — an emotional terrain Farrant has revisited time and again in her film and television work. "It's a story of extremes," she points out. "It touches on some very troubling, difficult, vulnerable, sad moments, but then there are moments where it's just hilarious and joyous and light. And obviously that's life, and the more fucked up and dark it is, the more room there is for humour because that's what people do naturally, to cover the burden."

While the move from film to theatre has required some adjustments to her methods, Farrant has largely preserved the core principles of her directorial approach. "The way that I work is very intense, in terms of the processes I use with the actors. It's very personal. It evokes a lot of stuff for them, which can be very uncomfortable in moments and hugely liberating in others, with the end result being the actors are very open and porous. It allows them to have great freedom in their choices but also great depth and power," she shares. "I knew the way I direct would work at Red Stitch because it's such an open and adventurous company and they respect the amount of freedom directors need to do their best work. Everyone involved has been very receptive and willing, especially the actors. It's been extraordinary for me to see what they've discovered about themselves and how that's so exquisitely translating into their characters."

Farrant has found a great deal of synergy in bringing her process from the film set to the rehearsal room, but there have also been discoveries along the way. Cinema may deal in the sprawling visual grandeur of the big wide world, but there are some aspects of scale where theatre dominates, she admits. "As a filmmaker, one of my biggest influences is detail. I can get slightly obsessed with the detail of a certain physicality or a certain movement. But when you're staging a play you have to be aware of these large durations of time," Farrant notes. "The challenge for me is wrestling what I call the 'slimy pig' of this two and half hour show, finding the blocking, considering the flow of the piece. Not being able to call 'cut' to get to the next shot has been a big change in my mindset."

Red Stitch Actors Theatre presents Rules For Living, 14 Mar — 16 Apr.