Conjuring Sonic Demons in Contemporary Australian Gothic Theatre

Abstract

Technological advancements in sound production provide theatre-makers with new ways of evoking spectres, demons and devils from the Gothic underworld by immersing them within uncanny sonic environments. Extending Isabella van Elferen’s account of the sonic Gothic to contemporary theatre and drawing on first-person interviews with sound designers/composers, this article analyses two critically acclaimed examples of contemporary Australian Gothic theatre: Picnic at Hanging Rock (2016-18), and Wake in Fright (2019-20). It identifies how these performances use disparate sonic strategies to generate unsettling affects (states of trauma, claustrophobia and fear) by immersing their audiences in soundscapes that conjure haunted Australian landscapes and disquieting psychological states. I unpack the significance of the prioritization of sound design in these works and argue that new sound technologies and sonic experiments play a significant role in shaping Gothic theatre in Australia by evoking connections between haunted landscapes and unsettling psychological states. Drawing on interrogations relating to an Australian-specific uncanny and discourse surrounding the ‘settlement’ of Australia - referring to European invasion and the recognition that settlement in Australia is unstable and a cause for cultural anxiety - I argue that the sonic innovations driving these works are substantial and offer new methods for the excavation and confrontation of cultural anxieties through a decentralizing of text and an immersion in states of sonic extremity. In doing so, the works exemplify the Gothic’s development from its colonial roots to its postcolonial and transnational manifestations.

Notes

1 The panel included Miller, playwright Andrew Bovell, filmmaker Rolf de Heer and Ilbijerri Theatre Company artistic director Rachael Maza.

2 The ‘.1’ refers to a subwoofer (bass) speaker positioned beneath the audience seating bank and designed to vibrate the seating and audience’s bodies.

2 The ‘.1’ refers to a subwoofer (bass) speaker positioned beneath the audience seating bank and designed to vibrate the seating and audience’s bodies.

3 Experiments with vocal distortion and pitch- shifting have their roots in the British Secret Service experiments during the Second World War. See Kittler (1999). This audio-processing technique of pitch-shifting female vocals towards a more masculine timbre originated in the work of Wendy Carlos and Laurie Anderson’s 1970s experiments with what she regularly refers to as ‘audio drag’. More recently this technique can be seen in the work of Marie Brassard, Tamara Saulwick and Holly Austin.