Miranda Otto’s Triumphant Return to the Sydney Stage: A Journey Through Time and Theatre
For Miranda Otto, the hallowed halls of the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) have always marked significant chapters in her life. From her raw professional debut at 18 to meeting her husband and even having her infant daughter brought backstage for feeds, the STC has been a consistent backdrop to her personal and professional evolution. Now, four decades after her first STC performance and 15 years since her last, Otto is gracing the Sydney stage once more, drawn back by a chance encounter and a compelling script.
“I walk along here, and I think, ‘Oh, that’s where Pete used to park his bike,’” Otto muses, settling into a cafe nestled below the STC’s Walsh Bay precinct. The mention of a motorbike inevitably leads to a playful interrogation about its coolness factor, met with a fond recollection of a Vespa. The building, she admits with a chuckle, definitely holds a few “ghosts” – echoes of past performances and personal milestones. While she did cross paths with her now-husband, Peter O’Brien, once before in 1988 during a brief stint on The Flying Doctors, it was their shared roles as spouses in the 2002 production of A Doll’s House that truly cemented their connection. Another memorable STC engagement was in 2005 for Boy Gets Girl, a play where her six-month-old daughter, Darcey, would be brought to her for feeding sessions before she went on stage, performing opposite her father, the esteemed Barry Otto.
These personal markers are woven into the fabric of a rich career. Her return to the STC stage, after a hiatus since The White Guard in 2011, was serendipitously sparked by a conversation with a fellow Lord of the Rings alumnus, David Wenham. “I was at an event with David Wenham, and he was talking to Mitchell [Butel] on the phone,” Otto recalls. “I think Mitch was trying to get David to do something, and he was like, ‘Oh, can Miranda do something?’ and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll do something.’” This casual exchange led to Mitchell Butel, the STC’s artistic director, contacting her, sending her the script for Jez Butterworth’s The River.
The play’s enigmatic nature immediately captivated Otto. “Oh my gosh, it’s been a while since I’ve done it,” she confesses, “But then, part of me was just like, well, I guess this is the moment. So it was sort of like, ‘OK, let’s go.’” The River centres on a woman, played by Otto, who vanishes during a moonlit night-time fishing expedition with a man, played by Ewen Leslie, in pursuit of sea trout.
The Allure of the Unfathomable
Penned by the celebrated British playwright Jez Butterworth, known for his work on the James Bond film Spectre and the Oscar-winning Ford v Ferrari, The River is an 80-minute piece that, upon its 2012 debut, had audiences clamouring for tickets, despite critical descriptions labelling it as “eerie, tense” and “slightly unfathomable.”
“When I read it, I had to keep going back to it, because it’s haunted me in some kind of way,” Otto explains. “Because it’s a bit of a riddle, and it’s hard sometimes to know exactly what’s going on.” This deliberate ambiguity is precisely what drew her in. “Because often you’ll read a play – and I think this is what attracted me to it – is often you read a play and you know, OK, there’s the emotional high point, there’s the laugh, there’s the denouement, and with this, it was much more like, ‘Hang on, where is all that?’”
A Director for a New Era
Directing this captivating production is the 25-year-old Margaret Thanos, a theatrical prodigy who has been making significant waves with her innovative work across various independent theatre companies and Belvoir. Otto became a fervent admirer of Thanos’s talent after her permanent return to Sydney, a move prompted by a longing for the unique sensory experience of her home city after years spent living on and off in Los Angeles.
Thanos’s “edgy and dark” yet “funny and frightening” directorial style left a strong impression on Otto. She witnessed this distinctive approach firsthand in Thanos’s productions of Furious Mattress at Belvoir’s downstairs theatre 25A and Or Timon of Athens at Sport For Jove. It was this mastery of tone that Otto specifically championed when suggesting Thanos to Mitchell Butel. “The way that she walked this line with the tone [in Furious Mattress] was quite incredible,” Otto states. “I just thought it’s a play that could so easily go terribly wrong – if you play it too much for laughs, it’ll be awful, if you play it too seriously, then that won’t work – but I was just so impressed by how she walked this line of it.”
Championing Emerging Talent
Beyond her own return to the spotlight, Otto is deeply committed to nurturing and promoting emerging artists. This philosophy stems from her own formative experiences, having been discovered on stage and cast in her first film, Emma’s War, in 1987.
“I love going to all these smaller companies and seeing what they’re doing and seeing all, all these people who are coming through,” Otto shares. “I think it’s really encouraging. I mean, I know funding and things like that are terrible, but I feel like the actual state of the arts is quite healthy.” She sees a vibrant artistic landscape teeming with fresh perspectives. “There’s lots of really interesting things happening, and it’s interesting to work with younger people who have different views on the world to bring a different kind of energy. I’m interested in being a part of that.”
Miranda Otto’s return to the Sydney Theatre Company with The River is more than just a personal homecoming; it’s a testament to the enduring power of live theatre and a celebration of the new voices shaping its future.
The River is showing at the Sydney Opera House from March 30 to May 16.
