THEATRE

Rebecca ★★★★

Melbourne Theatre Company, Sumner Theatre, until November 5

Rebecca is the second Gothic fiction from Daphne du Maurier to be adapted for Melbourne’s main stage this year, after The Birds at the Malthouse in May. Both were popular bestsellers made into Hitchcock films, so it’s fair to ask: what can theatre bring to their retelling that film can’t?

In Matthew Lutton’s no-frills adaptation of The Birds , the intimacy of sound predominated. Paula Arundell’s almost conspiratorial storytelling coaxed audiences into the claustrophobic monodrama; audio tech immersed us in the horror of unexplained avian attacks individually, creating a private, and deeply unnerving, soundscape for each spectator.

Anne-Louise Sarks’ Rebecca has frills. This is commercial theatre

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