The life, career, and political landscape that led Australia’s first Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, to make her ‘misogyny speech’ will be examined and brought to life by Justine Clarke (‘Muriel’s Wedding: The Musical’) in ‘Julia’ at Sydney Opera House.
‘Julia’ is written by celebrated Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith, and directed by Helpmann Award-winner and former Sydney Theatre Company (STC) Resident Director Sarah Goodes (‘The Children’). It’s an STC commission, co-produced with Canberra Theatre Centre.
“I want the play to be about more than one woman – an exploration into how a life in public service negotiates the sometimes unwelcome insistence of personal ideology and compromise, moral questioning, self-doubt and the inevitable awareness of what is lost in that negotiation,” Joanna Murray-Smith says.
“As a dramatist, I was in awe of Gillard’s command of drama in her speech. Her use of language, her timing, her swoops in rhetoric from the simple to the sophisticated and her meticulously revealed rage were astonishing.”
Sarah Goodes says ‘Julia’ won’t present an ‘impersonation’ of Gillard – rather an imagined representation of the circumstances leading to the speech.
“When [STC Artistic Director] Kip contacted me about the piece, I felt very strongly that we shouldn’t focus on impersonating Julia in a traditional way," Sarah says.
“Julia Gillard was impersonated, ridiculed and made fun of for the entirety of her time as Prime Minister, so that is the last thing we wanted to do. Jo has written such a fascinating psychological imagining of Julia's internal journey towards the speech that it offered up the opportunity to explore the form of a portrait of person in the theatre. And with Justine Clarke in the lead – what a dream.”
‘Julia’ plays Sydney Opera House 30 March-13 May.
