Fashion on the Stage – Five Minutes with John Sheedy

John Sheedy is the Artistic Director of the Barking Gecko Theatre Company. He’s also the director of the sold-out operatic adaption of John Marsden and Shaun Tun’s haunting picture book The Rabbits, starring Kate Miller Heidke. He’s been trained by the National Institute of Dramatic Art. And he’s no stranger to fashion.

I caught John at a regular haunt in Northbridge, a little gin bar called Frisk where we’d chatted briefly once or twice before. Over an afternoon drink I assailed him with questions about who he was, what he’d done, and how fashion had been a part of it all along.

Growing up in rural Victoria saw his childhood years spent a long way from the arts. But everything changed when he moved to Melbourne, and through persistence, determination and courage talked his way into the National Theatre Drama School.

It was around this time that fashion began to play more than a supporting role in John’s life. Living with a designer in Melbourne, he was immersed in the world of fashion. He recalls days spent hanging out at their studio watching designs come to life: from the page to the runway to the shop. ‘It was’, he says, ‘an amazing creative process to watch, and one that influenced me for years to come.’

For John, fashion plays a huge part in theatre, regardless of the time setting. It creates the world in which the audience will exist, it establishes the characters and dictates a theme. Everything matters, from the overall look and the cut to the fabric and texture. Every little thing matters for its ability to dictate and create a character, and establish their presence and authenticity on stage.

In fact, fashion is so integral in his directing style that the first thing John does in rehearsals is to get the shoes that the characters will be wearing onto their feet. As the grounding element of an outfit, shoes dictate each character’s physicality by the way that they walk and carry themselves, how they enter a scene, and the energy they bring on and off the stage. Even though a script will dictate all of this, the raw authenticity of each character feeds from the costume.

Fashion also plays a part in John’s holistic process of building a set. Starting from the ground up, he’ll surround himself with paintings, photography and fashion, including work by Tim Walker. In the same way that the great fashion photographer creates a photo by first building a world and then introducing a model and clothing, John too uses everything that he can to create a scene and build a story.

‘Grace Coddington is brilliant at doing that’, he says. ‘She can put a story together with such skill, and has a wonderful eye at putting together outfits that not only create a world, but create an audience. An audience that is every reader that sees her work, and who finds a 9 page photo spread transformed into a story from beginning to end.’

As an artist, it’s unavoidable for John to not take notice of fashion. He tells of the methods of many  theatre designers that he has worked with in the past, all having walls of fashion magazines intricately referenced so that they can find a particular sock or a room or a light that will all inform a design. ‘Fashion,’ he says,’ feeds into it all’.

When asked of his favourite designers, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier instantly spring to mind. All three have been very influential in his world of theatre for their incredible theatricality, for their design style which gives their audience a glimpse into the personality behind the outfit, a snapshot of the creative process that lead to each piece of clothing. ‘And,’ he says, ‘they do it brilliantly’.

And fashion plays a huge role in the next part of John’s career: film. Despite being a theatre animal at heart with an absolute love of the thrill of immersing an audience in a live creative space and taking them on a journey, his interest is shifting to film and music video clips. And it is here that fashion too plays a role, with its incredible power to lead and dictate a theme.

I’m conscious of the time, but before I go I ask him of his picks for the upcoming Perth Festival, the last with Jonathan Holloway at the helm. ‘See the Rabbits,’ he says. ‘And Madame Butterfly will be amazing.’ But before I go I’ve one more question.

‘What’s your secret?’ I ask.

He pauses, drink held halfway between the table and his forming smile. And then he speaks.

‘Don’t ever ripen,’ he says. ‘Stay green. And never let the audience catch up, or you’re out.’