Still looking for Alibrandi …
A classic Australian novel and film has been adapted for the stage and now Looking For Alibrandi is selling out theatres on a national tour.
It’s a multi award-winning novel, a bestseller, a high school English curriculum staple and a beloved film. There’s no doubt that Melina Marchetta’s Looking For Alibrandi is a much-loved modern Australian classic. And 33 years after it first hit the bookshelves, it is now a successful stage play.
Written by award-winning playwright Vidya Rajan and helmed by celebrated director Stephen Nicolazzo, Brink Productions’ Looking For Alibrandi is coming to the Gold Coast’s HOTA in June as part of a national tour that has seen sell-out seasons and extended runs for the ensemble show.
Marcetta’s novel tells the story of 17-year-old Josephine Alibrandi, a third-generation Italian-Australian teenager who is a scholarship student in her final year of high school. Aiming to study law at university, Josie has a penchant for rule-breaking and is shadowed by a family curse, an overbearing Nonna and a seemingly perfect mother. She’s also enmeshed in intersecting webs of class, identity and complicated family history.
The novel and its subsequent film adaptation have both been lauded for their sympathetic, empowered and honest portrayals of 1990s Mediterranean culture that spoke for the first time about systemic racism in Australia from a migrant perspective. Josie’s story defined a generation and to this day resonates powerfully with those caught in the stranglehold of identity politics and “othering” in this country.
Nicolazzo, an Italian-Australian, saw himself in Josie and was inspired to bring Marcetta’s novel to the stage after attending a director’s lab in New York City. Fresh from mixing with like-minded creative types from across the globe, he found himself on the plane home pondering ideas of what constitutes home and culture.
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“I found myself talking with these people about stories and storytelling, about notions of home and of culture … on the plane trip home I was like – I need to do Looking For Alibrandi!” he says. “The minute I got home I called and I messaged Melina and tried to organise an interview. Eventually we met an spent a lot of time together, talking about our identities as Italian-Australians, about the book and the film, about our lives and our experiences.
“From there, we had a hugely wonderful experience working with Vidya (Rajan), who I knew from having worked with briefly. She wrote the most brilliant sample scenes and it really went full steam ahead from there. I was really seminal in bringing the novel to the stage. I feel as if I seeded the production and then it bloomed once everybody got involved and came together and started to make magic.”
One of the strengths of Marcetta’s novel was her deft, deep and heartfelt characterisation – a feature that Rajan and Nicolazzo have wisely kept front-and-centre in their adaptation.
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‘People react to them in such a warm, loving manner and many of them see themselves in these women’
At the very core of the story is the profound intergenerational bond between the trio of Alibrandi women: Josie, who is played by Chanella Macri; her mother, Christina, who is portrayed by Lucia Mastrantone; and her grandmother, Katia, who is brought to rousing life by Jennifer Vuletic.
“Casting the three women was necessary for the success of the production,” Nicolazzo says. “One of the really beautiful things about having sat in the audience for so many performances of this play is watching people and their reactions. People react to them in such a warm, loving manner and many of them see themselves in these women.
“I remember meeting Melina’s 10-year-old daughter on opening night. She had never read the book or seen the movie and she turned to her and was like, ‘Mum, they’re just like you and Nonna!’ and I think it’s that relatability that really comes across.
“When we cast Josie we cast Chanella (Macri), who is a Samoan-Italian actor and a larger woman. I’ve seen the really beautiful reactions from girls in the audience, girls who were always considered the big girls, and felt like they were never the leading lady. Now they’re seeing themselves up there, onstage, and they have this person up there, playing this heroine, taking on this iconic role, and redefining it. I think that has really shifted the way people see the story and brought a new generation to it.”
Nicolazzo, who had previously seen Macri onstage and co-directed a small theatre company with her in Melbourne, conceived the stage adaptation of Looking For Alibrandi with her specifically in mind for the lead role. She was, he says, integral to the production and her beautifully nuanced performance has earned her rave reviews from theatre critics across the country.
“We obviously knew each other and we’ve grown to have a very deep friendship but the bigger thing for me, really, is that I come at casting from a different angle,” he says. “A big part of the way I cast shows is that I’m much more interested in casting actors that nobody else wants, that other companies have ignored, for whatever reasons.
“I’m not really that interested in the picture perfect and the names and faces that are usually given a chance onstage. I’m much more engaged by and drawn to people who are interesting and a bit peculiar or a bit different because I think they really bring an edge and a point of difference to a role and to a production that is often unexpected. For me, Chanella is Josie and that’s hopefully what audiences will walk away thinking too.”
Looking For Alibrandi plays HOTA, Surfers Paradise, June 19-21.