The Red and Black of Justin Stephens

The Woman in Black, the first production of new theatre company RedFox 3, opens on Saturday 20^th August and Coral Drouyn talks to its director and founder.

Back in 2013, a production of The Woman in Black at a small outer suburbs community theatre started everybody talking and picked up every award going. The fact that the play had been running for over 20 years in London may have helped a little, but it was the Gothic Steam Punk vision of director Justin Stephens that caused the buzz.

Stephens, an actor with a successful photographer’s business called Love Actually, knew from his first encounter with the play that he wanted to direct it “someday”, but other things got in the way. A wife (Actress Rhiannon Leach), two gorgeous daughters, his business and a property out at Healesville would be enough to keep most people busy. But, in 2011 Justin directed a production ‘The 39 Steps’ which picked up an incredible eleven theatre awards, including best director, and he knew he was ready for the famous ghost story.

“Is there anyone who doesn’t love a good ghost story?” he asks me rhetorically. “It’s something in our nature that is drawn to being scared out of our wits. Perhaps it’s our survival instinct and the adrenalin rush we get from surviving whatever scares us.”

There’s no doubt that the play is genuinely creepy in a way that the lush 2012 movie version never managed to achieve, and once you add the innovative set and style of this production, also Justin’s work, you have something very special.

“I’m not the kind of director who says ‘give me something like this’ to a designer. It may be that it’s my background as a photographer, but I have these very clear pictures of a production in my head, and so it’s better to be upfront about co-designing rather than offending some designer who has done great work but doesn’t see what I see.” Justin explains. The same is true of the soundscape, which Justin had a great hand in creating for the 2013 production. It was an artistic triumph on all levels.

So where does RedFox3 come in?

“I am totally committed to the whole of the Yarra Valley area,” Justin tells me. “It is the most stunningly beautiful place to live, and there is so much going for it, but we can’t pretend it isn’t a long way from the theatrical lights of Melbourne, and the culture it offers.”

Justin’s dream for a long while had been to have his own theatre company, based in the Yarra Valley, and when the opportunity came to fund the set-up of the company and the first production, he didn’t hesitate. “Initially, Warburton and Healesville will be our stamping ground. But there are so many great theatres in places like Dandenong and Frankston and regional country centres that I’d like to think we could take the productions on tour within a reasonable radius,” he says. There are other plans on the agenda too.

“There are great facilities at Healesville,” he adds, “and I’d like to think we can add a drama school and  a production arm for children, because acting is a healthy and natural outlet for kids’ imagination. I know that from when I was a child. But for now we need to get this first production up and running.”

This will essentially be a revival of the brilliant 2013 production, with the same cast.

“Kris McLean and Kieran Tracey are just brilliant in these roles, and I would be mad not to use them again. It’s also exciting to revisit a production three years on and find new nuances, moments we weren’t aware of before.”

And what of the Woman herself….uncredited in the last production? Is she the same?

Justin chuckles as he answers.

“Well that’s the beauty of a ghost, especially without a name. She’s always going to be anonymous.”

The Woman in Black plays at the Arts Centre Warburton August 20^th and 21^st 2016 and The Memorial Hall Healesville on August 27^th and 28^th.