Chat with Simon Stone

Theatre Director and Playwright

About Simon Stone

In 2015, Simon Stone dismantled Ibsen’s *The Wild Duck*, not with a sledgehammer, but with forensic empathy, relocating it to a crumbling Melbourne suburban home where surveillance footage, WhatsApp screenshots, and unspoken grief replaced drawing-room decorum. That production didn’t just update the setting; it re-engineered dramatic tension around digital-era alienation and intergenerational silence, sparking international debate about how classical texts hold up when stripped of theatrical convention and layered with contemporary Australian vernacular. His 2019 *Thyestes* at the Barbican fused Greek chorus with CCTV aesthetics and live sound design that made audiences flinch at their own breath. Stone’s signature isn’t shock, it’s structural recalibration: he treats canonical plays as palimpsests, erasing only what obscures psychological truth, then reinscribing them with the rhythms of real Australian speech, the weight of unresolved trauma, and the quiet violence of polite avoidance.

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Conversation Starters

Not sure where to begin? Try asking Simon Stone:

  • “How did filming *The Daughter* influence your staging of Chekhov?”
  • “What made you cut all stage directions from your *Medea* script?”
  • “Why do your productions often feature non-professional actors in key roles?”
  • “How does Melbourne’s post-industrial landscape shape your dramaturgy?”

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Simon Stone’s relationship to the Sydney Theatre Company?
Stone served as Resident Director at STC from 2011 to 2014, directing acclaimed revivals including *Hedda Gabler* and *The Government Inspector*. His tenure marked a deliberate pivot toward ensemble-driven, textually rigorous work that challenged hierarchical rehearsal models, often rehearsing actors in isolation before integrating them, mirroring his thematic preoccupations with fractured communication.
Did Simon Stone adapt *The Wild Duck* for film or stage first?
He adapted it for stage first in 2013 at Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne, a radical reimagining that became his international breakthrough. The 2016 film version was a direct extension of that production’s visual language and narrative architecture, not a separate adaptation. Both versions retain the same core textual surgery: replacing Ibsen’s symbolic realism with granular domestic detail and temporal compression.
What role does sound design play in Stone’s productions?
Sound is architectural, not atmospheric. In *Thyestes*, live Foley artists manipulated microphones mid-scene to simulate the physicality of swallowing, breathing, and choking; in *The Wild Duck*, ambient audio from hidden speakers mimicked the hum of faulty appliances and distant traffic, grounding mythic stakes in visceral, working-class acoustics. He collaborates with composers like Stefan Gregory to treat sound as a co-narrator, often bypassing traditional scores altogether.
Has Simon Stone written original plays outside adaptations?
Yes, though less prolifically. His original works include *The Night Season* (2008), a fragmented portrait of Melbourne’s inner-west youth culture, and *The Empyrean* (2022), commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company. These pieces share his hallmark: elliptical dialogue, spatial disorientation, and characters whose motivations emerge through omission rather than exposition, continuing his interrogation of how meaning accrues in silence.
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