Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre Is Bringing 'The Birds' and Its Iconic Horror Tale to the Stage From the Page and Screen
To experience the story's full terrors — and every swoop and squawk — theatre attendees will don headphones at this world-premiere one-woman production that follows in Alfred Hitchcock's footsteps.
After giving Looking for Alibrandi and Nosferatu the page-to-screen-to-stage treatment in recent years, Malthouse Theatre has another cinema great in its sights for 2025: The Birds, which started its life as a book by Daphne du Maurier, then hit picture palaces thanks to Alfred Hitchcock. A source of ornithophobia for more than half a century, the tale is swooping into the Melbourne theatre company, but not as anyone has seen it before. A world-premiere production, it's being staged as a one-woman show — and, courtesy of headphones, it's ensuring that audiences don't miss a single fluttering wing or blood-curdling squawk.
Paula Arundell, a Helpmann Award-nominee for playing Hermione in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, will be in the only actor onstage when The Birds flues into Malthouse's Beckett Theatre between Friday, May 16–Saturday, June 7, 2025. In an approach that brings Sydney Theatre Company's The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Dracula to mind, She's tasked with conveying the terrors of a family facing the animal world's feathered creatures turning deadly, but going far beyond Tippi Hedren's efforts in Hitchcock's 62-year-old movie given that she's the show's sole performer.
"The Birds is a thriller about a family who are living through an extraordinary crisis — the day birds, as an entire species, turn on humankind. Paula is one of the country's most astonishing actors, and this will be the performance of a lifetime, and you'll be in the theatre, wearing headphones, experiencing every whisper and every swoop intimately with her," said Matthew Lutton, who directs the production after finishing his ten-year run as Malthouse Theatre's Artistic Director.
If you haven't seen the classic film or read the 1952 horror story that it's based on, as penned by an author that Hitchcock adapted more than once — see also: Rebecca and Jamaica Inn — it focuses on an unexplained attack on a coastal town, plus the fight to try to survive it. Malthouse's version, hailing from playwright Louise Fox, is giving The Birds a modern spin.
As for listening in, J David Franzke is responsible for the sound design and compositions — and getting theatregoers donning headsets is all about sensory immersion.
At present, anyone wanting to catch the end result for this new take on The Birds will need to hit up the Melbourne season, but cross your fingers that the production will eventually take flight elsewhere around the country in the future.
The Birds' world-premiere season runs from Friday, May 16–Saturday, June 7, 2025 at the Beckett Theatre, 113 Sturt Street, Southbank, Melbourne. Head to the Malthouse Theatre website for tickets and further details.
