Actress Sara Wiseman dives into her first love - directing

Star of the Aussie drama A Place to Call Home, Sara Wiseman is directing her first play.

They say you never forget your first love; so it is for actress and first-time theatre director Sara Wiseman.

Wiseman, a regular on our TV screens in series like the Australian drama A Place to Call Home, Mercy Peak and What Really Happened: The Women's Vote, is going back to where her career began to direct - quite literally - her first play.

When she was getting interested in acting, aged around 21, she went to lessons at the Jeffrey James Theatre which is now the Basement. At her first class, a couple performed extracts from Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, written by Pulitzer Prize winner John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck, Doubt).

"I was just gobsmacked by the potency of the play and the provocation of the characters and really excited that this was what theatre could do so it kind of planted the seed for me; I went and bought the play and read it and fell in love with it," she recalls.

But she had to wait 10 years, to 2004, until she felt old enough to play the female lead, Roberta. The character's a woman in her early 30s, living - reluctantly - with her parents and teenage son in a rundown part of New York. One night, she meets Danny in a forgotten bar somewhere in the Bronx and the two discover they're kindred spirits.
Wiseman won the Metro Magazine Best Actress Award for her portrayal and says the play's never left her.

"It was a really challenging play but I just loved it because of the text, the story and the characters who are just so affecting and funny and moving and fragile. It's about alienation and the power of forgiveness and love which I think everyone can relate to.

"It's been over 13 years now since it's been here and it kind of felt like, if I am going to jump in the director's ring, I wanted to put on a play that I was really excited and passionate about and one that hadn't been around for a while so that's how it kind of came about."

She sees directing as a natural progression for actors and says in a career which now spans more than 20 years, she's been fortunate to work with some great directors. She can bring to her new role the tips and hints she's gleaned from watching them as well as the observations she's made as an actor.

Her earlier encounters with the play aren't impacting too much on the way she wants Danny and the Deep Blue Sea circa 2017 to look. It's been so long since she appeared in it and the cast, Jodie Hillock and Frank Borrell, are bringing their own take on the characters and the story, she says.

"I guess what's great is that there's been enough time that's gone past and, because I'm working with two completely different people who are bringing their version and vision of it as well, and it's a completely different set-up in terms of the way it's being staged; that allows me to explore it and can release that potential shackle that could have been there and come at it completely fresh."

Lowdown
What: Danny and the Deep Blue Sea
Where & when: Basement Theatre, Tuesday - Saturday, September 2