Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca has never quite released its hold on the popular imagination. The novel, first published in 1938, reinvented the Gothic genre for a modern audience, while Alfred Hitchcock’s Oscar-winning film sealed its place as one of the twentieth century’s most iconic tales.
Now, Melbourne Theatre Company, under the assured hand of Anne-Louise Sarks, revisits this enduring story of memory, obsession and power with a production that is eerily compelling.
From the outset, Marg Horwell’s set appears stark, almost stripped back, reflecting the unnamed heroine’s unease on her journey to the imposing estate of Manderley. As the narrative deepens, the design blossoms into something more elaborate and elegant, mirroring the way the past slowly reveals itself.
Horwell’s costumes, too, chart the shifting tensions: Nikki Shiels’s wardrobe evolves from muted simplicity to greater poise, while Pamela Rabe’s Mrs Danvers remains locked in austere lines, a visual echo of her iron will.
Shiels delivers a finely shaded performance as the Woman, capturing the character’s tentative fragility before allowing glimmers of resilience to surface. Stephen Phillips’s Maxim de Winter is suitably enigmatic – dashing, reserved, and increasingly troubled by the shadow of his first wife. Toby Truslove handles the dual roles of Frank and Jack with clarity, balancing loyalty and levity.
Yet it is Pamela Rabe who dominates the production. Her Mrs Danvers is eerily sinister, a figure who commands the stage with quiet authority, while her turns as Mrs Van Hopper and Beatrice reveal equal versatility. With a glance or a gesture, Rabe conveys the chill that hangs over Manderley.
Paul Jackson’s lighting carves mood and menace into Horwell’s spaces, shafts of illumination dissolving into cavernous shadows. The sound design, by Grace Ferguson and Joe Paradise Lui, is equally evocative: whispers, echoes and surging crescendos lend an almost spectral quality to the house, making it feel alive, complicit, and threatening.
Sarks’s adaptation is measured and confident. She resists melodrama, instead letting the tension accumulate gradually, in looks, silences and half-spoken truths. While some may find the pacing deliberately restrained, it serves to underscore the story’s central themes of obsession, inheritance and the danger of living in another’s shadow.
Rebecca
Southbank Theatre, The Sumner, Southbank Boulevard, Southbank
Performance: Saturday 4 October 2025
Season continues to 5 November 2025
Information and Bookings: www.mtc.com.au
Images: Nikki Shiels and Pamela Rabe in Rebecca – photo by Pia Johnson | Stephen Phillips and Nikki Shiels in Rebecca – photo by Pia Johnson | Pamela Rabe and Nikki Shiels in Rebecca – photo by Pia Johnson
Review: Rohan Shearn