After five years in the new settlement of York, which she called Barladong, Janet Millett returned home to England and wrote about her time there in An Australian Parsonage, a memoir full of her thoughts, observations and experiences as a pioneering settler. On the 150th anniversary of the publication of the book, actor Sarah McNeill will bring to life York in the 1860s, through Janet’s own words, in Life in Barladong, accompanied by Anna Sarcich on cello on Friday, September 30 and Saturday, October 1. BRAYDEN EDWARDS spoke to Sarah McNeill about the show, which is one of many highlights making up the York Festival 2022 program, to find out more.
This is a really unique project and performance, how did you come to be involved?
I have known festival director Will Yeoman for years and he knows of my literature in performance company, Lit Live. He suggested a collaboration and then found out that this year was the 150th anniversary of Janet Millett’s book, An Australian Parsonage, so he asked me to compile something from her memoir.
I imagine you must have learnt a thing or two about York and the region in the lead up to this. What was the most surprising thing you found out about the town back in this time?
I have! And it was great to walk around the town and recognise some of the places she wrote about when she lived there in 1860s. The wonderful thing was her detailed description of the town store and all the things it sold. The saddest was her description of convicts walking through York in heavy chains. The convict depot was the centre of the township in those days.
What brought Janet Millet to the region and how would you describe her?
The show uses her words entirely, reading edited extracts from her diary memoir which she wrote in 1872. She arrived with her husband Rev Edward Millett in 1863, who had accepted a post as colonial chaplain at Holy Trinity in York. He was unwell and had been told that the warm weather of Western Australia would help his ailing health.
I am so full of admiration for this woman who arrived in a tiny colonial town so far from anything she was familiar with, but made the place her own. She refused to call it York instead adopting the local name Ballardong, attempted to learn the local indigenous language and made friends with them. She fostered a young Aboriginal child whose mother had died. She loved the countryside and rode out daily and she worked hard to help ex-convict workers who she felt were being treated unfairly.
And were there any specific characters from the book that stuck out to you?
She writes a very detailed account of an Aboriginal man called Khourabene – she writes with such warmth and humour of this man who loved to help make beer, who dressed up extravagantly for parties and who adored plum pudding at “Kismas.”
I believe there is also a connection to the church where the performance is happening too?
We will be performing in the very church where her husband was chaplain. It feels like such a special privilege to be standing where they both had been.
You will be accompanied by Anna Sarcich on cello, how will that complement the show?
Anna is a very creative cellist who will be improvising on original 1860s classics. The beautiful sounds of the cello weave in and out of the story and act as a break between the spoken “chapters” of Janet’s accounts of York.
What else is happening as part of York Festival that you are looking forward to?
Anna is also playing with Mark Turner With Strings, so I’m looking forward to seeing her play in a different context!
