Actor Sarah Peirse dons dark persona of enigmatic thriller writer Patricia Highsmith in new play.
She fixated on snails and cats; collected guns, swords and knives; and towards the end of her life survived on little more than beer, whisky and cigarettes. But if there’s one thing American thriller writer Patricia Highsmith excelled at more than penning murderous novels, it was eviscerating anyone who dared cross her path.
“As she got older, she became more and more misanthropic,” says Sarah Peirse, the award-winning New Zealand actor who will channel the famous writer on stage. “She was always odd, though. The stories about her are quite incredible.”
Peirse will play The Talented Mr Ripley author in Auckland Theatre Company’s production of Switzerland in September*. Written by Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith, the story finds the rancorous Highsmith sequestering in Switzerland in her later years. When her publisher sends a plucky young literary agent (played by Shortland Street star Jarred Blakiston) to try and convince her to write another of her bestselling Ripley novels, the duo embark on a battle of wits that is “brilliant, black and biting” (Sydney Morning Herald).
Peirse previously played Highsmith in Switzerland in 2014 in sell-out seasons in Sydney and Melbourne but, unlike the character, says she didn’t need convincing to reprise the role.
Despite a diverse career both here and in Australia, in theatre and on screen, playing strong women such as Honora Parker in Heavenly Creatures, Marjorie Van Dyke in Offspring and Marissa Silverton in Under the Vines, Peirse agrees such a challenging role as Highsmith is not the sort of opportunity that comes along often.
“She’s a fantastic complexity of contradictions. She has a fearlessness and an intellect that make her extremely compelling. Joanna Murray-Smith has delivered a beautiful, difficult woman. It’s a very appealing combination.”
Thanks to Switzerland, Highsmith is likely to join the litany of prickly pop culture characters that audiences love to hate. Whether it’s Brian Cox as the cantankerous Logan Roy in Succession, Angelina Jolie as the evil fairy in Maleficent or Rosamund Pike as a scheming swindler in I Care A Lot, it’s the anti-heroes who keep the dramatic cogs turning in any creative endeavour, Peirse says.
“I think we’re fascinated by baddies because we’re both appalled and secretly delighted,” says Peirse. “You are compelled to keep watching because you want to know how they achieved what they did… and because you want to experience their complexity. It’s not as simple as ‘good guy, bad guy.’”
Like one of Highsmith’s gripping and violent novels — The Price of Salt, Strangers on a Train, and of course, her Ripley series, in which the protagonist routinely gets away with murder — Switzerland has all the twists you’d expect from a page-turning psychological thriller, a live-wire interaction between performer and audience that Peirse says can be “very, very powerful”.
It’s a play that appeals to anyone fascinated by the life of a literary giant as much as the creative process itself – as the script, described as a “white-knuckle meta-thriller”, explores what it takes to identify with a killer.
“It’s terrific writing,” says Peirse, who is reacquainting herself with the role by reading two Highsmith biographies: Beautiful Shadow by Andrew Wilson and The Talented Miss Highsmith by Joan Schenkar.
Like the play, they paint a picture of a talented but troubled woman, who’d had a deeply dysfunctional relationship with her mother. Although her final years in Switzerland were lonely — her accountant was reportedly the last person to have visited her — she did have staunch friends, says Peirse, and her capacity for extreme traits reflects “the contradictions within all of us”.
“She was capable of being supportive and kind and generous, while others called her stingy beyond belief, and mean and cruel. It’s a fantastic range to play.”
Auckland Theatre Company are bringing over the original director of the play from Australia. Sarah Goodes, who has worked with Peirse three times, says nothing will prepare audiences for the intensity of Peirse’s performance: “I am continually caught off guard by her ability to plunge into the lowest depths of the human psyche — and emerge to present them with such truthfulness and a strange, unnerving, flagrant casualness.”
For all her foibles, there is much to admire about Highsmith, says Peirse, not least her intellect and work, the respect and position she held in the literary canon, and of course her sharp wit.
“There’s stuff in [the play] that’s definitely ugly, that would be regarded as highly offensive. She obsesses about some really dark stuff, but she’s also articulate and she could be extremely funny. It makes for a great night out.”
*Sarah Peirse stars as Patricia Highsmith in the Auckland Theatre Company production of Switzerland, ASB Waterfront Theatre, September 19-October 7.
To book tickets, visit atc.co.nz