Noni Hazlehurst Mourns the Past in The Lark, a Powerful One-Woman Show About Love and Loss

Contemplating the matter of life and death is a tall order in 70 minutes – but if anyone is up to the task it’s Australian icon Noni Hazlehurst, who’s returning to the Arts Centre Melbourne stage in September for the world premiere of a moving new play.

The Lark is her latest collaboration with playwright Daniel Keene and director Matt Scholten, following their critically acclaimed solo production Mother in 2024. Keene wrote the script specifically for Hazlehurst, and it’s another emotive work exploring complex social issues and giving voice to marginalised members of the community.

She plays the role of Rose Grey, who’s saying her final goodbye to The Lark, a small inner-city pub in Melbourne set for demolition. For 75-year-old Rose, the derelict building is her lifelong home, and her whole life, and she must find a way to face the past to break free from its hold.

Hazlehurst tells Broadsheet she initially felt “daunted” by the project – it’s essentially a 50-page monologue, written in the style of a lyrical poem – but was thrilled to reunite with Keene and Scholten for another creative endeavour.

“The opportunity to work with Daniel and Matt creating Mother was a rare privilege and a joy; to have the chance to collaborate again on The Lark is a miracle. No actor could ask for more.

“I just had to sit with [the script] for a while, and read it more than once, to really see what Daniel had put into it. His work is so layered, and it’s so different to Mother.”

Mother – a production Hazlehurst toured for more than a decade – tells the story of an older woman experiencing homelessness. Though it contains darker subject matter than The Lark, both plays centre on characters who have fallen through the cracks.

“Rose is a woman who was born in this hotel, [then] run by her parents, so she’s been there her whole life. Her father gave it up in the ’90s, so Rose took over and then nursed him through his death. Now she’s around the same age he was when he retired,” Hazlehurst explains.

“At the end of your life, when you start weighing up what you’ve done and what it’s meant, does it amount to a hill of beans, really? Particularly for the working class, who would just have been on the treadmill and fulfilling their function as they understood it.

“Things evolve, whether you like it or not. And so the story is what this evolution has meant to her.”

Rose’s story segues with the broader topic of gentrification, and how cities navigate the balance between the past and present, old and new. While change might be inevitable, the character of a community is not so guaranteed – and nostalgia tends to spark strong emotion and debate around what that means for where we live.

“It’s something that happens in every city all over the world. History can be wiped out with a swing of a sledgehammer, and we have so little modern history [in Australia],” Hazlehurst says.

“Although The Lark is set in Melbourne, and it’s very Melbourne-centric, [the story is] not exclusive to Melbourne. It’s about the passing of the baton to the next generation: what are we losing, what are we gaining? I’m a big believer that if you don’t know your history, then you’re bound to relive it.

“When I look around Melbourne, so many beautiful craftsman-built buildings have been replaced with concrete boxes and I think, ‘What’s that going to mean in 50 to 100 years?’ When people look back at this so-called evolution of architecture, I do have a certain nostalgia for beautiful old buildings.

“[Or] you see all this exquisite architecture, but it’s covered in satellites and towers, radiating this malevolent energy in the middle of all this beauty. It’s quite a dilemma. So yes – development at what cost?”

For Hazlehurst, also in her seventies, while Rose’s character resonated, above all she recognised The Lark as a “good story to tell”.

“I always want to explore something different. I’ve got a pretty low boredom threshold; I don’t really like doing something I’ve tried before. But I just look for a good story. If I wouldn’t sit and watch it, why would I expect an audience to?

“It’s part of the contract, by paying their money and giving you their attention and imaginations. I want people to be touched or illuminated in some way, or just entertained, and maybe that will stimulate a thoughtful response.”

The Lark runs from September 3–28 at the Arts Centre Melbourne’s Fairfax Studio.

More information and tickets available at artscentremelbourne.com.au.

This article was produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Arts Centre Melbourne.