Leeanna Walsman - interview

"I'm getting a reputation for R-rated theatre," laughs Leeanna Walsman. "Everything I did in my early twenties was naked, or swearing. My parents are getting used to it."

The Sydney-born actor, 29, has trod the Sydney Theatre Company stage as the subject of an erotic science experiment in La Dispute (2000), a manipulative art student in The Shape of Things (2003), and the promiscuous Zara in last year's Saturn's Return. In March she stars in Stockholm, which tops the handy ‘Raunch Factor' graph provided by the STC in their 2010 season guide.

The 2007 play by UK writer Bryony Lavery is a study in co-dependency. Todd (Socratis Otto) and Kali (Walsman) are celebrating Todd's birthday with a home-cooked dinner and a weekend trip to Sweden. The home they have created together is "the house that love built", as Todd says - but also, says Walsman, "the perfect prison." The title, she notes, is a reference to Stockholm Syndrome, when the abused becomes sympathetic with the abuser.

Stockholm also rates high on STC's ‘Profan-o-meter', but Walsman sees a more compelling reason for the swearing than shock value. "Kali's really offensive and really intense, but it comes from a place of being unable to communicate a deep, deep emotion," she says. In contrast to her character in Saturn's Return, Kali is the weaker partner, afraid of the threats posed by Todd's mother, his friends and a voice message from an unfamiliar woman. "It feels like the outside world is a potential enemy, something that might steal her relationship away."

The production was first staged in Britain by director/choreographers Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett, who have come to Sydney to re-stage the show in a lightning month-long rehearsal period. "I've always been a very physical actor and it's a passion, but I haven't done physical theatre for about ten years," Walsman says. So how is she preparing? "I've been going to the gym," she laughs.
 
An acting natural who left school early to pursue her calling, Walsman has thrived in sexily sinister parts, from school bullies (Looking for Alibrandi) to shape-shifting assassins (Star Wars: Episode 2). She's a good fit for a play the Guardian acclaimed as having a script that "toys with the audience like a horror movie".

Walsman hopes Stockholm attracts a lot of young people - "people who don't go to theatre. You watch an actor doing something, and you're witnessing someone really push themselves, and hopefully we may be going to a territory that people are afraid to expose."   

Stockholm Wharf 2 Theatre, 12 Mar-11 Apr

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