The Story of Mary MacLane By Herself

Bojana Novakovic as Mary MacLane (photo by Jeff Busby)

By Elissa Blake

Were it not for the fact she was born in 1881, Mary MacLane might strike you as a very 21^st century sort of girl. The precocious writer who became a media sensation aged 19 (when media was ticker tape and telegraph) on the publication of her diaries, was a vocal feminist, openly bisexual, and fearless when it came to airing idiosyncratic opinions.

He memoir, The Story of Mary MacLane, published in 1902, scandalised right-thinking Americans and consequently sold 100,000 copies in its first month, mainly to other young women. When her autobiography was reported to have been the inspiration for a young woman’s suicide, MacLane wrote: “I read of the Kalamazoo girl who killed herself after reading the book. I am not at all surprised. She lived in Kalamazoo, for one thing, and then she read the book.”

MacLane moved from the mining town of Butte, Montana on the proceeds, first to Chicago, and then to Greenwich Village in New York City, where she continued to write and live large. She became a prize-fight journalist and starred in a film, a 1917 silent called Men Who Have Made Love to Me (“The stripping naked of a human soul,” foamed one advertisement. “Revelations of unusual love episodes of her own life, written and enacted by herself”). Sadly, the film is believed lost.

Now MacLane’s unique vision is on stage in The Story of Mary MacLane Herself, written and performed by actress Bojana Novakovic, opening at Griffin next week. “If Mary was blogging now, she’d be famous,” says Novakovic. “She was a lonely and singular woman. I’ve never encountered a character quite like her.”

A NIDA graduate, Novakovic moves between Australia and The United States where she has a burgeoning film career. She has three films coming out this year: Generation Um, starring Keanu Reeves, The King Is Dead, directed by Rolf de Heer and Not Suitable for Children, starring Ryan Kwanten. She also runs her independent theatre company Ride On Theatre.

She says she stumbled across MacLane while researching another part, someone who was schizophrenic. “I was reading a book of collected writing of schizophrenics and people who had been in asylums and some of her writing was in there,” she says. “She really struck me as not mad at all - which is a little bit embarrassing for me, maybe - but I think it tells us a lot about what is we think is insane behaviour and what is actually insane. I was struck by how contemporary she seemed and how insightful of conditions that me and my friends feel now.”

The Story of Mary MacLane By Herself is not a straightforward piece of biographical storytelling, says Novakovic. “To me the show is about the human condition surrounding loneliness and desperation - all the lengths that a human heart and mind go to in striving for a life beyond itself,” she says.

Novakovic says MacLane was an unusual writer, even judged by the narcissistic standards of today’s blogging and Facebook culture. “Her subject was herself, she never wrote about other things. Her vanity is shameless yet it’s so filled with irony and self-knowledge. It’s totally bizarre.”

Novakovic and Tim Rogers on stage.

She performs the piece with Tim Rogers, erstwhile frontman of the power pop band You Am I, who has also composed a suite of songs and music for the play.

“Have you seen that picture of a frog being eaten by a pelican?” asks Novakovic. “Basically the frog’s legs are hanging out of the pelican’s mouth and the frog’s head is down the pelican’s throat but its hands are outside choking the pelican so it can’t go down. Tim is like that.”

Like what exactly? A dying frog?

“He just has this never-give-up attitude. He doesn’t consider himself an actor but he definitely is an actor, a performer through and through. Even if he hates the notes he’s been given on his performance, he goes away and comes back the next day and he’s doing them,” he says.

“He’s had his challenges but it’s fascinating to see him come through no matter how uncomfortable he is. I find that really admirable because I know when I’m uncomfortable on stage, I just want to die.”

The Story of Mary MacLane By Herself opens at Griffin, SBW Stables Theatre, April 11, 2012.

This story was first published in the Sydney Morning Herald on April 10, 2012. 

Check out some videos on Ride On Theatre's website here.