Films tend to set up and solve mysteries. But in Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), based on Joan Lindsay’s 1967 novel and evocatively orchestrated with Gheorghe Zamfir’s maddeningly entrancing panpipes, the mystery is laid out and never solved. Its stubborn, convention-shredding strangeness is one of the reasons it has been so long considered a classic.
The 50th anniversary re-release of Weir’s unsettling masterpiece earlier this year reminded cinema audiences of its skillful interweaving of supernatural eeriness and larger bubbling themes of gender and sexuality in Victorian-era Australia.
The premiere of a musical version, then, may reasonably elicit a mixture of anticipation and nerves. Sadly, the production, which just opened at Greenwich House Theater (booking to Jan. 17, 2026), is an ill-conceived, unfocused show that sends you running straight back to the panpipes.
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