By John Bailey
When Dean Drieberg was approached to direct a stage adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder, he immediately spotted the elephant in the room. The story of a man planning to murder his wife might have passed for light entertainment in 1954, but in 2025 it reads closer to true crime.
Rather than pull away from reality, Drieberg decided to lean into it. “Last year alone, 103 women were killed by men in Australia. I couldn’t avoid that statistic and I wanted to point at that with this play and with this production.”
Dean Drieberg is directing a new stage adaptation of Dial M For Murder. Credit: Joe Armao
Stage thrillers have been having a moment of late, with shows such as The Talented Mr Ripley, And Then There Were None and Gaslight touring the country. Hitchcock casts his shadow over other adaptations this year, too, via The Birds at Malthouse Theatre and the coming Rebecca at MTC.
But nowhere else is that shadow so dark as with Dial M. It’s not just that the play follows the machinations of a murderous misogynist. It’s that the relationship of Hitchcock to his leading ladies is now regarded as troubling.
The Birds star Tippi Hedren alleged the director sexually assaulted her and then attempted to ruin her career. In The 39 Steps, Hitchcock handcuffed Madeleine Carroll to her male co-star for hours, even when she needed to use the bathroom.
Drieberg’s Dial M isn’t just a hit job on the director, though. “I love Hitchcock’s films. I’ve loved Hitchcock’s films since I was a teenager and still do. Him as a person, different story. We’ve had a lot of really problematic behaviour from him and especially how he treated his female stars. That’s also wrapped into this, all these themes that I’ve been exploring within this show, like ego and toxic masculinity and the patriarchy and misogyny.”
Bridget Bourke will play Margot Wendice in Dial M for Murder at Theatre Works.Credit: Joe Armao
But how do you go about honouring the timeless strengths of Hitchcock’s 1954 classic without glorifying the neuroses and, well, perviness that permeate so much of his oeuvre? For Drieberg, it was about allowing the two to coexist.
“We start it grounded in the ’50s and very much lean into the style of that time. And then we’re slowly introducing more contemporary elements into it,” the director said.
“I want to provide something for all audience members. There are people who expect to see something that’s closer to the Hitchcock film, and then there’s other audience members who might want to see how a piece from the ’50s is told in 2025. I wanted to reach both audiences with this piece.”
Drieberg stuck very closely to the original text (the 1952 stage play that was the basis for Hitchcock’s film) but design, costume and sound shift between the 1950s and today. The score pays homage to the essential role music plays in cinematic thrillers, but has electro elements closer to an ’80s film.
Then there’s the acting. Translated directly to the stage today, Ray Milland and Grace Kelly’s performances would seem mannered, overly stylised. Throughout Drieberg’s production, that mode of acting slowly shifts into something more relevant to a contemporary audience.
Robert Cummings (left), Grace Kelly and Ray Milland in Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder.Credit: Max
“I’m always interested in how we tell the same story, say the same words, but find other elements that we can use to make it feel more contemporary. That 1950s style is a very particular style of acting and movement and accent,” Drieberg said.
“There’s times where we lean into that, and then we start to pull away from it. How can we make this a little bit more realistic, a little more human, a little more contemporary?”
One of the ways Drieberg and his team sought to emphasise the human in their take on Dial M is to treat the psychology of a murderer seriously. With his honeyed delivery and devil-may-care air, Milland hardly offers a multidimensional portrait of a violent, psychologically troubled man.
“There’s another character in the play who mentions that the main motives of a murderer are ego and money and revenge,” Drieberg said.
“When I was doing research into actual cases of men who’d murdered their partners, those were very big factors in what drove those men to kill. Their partners were about to leave them, and they were so challenged by that, that in order to regain their sense of control and masculinity it ended in violence. I don’t want to shy away from those elements.”
Dial M For Murder is on at Theatre Works from August 7 to 16.
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