Marta Dusseldorp battles dark undercurrents in Tasmania’s wild west

It’s a surprisingly good day for a funeral. Defying a weather forecast warning of thunderstorms and gale-force winds with 100 per cent chance of rain, the sun is shining on the west Tasmanian town of Zeehan. In the depths of the 2022 winter, a draft horse is pulling a cart holding two men and a wooden coffin down the main street as the townsfolk silently observe the solemn procession.

Welcome to Mystery Bay, played by Zeehan in the ABC’s six-part comedy-thriller, Bay of Fires. Although the setting is contemporary, this isolated outpost resembles a town that time forgot and its idiosyncratic community has a firm “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy towards sudden deaths and disappearances. But no one has told newcomer Stella (Marta Dusseldorp) about the unwritten rules and at the funeral that opens the series’ third episode, she’s unwisely asking pointed questions that are met by shrugs and hostile stares.

Marta Dusseldorp in Bay of Fires.Credit: ABC.

The unexpectedly clear conditions for the outdoor shoot are a relief for Dusseldorp, who created the series with Andrew Knight (SeaChange, Jack Irish) and Max Dann (Spotswood), and who, with husband and fellow actor Ben Winspear, is also one of the producers through their company, Archipelago. She was introduced to Zeehan when the couple was touring with a theatre production and, as Bay of Fires took shape, she knew it was the ideal setting, even though the real Bay of Fires is on the northeast coast. “It looked like a Hollywood set,” she recalls. “I kept imagining the scaffolding behind it.”

In the Apple Isle’s wild west, hulking mountains covered by world-heritage-listed temperate rainforests tower over the town as the soft light, which director Natalie Bailey likens to that in Scotland, makes the colours pop. For this production, Zeehan was uncannily camera-ready, the main street evoking the impression of a western, which is exactly what the creators were after. Dusseldorp describes it as “epic-ness without effort”, adding, “We really wanted that westerns feel, like there’s all the time in the world and none at all because the stakes are so high.”

Winspear notes that the main street didn’t require digital alteration to convey the sense of a forgotten pocket: there were no fast-food outlets or discount chemists to conceal. And as a bonus, Dusseldorp says, the need to block off the main street for a large chunk of a weekday was unlikely to cause major disruption.

Zeehan radiates an aura of faded glory. “It’s a land of rust and moss,” remarks Taswegian Winspear. Carcasses of long-discarded machinery lie in overgrown areas behind the main street, testifying to the town’s past. Once the heart of a rich mining region, it was known as Silver City. Ships stocked with couture would bypass Melbourne and sail directly to its wealthy market. The grand building that functions as the production’s base and provides the setting for several scenes was intended to rival Hobart’s Theatre Royal. Now it’s a cavernous, drafty warren of empty rooms and peeling paint that’s rumoured to be haunted.

Marta Dusseldorp and Toby Leonard Moore in Bay of Fires. Credit: ABC

This is the backwater to which Stella is hurriedly consigned with her children (Imi Mbdela and Ava Caryofyllis) following threats to her high-powered corporate life. There are echoes of SeaChange, the hit series that Knight created with Deb Cox, in the set-up of a woman and her children suddenly landing in an eccentric, out-of-the-way community. However Mystery Bay is no sunny, benign coastal enclave. Setting the scene for a Tassie noir, this cold place has dark undercurrents and residents who are stubbornly unwelcoming.

The sole restaurant shuts when Stella approaches. The mechanic (Bob Franklin) is more inclined to steal a car than repair it. After Stella discovers that the house she’s rented is a wreck, the real-estate agent (Stephen Curry) proves elusive. The callow policeman (Andre de Vanny), who operates from a caravan beside the police station as the building burned down, is more interested in treating his footrot than investigating crime. The only vaguely helpful local is gruff tow-truck driver Jeremiah (Toby Leonard Moore), as the hospitality offered by Stella’s neighbour, Frankie (Kerry Fox), has a distinctly menacing edge.

However the beleaguered protagonist remains undaunted, or at least tries to. Dusseldorp (Janet King, Jack Irish, A Place to Call Home) describes Stella as “impetuous, focused, truthful, determined and a survivor”, and says that she’s relishing playing a character who is “as close to me as anyone I’ve played has ever been”.

Toby Leonard Moore (right) with Paul Giamatti, playing lawyers in Billions.Credit: JoJo Whilden/SHOWTIME

Meanwhile her co-stars welcome the opportunity to play roles unlike those they’re usually offered. Moore (Billions, Condor, Mank) says, “Jeremiah’s a man of few words and that’s lovely because for the longest time I’ve been ‘suit man’, playing lawyers or CIA operatives, verbose stuff. Jeremiah doesn’t say much and he almost always answers in negatives.” Dropping into his character’s soft growl, he illustrates the patois: “It’s like, ‘What’s been goin’ on?′ ‘Oh, not much’, ‘How’ve you been?’ ‘Not bad’, ‘How long ’til we get there?’ ‘Not far’.” And, he adds with a grin, while suit-man roles require “clean-shaven, short back and sides, here I’m covered in tatts with wild hair”.

As Frankie, Fox (Intimacy, Bright Star, Cloudstreet) is the matriarch of a family that she observes comprises “a bunch of ring-ins, thugs and weirdos”. Frankie’s also the provider of roadkill stews and apple crumbles. “I don’t often get to do comedy,” Fox explains. “I do arty films and I don’t mean that in a negative way: I love all that arty shit, as I call it. I love exploring the human condition and working with auteurs. But to do something that’s so joyful, even though it’s pretty dark, is really great.”

The cast speaks admiringly of the wit and whimsy of the characters and their dialogue. Moore likens the challenge of capturing the blackly comic tone to “tap dancing on a tightrope”, adding, “You’ve got to know where to pitch it and Andrew nails it every time.” Moore went to high school and university in Tasmania and he reckons that the series captures the state’s sensibility: “It’s got the sardonic humour, but it’s also got the darkness.”

Since Dusseldorp and Winspear relocated their family from Sydney to Hobart in 2018, she’s embraced her new home with the passion of a convert. “I didn’t know if I would stay when I first moved here, but it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done.”

As well as producing a series that she hopes will excite a national audience, Dusseldorp wants Archipelago to help boost entertainment-industry production on an island that’s recently been making its mark as a desirable location with Rosehaven, The Kettering Incident and Deadloch, among others. Few, however, have ventured out west. In spite of its rugged beauty, the isolation has its challenges: Zeehan is so small that the cast and crew stayed a half hour away down a winding mountain road in Queenstown. “We need to give locals here an industry, so that they can learn and grow and thrive and stay,” she says.

Moore, who studied at NIDA, notes that when he was imagining his future, the idea of building an acting career in Tasmania wasn’t considered. “I never thought in my wildest dreams that would be possible. You had to go to drama school and then try your luck in Sydney or Melbourne or LA or New York. It’s been wonderful to come back here, and why shouldn’t we be shooting here? You point a camera anywhere and you’ve got the most majestic backdrop.”

In addition to being a showcase for a rarely seen and remote part of the world, Bay of Fires is a tale of a woman on the verge. “How did my perfectly functioning life turn into this pig swill?” Stella wails in the penultimate episode as threats and bodies mount up around her.

“We want to invite people in and then present chaos,” Dusseldorp says with a smile.

Bay of Fires premieres on ABC, Sunday 8.30pm.

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