Female rage inspires new adaptation of classic novel Little Women

When Kathryn Marquet was 18, she wasn't interested in anything but making art.

"If anyone had told me at 18, 'You have to get married now', I'd have been like, 'What are you talking about?'" the Brisbane-based actor and playwright says.

"I had other stuff to do first."

Marquet is tapping into that feeling as she co-adapts Louisa May Alcott's Little Women for the stage for Queensland Theatre Company (QTC)'s 2027 season.

In Little Women, Jo March, the second-eldest of four sisters, yearns for a creative life while rejecting the constraints of her gender and the expectation of marriage.

It follows recent adaptations of other coming-of-age novels about young women, from the My Brilliant Career musical to A Room with a View.

These classic stories are finding audiences as young women today continue to grapple with ideas around feminism and choice: from trad wives to the myth of "having it all", she says.

"These characters have other passions, other obsessions and an inner world that exists far beyond the need of a husband," Marquet says.

"We're told we can have a job, children, this and this, but the reality is it's profoundly difficult."

The playwright is excited to explore these ideas through Jo, a character with whom she's always identified.

"Jo feels very out of place in the world she inhabits," Marquet says. "She struggles with her anger because she wants so much more than is being offered to her.

"I think a lot of young women have that experience and aren't sure where they fit in the world."

Marquet sees Jo's fiery temper as resonating with today, when, she explains, "female rage isn't an acceptable sin".

"We're encouraged to be sweet and kind and together, so what do you do with your rage?"

A cozy world

On the flip side of rage, Marquet and her co-writer, fellow Brisbane playwright Maxine Mellor, have been grappling with the question of how to be a good person in a time of crisis, like Jo March.

In Little Women, she tries to figure out how to help as her father serves in the Union Army in the American Civil War. That also has parallels with today.

"All these terrible things are happening overseas and we want to help, but we don't quite know what to do," she says.

"The challenges of being a good person in a complex world are still as relevant today as they were when Louisa May Alcott first wrote Little Women."

While there are contemporary resonances to Little Women, part of the appeal for Marquet of adapting a book that is so well-known and loved is in offering a kind of balm to an audience.

"We want to create this beautiful, cozy world where people can go into the theatre and have a moment of escape and feel safe and feel all the good things about the human condition," she says.

For QTC artistic director Daniel Evans, commissioning a new Little Women was about getting together a group of artists he admires. Not just Marquet and Mellor, but Brisbane director Bridget Boyle and Brisbane actor and playwright Courtney Cavallaro, who will play Jo.

It reflects Evans's appreciation of the local independent scene in which he developed as a writer and director.

"I grew up and came of age surrounded by amazing women, particularly in the independent sector," he says.

"I'm only here because of them, so it's a bit of a gift or a love letter or acknowledgement of these incredible makers of enormous heart and enormous talent."

Difficulties facing drama in Queensland

Little Women is one of two new adaptations by artists from Queensland in QTC's season, alongside a new Romeo + Juliet from First Nations theatre-makers Isaac Drandic and Kamarra Bell-Wykes.

The idea for an all-Indigenous Romeo + Juliet came from Drandic, the company's Head of First Nations Theatre.

Evans is excited to see a First Nations dramaturgical lens applied to one of the world's most famous plays.

"You can't understand through a Western European dramaturgical lens the way a First Nations culture experiences time, love, fraternity and connection," Evans explains.

"That wrestle is where the bravery and excitement of that project is for me."

Making space for local theatre-makers, like Marquet, Mellor and Drandic, is important to Evans.

"I'm constantly in dialogue with everyone, going, 'How do we put Queensland front and centre?'" he says.

"I spend a lot of my job advocating for Queensland and for Queensland artists, while trying to punch up into that national conversation as well."

He's heartened by the depth of talent and skill throughout the Queensland arts community, but aware of the constraints facing the industry.

Evans points to the dwindling of theatre and technical production courses across the country, including Queensland University of Technology cutting the state's only degree in technical production.

It's one of 48 creative arts degrees across Australia that were discontinued between 2018 and 2025.

"Young school leavers being able to enter the industry, to study a technical trade or design course, is difficult," Evans says. "That's something that weighs on my mind."

At the same time, across the country, enrolments in high school drama courses fell by 39 per cent in the eight years to 2023.

In Queensland, the number of schools offering drama fell by 22 per cent, from 323 to 253 between 2020 and 2025, with enrolments falling 39 per cent, from 3,576 in 2020 to 2,194 in 2025.

Those statistics emphasise the importance of QTC education programs such as The Scene Project, in which the company commissions a new short play that is then workshopped and performed by high school students from 130 schools across Queensland.

"Things like The Scene Project and our Young Company [an ensemble of performers in years 9 to 12] have to continue," Evans says.

"When things do tighten, those are the things we have to keep on the table, otherwise we're not going to have a future generation of makers."

Dreaming bigger

It's all part of the answer to the central question for Evans when planning QTC's 2027 season, his second since becoming artistic director: What does the industry need?

"Right now, we need to dream a bit bigger," he says.

"The best thing I can do for Queensland artists, technicians and audiences is just to punch and swing big."

Those big swings include the Brisbane premiere of An Iliad, starring David Wenham, after its sell-out season in Sydney this year; producing a musical, Sweeney Todd, at a time when some commercial theatre productions are cutting runs of major musicals short; and bringing S Shakthidharan's three-hour epic Counting and Cracking to Queensland for the first time.

"The cast sizes are big, the worlds are really epic, and all the stories are quite high stakes, or the characters are at an emotional crucible," Evans says.

The season also includes a new Australian play, the just-announced winner of the $30,000 Queensland Premier's Drama Award: My Roman Empire by Alberto Di Troia.

It's the story of a queer man travelling to his ancestral home in rural Italy and finding it's not "the Eat Pray Love, La Dolce Vita [he] thought it would be". Instead, his long-lost family are neo-fascists.

Evans's sense of ambition also extends to co-productions with other companies: Stereophonic with Melbourne Theatre Company and Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney; and Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries: Death by Deckchair with Sydney Theatre Company. Evans will direct both.

"These big works we're all staging together [like Stereophonic] are our way of going: 'We want to bring the best theatre in the world to you,'" he says.

At the same time, those collaborations meet Evans's aim of creating pathways for local artists.

"We get to send and showcase some of our amazing Queensland actors and creators to southern states, and that's worth a lot," he says.