SEANNA VAN HELTEN reviews THE WHITE EARTH, adapted and directed by SHAUN CHARLES and ANDREW MCGAHAN for La Boite Theatre Comapany.

“Why put The White Earth on stage? Well, for the fun of it, mainly,” writes Australian author Andrew McGahan in his notes on co-directing and adapting, with Shaun Charles, his critically-acclaimed novel for the stage. I have not read The White Earth, and yet it sounds like an epic and enthralling read, examining a dark side to Australia’s history and complex attitudes to the country’s vast landscape through a Gothic medium. However, I suspect that too much of McGahan’s novel has made it into this adaptation for La Boite Theatre Company; as a result, even the production’s most impressive elements fail to enrich what may be an intriguing story but one that appears ill-suited for the stage.

Eight year-old William (played by chameleon-like actress Stace Callaghan) witnesses his father’s death by burning and is subsequently dragged by his desperate mother Veronica (Kathryn Marquet) to the rambling homestead of his great uncle, John McIver (Anthony Phelan). There, William and his mother are treated with suspicion by the irascible housekeeper Mrs Griffith (Penny Everingham) and encouraged not to leave McIver’s station by the crooked Dr Moffat (Steven Tandy).

 Soon William and his opportunistic mother realise the boy is being groomed as Uncle John’s heir. But what William stands to inherit is not only an old farmhouse, but a scandalous history of bloodshed, pride, and longstanding guilt.

The set-up has all the caricatures and family secrets of a Dickens’ novel, the central perspective belonging to the half-orphaned boy marooned in a house rotting in its own secrets. Although the characters seem old-worldly, the setting is actually the year 1993: Prime Minister Paul Keating’s government is debating Aboriginal Native Title legisation, political context that provides an important plot point. Through narration and flashback, we glean the story of McIver’s brooding obsession with the station, from his early days as the son of the property’s farmhand to his securing of the house at the expense of his wife and daughter (both played by Veronica Neave) and his best friend, Dudley (Dan Eady).

Woven into this already complex plot are threads of the Gothic and supernatural: omens, ghosts, hallucinations, madness, and sexual guilt. It is easy to imagine all of these elements in the world of a novel, where they may entangle themselves tightly around the neck of the plot. On stage, however, it seems the plot details, dark atmosphere, and dire portends run rampant, stifling what might otherwise be a mysterious melodrama.

Class warfare, a love triangle, the Great Depression, World War II, and white supremacy are plot points that are introduced but never developed. The characterisation was flat, with little exploration of their motives or complex inter-relationships. The remarkable Stace Callaghan uncannily embodies the young William, but, although we witness his neglect and abuse, we never see his playfulness that might endear him to us. Likewise, the tragedy of McIver’s story is his fall from idealism to obsession; yet in flashback, and through impassionate and distracting narration, we neither connect to the younger man’s affection for his family nor his moral turmoil. The support cast give strong performances, but without joy and sorrow, tension and surprise, their stories’ are projected on the same path in dull decline.

In his notes, McGahan articulates that what is at stake in McIver’s inheritance is “the whole vexed question of Australia’s history, and the manipulation of that history by various opposing factions.” I could not agree more, and yet the allegory of McIver’s sense of ownership and the violence at its heart would have sufficed, without the overt reference to political acts.

The play needs a focus, a sensible edit from an impartial dramaturg and, most importantly, to embrace its theatricality, even at the expense of the novel’s no doubt luminous detail.

THE WHITE EARTH plays at La Boite’s Roundhouse Theatre, Kelvin Grove until March 21. Phone 3007 8600 or visit www.laboite.com.au.

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