An expert in guiding adaptations of great Australian novels to the stage, Jessica Arthur reflects on shaping Mac and Buster's classic story into a spellbinding night of theatre.
Mac doesn’t want to ask for help. He has found a way to wade through life without burdening others or being a burden himself. In fact, he prides himself on it. Mac’s fears, vulnerabilities and shame ripple beneath the surface of The Shiralee by D’Arcy Niland. These fears rupture, before being tidily buried away beneath the tough exterior of a man trying to ignore his violent upbringing. Buster is an accidental truth-teller of Mac’s tenderness, jarring with how he presents himself to the world. This play is a love story between Buster and her dad - inspired by the bush poets, caretakers and ‘wanderous loners’ that speckle the land. Her innocence and imagination unveils the gentle truths of the land and its people, through her we witness the heart of community and the ways of mutual care in a tough and lonely world.
Kate’s adaptation illuminates the joys of difference, the individual note in the chorus of community. Kate’s empathetic instincts lead to our discovery that we hold the capacity to change in spite of and through the pain of our stories. This play doesn’t shy away from the darkness and violence of our nation’s past - to see our histories is to see ourselves.
The design of this play reflects the gruff patriarchy of the early colony, its rough and upending edges are the play's foundations. The woolshed floor incubated this early colony flung to distant shores and left to become itself. One corner of the floor is lifted to create a ridge, the beginning of an upending of the built structure and an acknowledgment that the land sits underneath as the true foundation. As a team, we have aimed to breathe life into this gritty tale of an Australia that was fading away even then. Reflecting the joy, sorrow, vulnerability and humour that has given this country its heart. New works require trust, patience and hard work from cast and creatives and this team has been nothing but committed to giving this work everything.
The Shiralee is on stage at Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House until 29 Nov.
Image: Ziggy Resnick and Jessica Arthur. Photo: Prudence Upton.