Jasper Jones

Craig Silvey’s widely-praised novel Jasper Jones comes to Queensland in a highly acclaimed stage adaptation by Kate Mulvany. First seen in a 2014 Barking Gecko production in Perth, the work has since been staged at Belvoir Street Theatre in early 2016 and later in the same year by Melbourne Theatre Company. It’s basically the MTC production, which was directed by Sam Strong who again directs it for Brisbane that is on display at the Playhouse with, excepting for two replacements, the same cast.

A coming-of-age story, it features the experiences of a 13-year-old boy Charlie Bucktin, his friends who include part-Aboriginal Jasper Jones and Vietnamese Jeffrey Lu, and their families growing up in the fictional rural town of Corrigan in Western Australia circa 1965. Like all small towns, this one has a dark underbelly and as the plot unfolds the town’s secrets surface in a story of prejudice, racism, and sexual abuse against a background of first adolescent love.

Mulvany knows how to tell a story from a teenage point of view, her exceptional The Danger Age for La Boite in 2008 proved that in spades, and in her Jasper Jones adaptation she sticks closely to Silvey’s narrative. But it’s perhaps a little too much narrative to squeeze into 2 hours running time because the play comes up short on emotional weight, and barely touches on the xenophobia of the town. It starts with Jasper knocking on the sleep-out window of Charlie asking for his help. He’s found the body of his girlfriend hanging from a tree and wants Charlie to help him get rid of it because he’s sure, being the town’s go-to scapegoat, they’ll try to hang the murder on him. They dump the body in the dam and vow to find the person responsible for her death. What follows is a murder-mystery leavened with some broad and sometimes vulgar comedy.

Adults playing kids is a hard call but Nicholas Denton brings the bookish Charlie warmly to life with streaks of spunk and belligerence, which dovetails nicely with Shaka Cook’s streetwise but broken Jasper, and Hoa Xuande’s cricket-obsessed and funny Jeffrey. But the standout was Melanie Zanetti, doing double-duty as the dead girl Laura and her sister Eliza, the love of Charlie’s life. As Eliza she captivated in her early scenes and brought a fierce intelligence to the finale.

Hayden Spencer’s Mad Jack Lionel was filled with appropriate bluster, Ian Bliss’ Father had ‘absent’ written all over him, whilst Rachel Gordon’s Mother was a more blowsy incanration of the character in the book.

Anna Cordingley’s costumes mirrored the period, but her revolving set of the town’s bungalows looked more like outhouse ‘thunder boxes.’ Matt Scott’s lighting was excellent especially the dawn breaking behind the forest-of-gums scrim, but Sam Strong’s direction had holes. Charlie, a kid afraid of spiders and wasps, removed his louvre window panes when Jasper first came to see him, but never replaced them for the entire play which made no sense.

Still in most respects this production ticked all the right boxes. It’s an obvious crowd-pleaser.

Peter Pinne

PREVIEW AND BUY SCRIPT HERE.

Photographer: David Kelly