Golden Soil by Carol Dance

Six actors search valiantly, but mostly in vain, for viable characters in new Australian play Golden Soil.

It's never quite sure what it wants to be.

Is it agitprop, or something political, starting with a whole company song that has Brechtian or political protest aspirations? Extended, heavy-handed didactic passages in news broadcast format follow.

Bruce Petty cartoons, specially designed for the play, should be a highlight. However, used like lecture transparencies, complete with laser pointer, and only screened on an overhead projector, their multi-media potential is never realised. Thankfully you can check them out at your leisure in the program later.

Then there are interviews, where the subjects cover their faces, using photographic masks of central political figures on sticks, the main effect of which is, sadly, to muffle their voices.

These elements trail away, as the piece turns into a more conventional play, where the Australian Wheat Board Iraq kickbacks scandal is juxtaposed with an intergenerational family drama. In a nutshell, grandfather is a soldier-settler wheat farmer, dad is a corporate, involved in the kickbacks, son is a soldier, fighting in Iraq, who subsequently dies working as a Blackwater mercenary. Mum, a casualty doctor, goes to Iraq in search of answers.

Sadly the characters are trapped, delivering exposition and theme in stilted text, and a potentially viable idea becomes extremely mundane.

The News broadcast portion almost works, as Neveen Hanna, an experienced and accomplished presenter, nearly overcomes the heavily over-written text for this portion of the play.

Director Alana Simpson has worked hard to shape and structure the material for presentation, and the dedicated actors tirelessly push it uphill for what seems a very long 70 minutes or so.

I want to be more positive about a new Australian play, but this production of Golden Soil feels like a very early workshop, where much remains to be done.

Neil Litchfield

Photographer – Michael Gliatis