Cold case: Pamela Rabe, Daniel R Nixon and Colin Moody. Photo: Brett Boardman
Pamela Rabe is the commanding and binding force in this ambitious adaptation of Olga Tokarczuk’s novel, which an interweb search variously describes as an ecofeminist, anti-authoritarian, animal-rights campaigning whodunit cum fable/fairytale. It is all of those things and Rabe, as the central character Mrs Duszejko, keeps the whole play moving along, although it does occasionally lose itself in detail.
Director Eamon Flack has assembled a cast of 11 (yes, 11 actors – quite a feat in these straitened artistic times) and what’s more they are actors of rare calibre, among them Colin Moody, Paula Arundell, Alan Dukes, Bruce Spence and Marco Chiappi, and all of whom (with the exception of Rabe) play several roles extremely well. As for Rabe, she is simply brilliant as the eccentric, apparently nutty, astrology-crazed, animal loving and elderly Mrs Duszejko – who, being an old woman is at first tolerated by her younger neighbours when she begins to make what they deem to be wild accusations.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is a whodunit, and so we start with a murder. In the dead of winter. On the borders of a Polish-Czech village. Mrs Duszejko is woken from her slumbers one cold night by her neighbour Oddball (Spence), who has discovered the body of another neighbour called Bigfoot (Moody). Off they trudge together in the snow (the Belvoir revolve gets a good workout in this play, and there is no shortage of snowflakes liberally bestowed by the aforementioned ensemble) and, in the first of many comic moments, Mrs Duszejko and Oddball do their best to clothe Bigfoot and make him a respectable corpse. Mrs Duszejko discerns the cause of death: he has choked on an animal bone. To her, this is poetic justice: she doesn’t like people who kill animals and Bigfoot was a poacher – indeed the bloody remains of a recently felled deer are in his kitchen.
And talking of the poetic, the title of the play/novel is taken from William Blake, and there are many more Blake references in this production. One of the characters is a young man called Dizzy (Daniel R Nixon), who Mrs Duszejko, formerly a teacher, is helping in his translations of Blake’s poetry.
More deaths (or are they murders?) will surely follow, but Mrs Duszejko begins telling anyone who will listen that it is the animals who are the killers, they are taking revenge on the humans who hunt and slaughter them. Not surprisingly, the police don’t take her seriously. She is, after all, a) old; b) a woman; and c) eccentric.
Rabe breaks the fourth wall countless times, with beautifully timed asides and sardonic expressions that speak volumes. She has a huge role, and she is exceptional throughout a show that runs for three and a half hours (with two 15 minute intervals).
Drive Your Plow begins strongly and the characters are well established. The set is full of what I call Belvoir hallmarks – the spartan set, the heavy use of the revolve, the tiny houses representing the homes in which Mrs Duszejko works, even a little remote-controlled car when a transport is called for – and it is all delightfully well done (with credit here to set designer Romanie Harper). Lighting designer Morgan Moroney shifts the ambience from winter to summer, snowy night to sunny day; Alyx Denison’s sound design gives yet more depth to the atmospheres created. And the actors cannot be faulted. But as previously noted, it’s long, too long. By the middle of the second act, the revolve was beginning to be something of a metaphor; it felt like we were going round and round but not moving on – except for establishing a relationship, albeit fleeting but necessary to the plot, between Mrs Duszejko and an itinerant entomologist (Moody again). I noticed quite a few empty seats after the second interval.
I haven’t read Tokarczuk’s Booker-shortlisted novel (though I think I will now) but the English translation (by Antonia Lloyd-Jones) runs to about 275 pages. Obviously, it is a huge task, and no doubt a labour of love, to adapt such a work for the stage but that is the task director Eamon Flack set himself. However, Flack is also the director here and, as any writer knows, it is very hard to cut your own work, when every word is a gem.
There is much to like and applaud in Drive Your Plow: Rabe is at her best, in full and glorious flight; there is such a strong supporting cast; there is comedy amid the bleakness; and it’s a fabulously quirky tale, with a great twist at the end. It has all this to recommend it, although I did find some of the asides and little jokes began to wear a little thin, a little irrelevant, towards the end. I’d love to see a version at least half an hour shorter, and in two acts. Perhaps next time around.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is at the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St Theatre until 3 May 2026
Tickets: $43-$98, plus booking fee
https://belvoir.com.au/productions/drive-your-plow-over-the-bones-of-the-dead/
