White China
Brisbane Powerhouse
Playlab Theatre’s latest mainstage production, White China by Therese Collie, premieres at the Underground Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse, from June 7-17.
The experience of Brisbane’s flooding rivers has been etched into memories of high tidelines, their numbers shorthand for scars: 2022, 2011, 1974.
White China invites generations of Queenslanders to reflect on what binds us, and question where we come from. The family at this play’s core is typical - a grandmother scolds her daughter, who as a mother herself, scolds her rebellious teenage daughter.
But this family also carries scars hidden from white Australia’s eyes: the heritage and traditions they’ve been forced to shun and the identity they’ve denied in order to survive.
White China centres around Daisy, a devout do-gooder of Joh Bjelke-Petersen's Queensland, her daughter Jas the defiant hippie, and grandmother Lily who has disappeared from her retirement home.
In a tin dinghy, Daisy and Jas frantically search for their grandmother Lily, but what they don’t know is that Lily is also searching. Having rediscovered her half-sister Joy, Lily seeks her mother’s grave, desperate to find it before Ancestor’s Day.
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White China
Underground Theatre
Brisbane Powerhouse
119 Lamington St
New Farm
Jun 7-17
$39-$45 + book fee