Jasper Jones is a contemporary Australian story that explores the life of a teenager who is trying to grow up and learn that racism and death darken the community of his home city. Despite the play's dark themes, the production goes against the book and keeps the performance light and quirky, completely avoiding direct confrontation with larger issues. The play's producer, Kate Mulvany, modified Jasper Jones from Craig Silvey's novel. Mulvany highlights the challenge of including favorite parts of the novel and incorporating the exploration of the town's people into a stage adaptation of a novel. However, Mulvany overcame these challenges and managed to produce her own adaptation of the Australian classic. The play is a murder mystery in which Charlie Bucktin (played by James Smith), a bookworm with few friends, helps Jasper Jones, a social outcast and rebel, hide evidence of a murdered girl. Jasper sets out to find the killer so that the townspeople don't blame him and punish him for the crime he didn't commit. While keeping Jasper's secret, Charlie continues with his daily life as normal, where he learns of his Vietnamese friend Jeffery's family problems and his parents' marital problems, all while trying to figure out his own love life. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay This leaves room for four different plots to develop over the course of the play and unfortunately the director does not find the balance of the plots. The whole murder mystery aspect is often pushed aside as Charlie is so involved in other events that he doesn't seem to care about the murdered girl haunting his dreams. The result of this is that Charlie doesn't have time to connect with the bigger issues of the town's negative attitude towards Jasper regarding racism. And so the city's darkest secrets and thoughts are never fully satisfied. This, however, does not prevent us from appreciating the work. The plots include a youthful and imaginative tone that provokes laughter from the audience. The story of Charlie's best friend Jeffery Lu (played by Roy Phung) is both beautiful and heartbreaking, as Phung makes all his scenes endearing with his ability to balance both humor and pain, he swallows his pain and buries it in his humor. and sarcastic manner as he tells Charlie about his family's death in Vietnam. The set consisted of an embankment of frames at the back of the stage with old gum tree-like pillars with bark peeling off like paper death strewn across the top of the uneven forest like earth. There were individual props, such as a door or window and the bed from Charlie's bedroom, that were brought onto the stage, which helped with simple but effective use of location change. The set also assisted the actors on stage with easy and clean exits with the hole under the forest floor in the embankment, which added to the eerie experience of when Charlie and Jasper throw Laura's body into the lake. The aim was to help make the set creative and practical. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay The show's director, Nescha Jelk, uses scene changes to her advantage by turning them into a dream sequence; in which Laura, Jasper's dead girlfriend, haunts Charlie as the stage is reset to create the next part of the show. Not letting a.