Temporal setting: 1920s-1950s, 1993.
Location notes:
In the play, the mountains which overlook Kuran Station are referred to as the Hoop Mountains. Based on the geography of the area, it is reasonable to assume that these mountains are based upon the Bunya Mountains of the Darling Downs.
The characters of 1930's John, Dudley, and Harriet are shown to be in the Hoop Mountains during part of Act One.
Quotes
NARRATOR: "In 1938 he returned at last to the Darling Downs, to his own country. Kuran Station was no longer there to welcome him, but he did manage to find a job in the Hoop Mountains- the range of forested hills that overlooked the plains where the station had once been. There, he cut timber."
The light of the White Room slowly changes around JOHN, into sunlight and greenery of an open forest.
(p. Act 1, Scene 15, page 27)
Temporal setting: 1920s-1950s, 1993.
Location notes:
The central setting of The White Earth is Kuran House, the decrepit and decaying home of John McIvor, which was once the most beautiful home and prosperous station in the Darling Downs area. The temporal setting of the play moves between Kuran in the past and Kuran in the (1993) present, and the both the house's former beauty and present neglect are shown.
Author Andrew McGahan, in the foreword to the novel of the same name upon which this play is based, states "this is a work of fiction. While the Darling Downs are real enough, the northern parts of the region do not exist as described here. This story is not meant to portray any actual place, person, or event."
Kuran House is fictional, as is the White family history and the massacre of the indigenous locals. However, the inspiration for Kuran Station and the White family can be reasonably assumed to be the real-life Jimbour House and Station, and the Bell family who occupied it. The location and description of Jimbour House roughly matches that of Kuran, as it appears in both the novel and play adaptations.
Built in 1876, Jimbour was one of the great properties of the Darling Downs, with 300,000 acres of land attached to the station at the peak of its history. For more information on the similarities and differences between Jimbour and Kuran, see The White Earth (novel) entry in the Cultural Atlas. For more information on the history of Jimbour House, visit the website: http://www.jimbour.com/home.html
Quotes
NARRATOR: "And in the north of the region, where William's farm would later be, was the largest run of all- Kuran Station.
It was the White family out of England who claimed it, and in 1845 they reared a great homestead there, a mansion of slate and sandstone, high on a hill, overlooking the plains. Kuran House it was called, and it was the grandest, and most beautiful, of all the squatter palaces."
(p. Act 1, Scene 3, page 12)
WILLIAM and VERONICA stand before Kuran House, suitcases in hand. There is the subtle sound of timber creaking, a noise of old age, the groan of a sailing ship.
VERONICA: "I had no idea it would be this bad. [To WILLIAM] I didn't.
(p. Act 1, Scene 4, page 12. )
The House comes alive around JOHN.
Late 1920s music plays, there is the click of billiard balls, the low laughter of men and women, the sounds of a dying party...
JOHN watches and hears.
(p. Act 1, Scene 9, page 18)
JOHN: "Look- from this hill you can see the whole station at a glance. How it used to be, anyway. Twenty miles north to south along the mountains there, and then twenty five miles west out onto the plains, all the way to the Condomine River. Five hundred square miles all told. Magnificent. [Considers] It was too big to last, of course. After the White's left, well... now there's just this little strip remaining, a couple of miles wide, and ten miles long, running up into these hills. The land I own."
(p. Act 1, Scene 10, page 20)
Temporal setting: 1920s-1950s, 1993.
Location notes:
The waterhole on Kuran Station is first presented as a place of beauty and life- a place which captures the greatness of Kuran's history. However, this perception changes drastically, with the dried-up waterhole revealing the extent of the horror and poisoned nature of the Kuran's buried past. As the site of a massacre of indigenous people, the waterhole is revealed as a place of ghostly horror and suppressed memories.
The waterhole, and the events connected with it, are fictional and not based on any historical events linked to the Darling Downs region. There is no waterhole of this description in the region surrounding Jimbour House. Coordinates are given for an area close to Summerhill Creek, at the foot of the Bunya Mountains. This decision was based on the character John's description of the waterhole's location as "at the foot of the mountains, on the far boundary of the property" (Act 1, Scene 10).
Quotes
JOHN: "You know, this little rock pool here is the beginning of the greatest and longest river in all of Australia."
WILLIAM considers the waterhole, disbelieving.
JOHN: "It's true. This is the source of Kuran Creek, and Kuran Creek runs west from here to the Condamine River. The Condamine flows south to the Darling, the Darling flows into the Murray, and the Murray flows all the way to the sea, thousands and thousands of miles from here. All those rivers and all that country- why, that's Australia's very heartland. This waterhole, in it's way, is the wellspring of the whole nation. [Pause]. That's the sort of thing you have to know about a place of land, Will, if you're going to own it."
(p. Act 1, Scene 12, page 22)
BUNYIP: "The rivers have run dry. Holes have opened to the sun."
WILLIAM: "I don't understand..."
BUNYIP: "The dead. The dead are ready for you now,"
The BUNYIP calls. For WILLIAM, the sound is agony, his hands go to his ears, ad turns and flees, stumbling on.
Into the last dawn.
The waterhole waits- it is recognisable from earlier, but whereas then it was all blue and sparkling, now it is dry dirt.
WILLIAM is in his final extremity. He stares at the waterhole in disbelief.
WILLIAM: "Dry... it's dry... but you promised... you said there'd be water... deep and cold... how can it be dry?"
(p. Act 2, Scene 13, page 70)
Temporal setting: 1992-1993
Location notes:
The opening scenes of The White Earth take place at William's father's farm, in the Darling Down region of Queensland. Although only a short section of the play takes place here, the events are dramatic, and the farm is often referred to in comparison to the other settings in the play.
Coordinates have been given for an area of countryside nearby to the Jimbour heritage home, the real-life inspiration for the Kuran house in the play. The play states that it was only a short journey between the farm on the plains and Kuran House on the hill.
Quotes
NARRATOR: "One spring day in late 1992, when William was halfway between his eighth birthday and his ninth, he looked out from the back veranda, across the paddocks of his father's farm, and saw a terrible thing.
A hot light shines in WILLIAM'S face. He stares in shock at something that seems to rise into the sky.
(p. Act 1, Scene 1. Page 10)
JOHN: "But do you see it, Will? Really see it? It's nothing like the farm you grew up on. That place was just a square of flat dirt, a machine to grow wheat."
(p. Act 1, Scene 10. Page 21)
