White Fang
Park Theatre, London

THIS is not so much a reinterpretation of Jack London’s book as a reinvention. In the original, we follow the adventures of a wolf with one foot in the human world and another in the wild, but here Jethro Compton’s two-act play has become a consideration of the similarly conflicted life of Lyzbet Scott, a native American of the Yukon trying to keep alive the old ways of her murdered parents while seeking an accommodation with the European outlook of her adoptive grandfather.

Not everyone will appreciate the departure from London’s much-loved book, but the key point is that it works. The main themes of the novel — the struggle for identity and the savagery of the human condition — are just as relevant in Lyzbet’s story, if not more so.

And, for those who might regret the disappearance of White Fang as a central character, there’s consolation in the fact that his services are at least retained as Lyzbet’s hunting companion, ally and soulmate albeit in puppet form, facilitated by the actors in Warhorse fashion.