These are the infamous transportations, in which criminals - anything from shoplifting upwards - were sentenced to travel halfway across the world from England to the newly-claimed colony. Their sentences were for several years but, considering the distance and the hostile, unknown terrain, they were more than likely to be a life or death sentence.
I first saw Wertenbaker's play twelve years ago, and before that I don't think I'd ever seen anything to suggest that their punishment when they arrived actually consisted of anything other than just being let loose in the bush to fend off poisonous fauna, but here it's clear that there was actually a plan to keep them in hard labour for the term of their sentence, with any attempts to escape or steal from the limited rations punished by death. Enforcing this are soldiers with no background in law enforcement and seemingly very vague instructions on how to run the place, leading to a brutally chaotic regime.
Having unwillingly accepted the role of Governor, Captain Arthur Phillip (Harry Kershaw) wants to start his new colony in a spirit more hopeful and redemptive than one constantly threatened by a noose, and instructs Second Lt Ralph Clarke (Simon Manyonda) to direct a play with a cast of convicts. While Ralph gradually becomes enthusiastic about the idea, he has to navigate the military chain of command, especially Major Robbie Ross (Finbar Lynch,) who's so opposed to the idea of treating the convicts as human that he'll go to any lengths to sabotage the play, including trying to get half the cast executed before the performance.
I knew I loved this play but O'Riordan's production may be the best I've seen so far - or maybe it's the fact that it's been nine years since I last saw it and can appreciate it with fresh eyes. Either way I was blown away all over again by how extraordinary Wertenbaker's play is. There's just so many layers to it: Its subject matter is regularly bleak and brutal, opening with Robert Sideway (Nick Fletcher,) soon to become one of the play's most lovable characters as an enthusiastic aspiring theatrical impresario, receiving fifty lashes. But the play jumps between this and moments of great humour and humanity in ways that both keep it entertaining, and mean that each lurch back to horror can come with a real sense of shock.
From Ruby Bentall's Mary, quietly in love with Ralph, to Catrin Aaron's abrasive but dedicated Liz Morden, it goes without saying that the humanity of the convicts is there for all to see, but this time around one thing that struck me was the way it treats that of the soldiers, who react in wildly different ways to their role as judge, jury and executioner. It's a happy historical accident that the convicts really did perform George Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer, because Wertenbaker couldn't have picked a more apt play if she'd tried, showing how many of the soldiers had been bribed or tricked into their positions, and could easily have been on the other side of the power dynamic.
So Ralph seems to be the only one who can acknowledge the prisoners' humanity without it driving him crazy. While hangman Ketch Freeman (Lynch) has a pragmatic approach to his job, and has decided that at least it means he can do the job well and give his fellow convicts a dignified end, Harry Brewer (Jack Bardoe,) who actually sent people to their deaths but didn't do the deed personally, has had a total nervous breakdown and is constantly haunted by them. (Another hugely complex element of the play is the way Harry's relationship with Aliyah Odofin's Duckling Smith is as moving as it is toxic.) In this context even Ross' attitude to the play makes sense, as the possibility of redeption for the convicts would humanise them, and put a different light on everything that's been done to them so far; they have to be subhuman if he's to continue to enjoy his privilege.
I've found the First Nations character to feel like an afterthought before, but whether it's the revisions or just the production's perspective Killara's position on the sidelines feels right - the locals' existence barely acknowledged by the British, she dispassionately narrates the way they overfish the waters, upset the ecosystem and eventually all but wipe them out with diseases they've built no immunity to. As much as it's about colonialism and very real history, Our Country's Good is about theatre itself of course, and Gary McCann's design leans into this: The costumes are modern with tatty period elements mixed in, giving the impression of the kind of cobbled-together look of the play-within-a-play, while Paul Keogan's lights appear prominently on stage to provide dramatic sunsets, also heightening the artificiality.
The skill with which the play uses overt metatheatricality is just one reason it makes sense that it's such a popular school text, as well as meaning it can be pretty blunt in its topical relevance. In the time I've been writing this blog, Our Country's Good is one of the very few plays by living authors to get dusted off as regularly as the big Shakespeares and Chekhovs, and here it justifies this status as a work with the same kind of universality and versatility of themes (the idea of shipping inconvenient people off for a different country to deal with doesn't feel quite so distant in 2024.) Although I've seen some decent things this year I've felt a bit detached and unenthused at a lot of theatre, but for so much of this long play I felt the chills and tingles come back.
Our Country's Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker, based on The Playmaker by Thomas Keneally, is booking until the 5th of October at the Lyric Hammersmith.
Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes including interval.
Photo credit: Marc Brenner.
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