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Our Country's Good
By Timberlake Wertenbaker / Directed by Tim Fort / Spring 1997, Rotunda Theatre

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Designed by Xiaoyan Wu, May 2006

Dabby (Amanda Edmunds), 2nd Lieutenant Clark (Jeremy Edney) and Mary Brenham (Holly Lewis) rehearse the play that the prisoners will be putting on under Clark's direction. Dabby is dependent upon Mary, the only female prisoner who can read or write.

In the British prison, Liz Morden (Gemma Zamprogna) waits to be executed.

Chris Morris as Midshipman Harry Brewer and Jodi Essery as Duckling rehearse the boat scene.

The puppets, designed by Josephine Law and Martha Coward, were used to represent the British officers stationed in Australia.

Mary Brenham (Holly Lewis) writes out the script as Bunmi Adeoye looks on. Although they are ever present, the aboriginals are invisible to the others in the story.

Captain David Collins, played by Shane Carty, is flogged.

Crazed Midshipman Harry Brewer (Christopher Morris) shares his enthusiasm for the river with Ducking (Jodi Essery).

Director's Notes

Tim Fort

In 1789, a motley assortment of petty criminals, recently transported by the British government to serve as New South Wales' first colonists, mounted a production of George Farquhar's comedy The Recruiting Officer. This minor historical incident inspired both Thomas Keally's novel The Playmaker and Timberlake Wetenbaker's 1988 adaptation of that novel, Our Country's Good. While the British colonization of Australia raises numerous questions about culture, politics, and human nature, Wetenbaker's play is most particularly concerned with the redemptive quality of theatre itself. The play seems to pose the question: does the theatre, as an artistic idea, have a role to play in times of desperate human need and social hardship? Crackling with a passion for dramatic situation and language, Wetenbaker's work invites an audience to respond thoughtfully to the sometimes liberating, sometimes foolish, but ultimately inimitable, aspects of theatrical art.