Our Country's Good

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Our Country's Good is a play written in 1988 by Timberlake Wertenbaker. The play tells the story of convicts and Royal Marines sent to Australia in the late 1780s as part of the first penal colony there. It follows Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark's attempts to put on a production of George Farquhar's restoration comedy The Recruiting Officer with a cast of male and female convicts. The play shows the class system in the convict camp and discusses themes such as sexuality, punishment, the Georgian judicial system, and the idea that art can act as an ennobling force.

Our Country’s Good was first presented at the Royal Court Theatre, London on September 10, 1988, in repertory with The Recruiting Officer.

It was written for a specific company of actors at the Royal Court. Max Stafford-Clark, Artistic Director of the Royal Court, had read Keneally's novel and approached Timberlake Wertenbaker about adapting it into a play. Stafford-Clark considered Wertenbaker's previous work "very distinctive and very original," with a "rare grasp of the eighteenth century."

As part of their research, Stafford-Clark and Wertenbaker went to see a play performed by convicts at Wormwood Scrubs, which proved very inspiring: "…in prison conditions, theatre can be hugely heartening and influential and indeed in prison your options are so limited you can become a born-again Christian, a gym-queen constantly working out, a bird watcher or you become passionate about theatre.”

The convicts were, at least momentarily, civilized human beings, and they had taken their work very seriously: The convicts knew their lines absolutely because they had nothing else to do and they didn't want to waste time with pleasantries as soon as you came into the room they started rehearsing. The two hours were very intense because the time was so valuable and we saw immediately how doing a play could become absolutely absorbing if you were incarcerated.

Most of the characters in the play are based on real people who sailed with the First Fleet, though some have had their names changed. Wertenbaker was able to read the journals of First Fleet members in order to portray them accurately.

[edit] List Of Characters

Captain Arthur Phillips, RN (Governor-in-Chief of New South Wales)

Major Robbie Ross, RM

Captain David Collins, RM (Advocate General)

Captain Watkin Tench, RM

Captain Jemmy Campbell, RM

Reverend Johnson

Lieutenant George Johnston, RM

Lieutenant Will Dawes, RM

Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark, RM

Second Lieutenant William Faddy, RM

Midshipman Harry Brewer, RN (Provost Marshal)

An Aboriginal Australian

John Arscott

Black Caesar

Ketch Freeman

Robert Sideway

John Wisehammer

Mary Brenham

Dabby Bryant

Liz Morden

Duckling Smith

Meg Long

[edit] Critical reaction

In England, the play is used by the exam board AQA and Edexcel as a set text for Advanced Level Theatre Studies and as a set text to use in comparison essays for GCSE. It has also been used in universities' performing arts and English departments. It has been performed across Europe as part of GCSE candidates' final performances.

[edit] Productions

Our Country's Good played 12 previews and 48 performances on Broadway in spring 1991, directed by Mark Lamos.

Our Country's Good was performed in the Liverpool Playhouse in 2007.

Amongst the cast members was Charlie Brooks, also known as Janine from Eastenders. The actors also had to provide a workshop for real life convicts in Walton Prison.