The Recruiting Officer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Recruiting Officer is a 1706 play by the Irish writer George Farquhar, which follows the social and sexual exploits of two officers, the womanising Plume and the cowardly Brazen, in the town of Shrewsbury to recruit soldiers. The characters of the play are generally stock, in keeping with the genre of Restoration Comedy.

There have been two television adaptations of the play, one in 1965 for Australian television, and one Play of the Month in 1973, the latter starring Ian McKellen as Plume, Prunella Ransome as his sweetheart Silvia, Jane Asher as Melinda, John Moffatt as Brazen, and Brian Blessed as Sergeant Kite.

'The Recruiting Officer' was the first play to be staged in the Colony of New South Wales, which is now Australia, by the convicts of the First Fleet in 1789 under the governance of Captain Arthur Phillip RN (also Commodore of the First Fleet).^[1]

Thomas Keneally wrote a novel, The Playmaker, based on the staging of this play by the First Fleet. The novel was adapted into a play, Our Country's Good, in 1988, by Timberlake Wertenbaker. Both works deal with the nature and merits of punishment, rehabilitation and theatre.

The German dramatist Bertolt Brecht adapted The Recruiting Officer as Trumpets and Drums in 1955.

[edit] References

1. ^ Hughes, Robert (1987) 'The Fatal Shore', Collins

The Restoration comedy of manners v • d • e
• Marriage A-la-Mode • The Country Wife • The Libertine • The Man of Mode • The Plain-Dealer • The Rover •
• The Kind Keeper • The Rover, Part II • The Feigned Courtesans • The Lucky Chance • Bury Fair • Sir Anthony Love •
• The Wives Excuse • The Old Bachelor • The Double-Dealer • Love For Love • She Ventures and He Wins • Love's Last Shift •
• The Relapse • The Provoked Wife • Love and a Bottle • The Constant Couple • The Way of the World • The Perjured Husband •
• The Beau Defeated • Sir Harry Wildair • The Basset Table • The Recruiting Officer • The Beaux' Stratagem • The Busybody