THEATRE: OUR COUNTRY’S GOOD

PREVIEW BY MICHAEL FARRELL

Darlinghurst Theatre Company and The Group Theatre present the award winning play Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker, based on award winning author Thomas Keneally’s novel The Playmaker. It tells the remarkable true story of the first play that was ever staged by white people in Australia, performed entirely by convicts in 1789.

Captain Arthur Phillip, Sydney’s first governor, faces the challenge of building a new society out of bitter, resentful officers; and hundreds of thieves, pickpockets and murderers. In an effort to humanise the population the progressive and enlightened Governor decides that some culture and education will need to be brought to the colony. He commissions Lieutenant Ralph Clarke, a young and serious officer, to direct a play starring a cast of convicts, many of whom are illiterate and one who is about to be hanged.

Dale March plays convict John Wisehammer, transported to Australia for stealing a box of snuff. ‘Essentially he wants to be writer,’ says March of Wisehammer. He’s in love with Mary Brenham, another convict in the play, but over the course of the rehearsal period the already married Lieutenant Ralph also falls in love with her, creating a love triangle. The play is all based on actual events, with St Philips Church in Sydney holding records that Ralph and Mary had a daughter named Alicia, in 1791.

‘I get the sense that Arthur Phillip was a fairly off-the-wall guy,’ says March. ‘I mean, you’d have to be to take this job on. The convicts are here in prison and in exile, but everyone is equally oppressed by this new environment. Phillip is trying to bring some cultural education to the convicts, as they are going to be the new colony, the new society.’

March performed earlier this year in a one-man show staged with the Actors Ensemble in New York. Of Our Country’s Good he says ‘It’s exciting to be working with ten other actors and have people to talk to again. It’s a credit to Michael Booth [director] for getting such a talented cast together.’

March loves the play within a play story, and that there are inevitably parallels between their own rehearsals and the ones played out in the script – like that one rehearsal where everything goes wrong and tensions run high; or the times when you find yourself connecting with and being inspired by the work. ‘I believe that art has the capacity to be a transformative power in the world, that it can be a redemptive force. Arthur Phillip rocked the boat big time in suggesting to put this play on. Many people labelled him as absurd or ridiculous, but what he really had was insight. And he had the balls to really give it a shot.’

Our Country’s Good
Until August 23
Darlinghurst Theatre Company

19 Greenknowe Ave, Potts Point
Tickets: $30 – $35, 8356 9987 or www.darlinghursttheatre.com