Our Country's Good (Paperback)

The play details the first play ever put on by a group of convicts sentenced to go to Australia to serve out their term. As much as an argument for the power of theatre as it is a document of the inhumanity borne by the convicts in australia, the reader sees the convicts becoming more and more confident in themselves, and a part of society as the rehearsals begin. As the play progresses, the strict boundaries (shown by the lashing of Sideway at the beginning of the play) between the marines and the convicts are broken down, so far as to allow love between Ralph(marine) and Mary(convict) to occur. Theatre is shown to be an educting social duty that has a part to play in civilisation.

However, I would suggest that there are just too many characters in this play, and it is often confusing to remember who is who, and furthermore, what their opinions are (especially true in the case of the marines). Sometimes, the play has a tendency to go "sappy" or "corny", and this tarnishes the hard hitting message about the mistreatment of convicts it could otherwise have given out.

All in all, worth a read.

When the first fleet arrived at this new penal colony, carrying the first Europeans who would live there, it is estimated that the Aboriginal population of the continent numbered about 300,000, that is roughly one person to every ten square miles. The Royal Marines who served as jailers resented being ordered to this ignoble duty in such an undeveloped part of the world. Their own diaries have shown historians that many of the captors took out their frustrations in brutal treatment of the prisoners. We also learn from these same sources that, in 1789, several of the convicts and one of the officers decided to put on a play for the enjoyment of the entire camp. None had any experience in the theatre, and only a few of the convicts could read, but, against all odds play on the Australian continent, but also in teaching themselves and their observers much about compassion, cooperation, and creativity.

The Playwright

Lael Louisiana Timberlake Wertenbaker was born in the United States and was raised both here and in France. Her father, Charles Wertenbaker, was a foreign correspondent for Time magazine. She attended college in the U.S., graduating from St. John's College in 1966, and soon after, she began working as a writer for Time-Life Books. Later, she taught French in Greece, and by 1970 she had moved to London where she became involved with a number of different small theatre companies and turned to playwrighting. She earned the praise of London critics for a number of outstanding plays which were produced throughout the 1980's. She has received numerous awards including the Most Promising Playwright Award in 1985 for The Grace of Mary Traverse, the Laurence Olivier Play of the Year Award and the Evening Standard Play of the Year Award in 1988 for Our Country's Good, and the Eileen Anderson Central Television Drama Award in 1989 for The Love of the Nightingale.

Historical Background

Between 1788 and the mid 19th century, approximately 160,000 men, women, and children were transported in bondage from England to Australia.

The prisoners who were transported in the first fleet dispatched to Australia -- those who are depicted in Our Country's Good - included approximately 550 men and almost 200 women. The youngest of the others who were still in their teens -- and the oldest was an eighty-two year old woman named Dorothy Handland who had been convicted of perjury.

In the voyage of the first fleet, the prisoners were kept between decks. There were approximately four convicts for each six square feet of floor space and only about four feet of headroom so that none of the adults could have stood upright. Because of the hazard of fire on board, no candles were allowed in the prisoners' hold, so when the hatches were closed they had neither light nor fresh air. The trip to Australia by that fleet took 252 days (from early May to late January) during which time a total of forty-eight people died: forty convicts, five convict's children, one marine's wife, one marine's child, and one marine.