Our Country's Good
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Our Country's Good is a play written in 1988 by British playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker telling the story of Convictism in Australia and Royal Marines sent to Australia in the late 1780s. 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 an Australian convict camp and portrays many different views about issues such as hanging, relationships, sex for pleasure and love, the complexity of the Georgian judcial system and the idea that a play performed by convicts can cause them to have a different view of the world around them. The play was written for a specific company of actors at the Royal Court Theatre in London where it was first presented in conjunction with The Recruiting Officer.
[edit] Structure and meaning
While telling the story of how the first transported convicts (to Sydney, Australia) came to produce a play, Timberlake Wertenbaker also relates personal stories and individual histories which broaden the play's dialectic and enrich its meaning. Although set in the eighteenth century and dealing with an actual historical event, the play has a core of modern issues that are immediately relevant. Both writer and director (of the original production) were concious that the play deals with fundamental subjects.
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Our Country's Good was performed in the Liverpool Playhouse, in the City of Liverpool in 2006. Amongst the cast members starred Charlie Brookes, also known as 'Janine' from Eastenders. As part of the touring of the performance, the actors also had to provide a workshop for real life convicts in Walton Prison.
