Timberlake Wertenbaker is a famous British Playwright . Our Country’s Good (1988) was adapted from Thomas Kenally’s novel “The Play Maker”. Wertenbaker uses the structure of a play within a play to explore themes of colonialism, authority, transgression and the power of narrative. Displacement is also a recurring theme in her works.. The play is set in late 18th Century Australia, where British empire had established a penal colony. When the 1st British Fleet arrive in Australia to set up the colony, they were accompanied by extreme hunger, disease, prostitution and theft, and Captain Phillip suggests that it might be better for the prisoners to watch a play instead of hanging. Lieutenant Ralph Clark seizes upon the idea of theatre in order to impress his superior officers. He decides to present the play, ” The Recruiting Officer”by George Farquhar to commemorate the birthday of King George III, and is soon auditioning and rehearsing as best as he can, while his cast fight and rage and try to escape. But even though some of the actors end up rehearsing in chains, ‘Our Country’s Good’ reveals the redemptive power of their experience to the extraordinary potential of theatre.In the play the cast recites their lines and refuse to stop their practice in order to protect Dabby, Sideway and Mary when an angry officer interrupts rehearsal to humiliate and abuse them. There is a short interlude between the play and acting with the scene entitled ‘The Question of Liz’. This is a discussion between the governing officers about the matter of Liz Morden. When she was brought to trial as an accomplice to some convicts who staged an escape, she wouldn’t speak at all. Captain Ross is certain that this means that she is guilty. But later Liz finally speaks to defend herself because of how she learned to carry herself playing one of Farquhar’s main characters, and because she wants to perform the play. Rehearsing the play allows the convicts to question the conditions that led to their punishment and to re-envision themselves as fully dignified human beings. By the end of the play, the actors have truly become a cast in terms of their unity and support for each other. It is dramatically effective that the play ends with the opening lines of ‘The Recruiting Officer’ because this draws the attention of the audience to the nature of the theatre itself.
Wertenbaker uses the theme of theatre as a socializing tool. Throughout the play , we can see that the convicts become more humane and less as the criminals that first encountered in the play. This isespecially seen through characters such as Liz Morden and “Shitty” Meg. Power of language is a vital technique used by Wretenbaker. The power of language can be seen by the effects that the play ” The Recuiting Officer” in which the convicts are performing has on idividual characters and personalities.
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