Nadia Fall’s production of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s great play on the themes of humanity, degradation and the healing power of theatre opens to great effect as the revolving stage of the National’s ‘Olivier Theatre’ rises to give a glimpse of the desperate, clamouring figures trapped in the bowels of The Sirius, the prison ship which exports Britain’s convicts to the penal colony of New South Wales. Such spectacle is a central effect, brought to life by the stage design of Peter McKintosh and with the assistance of a haunting – though at times overwhelming – score by Cerys Matthews. A vibrantly-coloured backdrop evokes the Australian desert while the grubby reality of daily camp drudgery is suggested in musical set-pieces in which the convicts process wearily around the darkened drum stage.
Spectacle remains crucial to the action: the spectacle of the public hanging as much as of the stage. The play follows the fortunes of Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark, one of the officers of the Royal Marines tasked with keeping order amongst the convicts in this seemingly inhospitable and impossibly remote outpost of ‘British soil’, and recounts the true events leading up to 4th June 1789, when the diary of Captain Watkin Tench records that
‘In the evening, the play The Recruiting Officer was performed by a party of convicts and honoured by the presence of his excellency [the Governor of New South Wales], and the officers of the garrison. That every opportunity of escape from the dreariness and dejection of our situation should be eagerly embraced, will not be wondered at. The exhilarating effect of a splendid theatre is well known […] Some of the actors acquitted themselves with great spirit and received the praises of the audience.’
Here, Clark is our plucky protagonist, fired up by the possibilities of earning personal distinction by currying favour with the colony’s new Governor. Nevertheless, as The Recruiting Officer takes shape, and despite the scorn of his fellow officers, he comes to realise that his cast of outcasts have qualities which are only revealed when they are given a chance to exchange their enforced roles – whores, thieves, cowards, murderers – for the glossy world of Farquhar’s comedy.
Wertenbaker’s play is based on the well-loved novel by Thomas Keneally, itself drawing on diaries, letters and similar historical accounts of the months and years after the first arrival of the British fleet in Western Australia. It is a powerful work which wears its meta-theatricality on its sleeve: ‘People who cannot pay attention should not go to the theatre’, intones Clark (played with great sensitivity by Jason Hughes) to the would-be actors. Much of the play’s welcome comedic energy is found in the rehearsal scenes, which are comic and tragic by turn, and deliver a strong sense of the distinctiveness rather than homogeneity of the convict mob. To this end, the inclusion of different regional accents reflects the differing ideologies, motives and histories of these individuals brought together by the shared endeavour of the theatre.
The successes of Fall’s production derive both from the aesthetic vision and from a universally talented cast. A stand-out performance comes from Jodie McNee as Liz Morden, the tough scouser whose growing investment in the play serves to remind her and those around her of the possibilities, however limited, provided by a fresh start in a new world. Paul Kaye’s performance as Midshipman Harry Brewer is also engrossing – eliciting pity and disgust in equal measure as we witness his tragic breakdown under the pressures of a life spent abusing and punishing his wretched charges.
The play can be brutal, uncomfortable viewing, sexually explicit from start to end. The domestic and sexual violence is hard to stomach, yet it is in the scenes of tenderness rather than humiliation that Our Country’s Good achieves its full potency. The raw exchanges between Ketch Freeman the hangman (Tadgh Murphy) and Liz, his next casualty, are one case in point. The flashy good manners and hammy stage style of Sideway the pickpocket (Lee Ross) become a motif of the respectfulness, humanity and intelligence of which the whole crew, officers and convicts, are in dire need. Cerys Matthew’s use of old ballads from the British Isles and from the American South allows us to indulge in the play’s melancholy and its promise.
At times, though, the production lags, and the wordy and worthy deliberations of the Officers fail to set off the energy, humour and passion of the relationships amongst the convicts. The sheer polemic of the play can overpower its human stories and create a barrier to the audience’s full immersion in its world. Whether this originates in the script or in the production is hard to say – but the sacrifice of moral nuance in favour of broader moral imperatives does disturb what is otherwise a very fine performance.
Our Country’s Good uses the particularities of history to contribute to much larger questions about the political structures which degrade both the weak and the powerful in turn. The presence of The Aborigine, played with poise and confidence by Gary Wood, is a constant reminder of the wider connotations of a drama which continues to resonate today. Nevertheless, the action remains focused on the lives of the British colonisers, figuring Ralph Clark as a saviour of sorts, one who succeeds in his questionable project of ‘civilising’ the convicts and perhaps, in doing so, rescues himself from a life of misery and isolation. Engaging, moving, and visually impressive, the play provokes the precise sort of intellectual and political reactions that Wertenbaker surely aimed for in its first performance in 1988.
Our Country’s Good was performed at the National Theatre’s Olivier Theatre from August 26th to October 17th.