Playwright: Timberlake Wertenbaker
Written: 1988
Setting: Australia
Our Country's Good is the story of convicts and Royal Marines sent to Australia in the late 1780s as part of the first penal colony there. 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 the convict camp and discusses themes such as sexuality, punishment, the Georgian judicial system, and the idea that that it is possible for ‘theatre to be a humanising force'. I like this idea as it shows attempt with some of the guards to find different ways to teach the convicts, not just beating them with a whip and hoping for the best.
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