A desolate life: Jodie McNee (Liz Morden) and Cyril Nri (Captain Arthur Phillip). Photo credit: Simon Annand
Play: Our Country’s Good
Theatre: National Theatre
Playwright: Timberlake Wertenbaker
Director: Nadia Fall
Review by Natalie Gormally
Nadia Fall brings Timberlake Wertenbaker’s iconic play to the National Theatre in an epic production of first class acting, terrific staging and a stunning musical collaboration.
When this play was first shown in 1988, Wertenbaker’s commentary on the transformational power of drama was a thinly veiled attack on Margaret Thatcher’s cuts to the arts and the general lack of funding theatres received. Nearly 30 years on, the strong message feels just as relevant.
Adapted from Thomas Keneally’s novel The Playmaker, Our Country’s Good tells the story of a group of convict colonists sent to Australia in 1788. Most of them were from the lower end of the criminal scale – petty thieves or pickpockets, including an 87 year old woman who stole a biscuit and a young Irish man who refused to work for nothing.
Yet they are seen as hardened criminals in the eyes of British law. In a quest to rehabilitate the group (while entertaining their red-coated Marine minders in their new desolated home), the convicts attempt a production of George Farquhar’s post-Restoration comedy The Recruiting Officer.
At the centre of the play is a topical debate about crime, punishment and rehabilitation, and the idea that the theatre provides a voice and purpose, and serves as a humanising force of compassion, cooperation and creativity.
Our Country’s Good is well-trodden; produced numerous times since its debut, and part of most sixth-form syllabuses. But director Fall’s chief innovation is to weave music, composed by Cerys Matthews, making her stage debut, into the narrative. Fall confidently steers this powerful and emotional medium to drive the play, which is beautifully executed by Josienne Clarke’s enchanting voice.
But it’s the sheer quality of acting that really captivates the audience. Jodie McNee is outstanding as the fierce, feral-like Liz Morden, while Cyril Nri’s Captain Phillip provides the voice of authority and humanity. Both Ashley McGuire’s tough Devon lass Dabby Bryant and Lee Ross’ pickpocket Robert Sideway offer comic relief during the play within the play’s touching rehearsal scenes, as they overact and attempt to fit themselves into the unfamiliar class roles they are playing.
Peter McKintosh’s set design transports us from the cramped and barbaric conditions in the ship’s hold to the stark wilderness of the beautiful Australian Aboriginal landscape.
In the original production, the same actors played the convicts and jailers, a technique which expressed the play’s themes of class opportunity and misfortune. Although Fall has chosen to omit this approach in her version, the message hasn’t been diluted.
Fall delivers a vivid display of the first settlers’ lives, and doesn’t shrink from showing us the brutality, the obscene humour between the convicts, the overly sexualised atmosphere and the fractious relationship of naval officers, down-sized and displaced as jailers on the other side of the world.
At three hours long, with an interval, the second half wavers at times. That said Fall should be proud of her brave take on this historic and vintage play.
Our Country’s Good runs at the National Theatre until 17 October 2015.