The Lyric Hammersmith has revived this wonderful play by Timberlake Wertenbaker. It’s the third time I’ve seen it. The first was at the Royal Court in 1988 (marvellous) then at the National Theatre in 2015 (not quite so marvellous: for a play about the while colonisation of a black country it was bizarre in my view to cast a black actor as Governor Philip) – I reviewed it here – and now at the Lyric.
When I heard the playwright was revisiting the play in the light of changing circumstances – or rather changing perceptions of the same circumstances – I was afraid she might be adding some anachronistic post-colonial-guilty touches to the play, but of course I was wrong. This production has a true Aboriginal woman (Naarah) playing the Narrator – quite a coup – but otherwise the changes are subtle.
Based on Thomas Keneally’s book The Playmaker, itself based on a true story, it tells the tale of First Fleet convicts in the new and as yet unbuilt colony of New South Wales attempting to mount a performance of The Recruiting Officer.[1] The play is the brainchild of the King’s representative Governor Philip in the hope that the ‘redeeming’ nature of theatre will provide the convicts with distraction and hope. He hands the reins to Lt Ralph Clarke, an upright, uptight young man who yearns for his wife left back home until his head is turned by one of the lady convicts.
For anyone unfamiliar with the play the cast doubling might be a tad confusing, especially since all the actors do to indicate the change is don a red coat (marine) or a torn shirt (convict). In an all-round strong cast the stand-out performance, for me, is Finbar Lynch, doubling as the quietly menacing Major Robbie Ross (red coat) and the reluctant hangman convict Ketch Fletcher (no red coat).
It is a play about redemption through theatre, but it is never sentimental or heavy-handed. Convicts sent to New South Wales were all petty felons, transported for – in the case of my three times great grandmother – stealing a petticoat, or my three times great grandfather who was given 14 years for handling forged banknotes: the sort of crimes that nowadays would earn a person a suspended sentence. What is so marvellous about this play is the way in which Ms Wertenbaker manages to weave the story of the early days of colonial Australia so deftly into the action; how the colony nearly starved, which is why stealing food was punishable by hanging; the humanity and sanity of the (possibly atheist) Governor Philip and his cohort David Collins. (I did take issue with the portrayal of Watkin Tench, who I always had down as an effete, witty, humane man rather than the flog ‘em and hang ‘em fellow he is here; and he would not been seen dead in a pair of grubby shorts.)
The setting (Gary McCann) is a sloping scrub with trees which in Act Two have been chopped down and the stage strewn with rubbish. A nice touch. The lighting (Paul Keoghan) is bold – often the entire rig is lowered almost to head level – and hugely evocative; the final moment when the stage is bathed in red light took me right back to the land of my ancestors. The director is Rachel O’Riordan.
It is a truly lovely play: funny, moving, intelligent, thoughtful, thought-provoking. I’d love to see a sequel. What happened to these poor creatures? Maybe their descendants are now living in million dollar apartments overlooking Sydney Harbour. It’s more than possible.
[1] For my review of the National Theatre production I looked for reports of the production in the journals of Ralph Clarke and Davy Collins and found only a passing mention.
