Play within a play (within a play)

“Our Country’s Good” is a captivating study of human nature and redemption

By Gwendolyn Rice, Isthmus | August 22, 2018

When the audience first sees the red gravel landscape of New South Wales, it is carefully raked into an elegant maze-like pattern, using gentle curved lines and circles that are common elements of Aboriginal art. But then the British soldiers come ashore with convicts in tow, and it does not take long for the original artistry of the land to be obliterated. Watching the ship unload its human cargo on her shores, a lone native woman describes the scene as “a dream which has lost its way.”

So begins American Players Theatre’s production of Our Country’s Good, running through October 7 in the Touchstone Theatre. The stunning play by Timberlake Wertenbaker is based on historical events of the late 18th century in a newly established penal colony in Australia. It chronicles the struggles of all who were present: English men and women who were sentenced to “transportation” for a wide range of crimes; the soldiers who were sent to this remote outpost of the British Empire, trying to bring order and discipline to their charges and adapt to the foreign land; and the Aboriginal people, who watched their home being invaded by Europeans.

Captain Philip (a commanding Jefferson A. Russell) paces over that same red gravel, pondering the food shortages, disorderly conduct, prostitution and brutality that plague his prison. Musing philosophically with his men, he wonders whether criminals are born evil or made unlawful by circumstance, and questions their opportunities for redemption. When it’s reported that the threat of lashings has little effect on the convicts’ behavior and that public hangings are their favorite form of entertainment, Philip proposes introducing the inmates to a much more refined spectacle — a play. And so the young and ambitious 2nd Lt. Ralph Clark (Nate Burger) volunteers to direct a production of The Recruiting Officer, using prisoners for the cast. Although many of his fellow soldiers ridicule the project and try to derail it, over the course of several months of rehearsal, the actors and their director are profoundly changed by the experience.

Masterfully directed by Ameenah Kaplan, Our Country’s Good completely captivated the capacity crowd at the opening performance. 

Read the full review here!