Katie Beswick (@ElfinKate) advises you to invest in a ticket to Out of Joint’s Our Country’s Good at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, because, well, because it’s what she thinks plays should be like.
What would it be like to be chained, chucked on a ship, coerced into sex with sleazy officers, and forced to spend the remainder of your living days in a hot country far away from the place you call home – all because you stole two wax candles one inky night? What might save you, if you had lost everything?
Our Country’s Good centres on the story of a group of convicts, sent to Australia as punishment, who are mentored by an idealistic young officer – Second Lieutenant Ralph Clarke (deliciously depicted by Dominic Thorburn) – through the rehearsal of a production of The Recruiting Officer. While the officers in charge of the Sydney colony bicker over the worth of the play, we watch as the sceptical convicts are changed by their experience of art.
Finding a place to start unpicking the endless seam of ideas that this production has sent sparkling through my brain matter is quite hard. It’s packed to bursting with provocations, politics; reflections on art, society, humanity and, of course, love. Its context, in performance, resonated so totally with concerns currently being thrashed out in contemporary social and political debate that it’s no wonder Out of Joint have decided to revive their production of Our Country’s Good (first performed in 1988, and featuring on A’level syllabuses and youth theatre programmes ever since) now.
Most obviously the play’s central theme, the social value of drama practice, screams directly in the face of some of the current government’s terrifying policies. These include omitting arts from the Ebacc, and cuts to theatre funding – which, according to director Max Stafford Clark, are ‘more stringent’ than those made by the Thatcher government prior to the play’s premier.
If the previous paragraph makes you think you might be in the evening of tedious liberal propaganda: fear not! There are plenty of lols to be had, and I mean that literally. Not only is Timberlake Wertenbaker’s writing the kind of witty, observant hilarity that is a rare theatrical treat, but the ensemble cast offer such a well pitched, energetic performance that it’s hard to pick a favourite moment. Although Hangman Ketch Freeman’s (Ciarán Owen) desperate plea to Lt Ralph for a part in the convict’s theatre might just be my standout scene.
And I have to say that although the focus on art’s importance was provocative and interesting, it didn’t get in the way of the individual characters’ stories. As the convicts despaired of their Antipodean imprisonment, it struck me as ironic that the current trend for international travel (the gap yah, backpacking, easyJet culture) has seen us running away to places our ancestors would’ve died to leave. Most affecting for me was Dabby Bryant’s (Helen Bradbury) homesickness; she longs for the English rain and the right to die in her own home country. Although I’ve only moved from London to Leeds I too know that bone-deep yearning for the smell of home.
I don’t know what else to tell you: it’s moving, funny, political, and the stage sears with bright colours. All that means you might just leave the theatre feeling uplifted, inspired and eager to change the world. That gamble’s worth the ticket price, right?
Our Country’s Good plays the West Yorkshire Playhouse until 24th of November 2012, before continuing its current tour.
Normally I do not learn article on blogs, however I wish to say that this write-up very forced me to take a look at and do so!