Continuing work on ‘Our Country’s Good’

In the preface of the script, Timberlake Wertenbaker writes:

'As I write this, many Education Departments of prisons are being cut - theatre comes under the Education Department - and the idea of tough punishment as justice seems to be gaining ground in our increasingly harsh society.'

This shows the truly political motive behind the play, she is using the Brechtian technique of basing the play in the past to distance the audience and force them to reflect on their own current society. This makes the aim for our scene very clear: to show a 'harsh society' in which authoritative figures of high class view 'tough punishment as justice. I think this is idea is especially important in regards to the character I play: Major Robbie Ross.

Our Country's Good is based on the real story of the First Fleet in the 1780's, in which royal marines and convicts were sent to Australia to form the first penal colony. Most of the characters are also based on real people who sailed with the First Fleet, including Major Robbie/Robert Ross. The wikipedia page of the real Robert Ross states that:

'He was in conflict with the governor Arthur Phillip and other officers. David Collins claimed an “inexpressible hatred” for him, and Ralph Clark described him at the time as “without exception the most disagreeable commanding officer I ever knew”.' 

We certainly see this conflict in Act One, Scene Six whilst the Authorities discuss the merits of putting on the play and debate reformation over cruel punishment. But it is key to remember to not focus too much on the personal dislike and contempt the characters have for one another and focus more on the political stance that each character represents. In the case of Ross, I think he represents the humourless, self importance of members of the ruling classes. He is completely narrow minded towards liberal ideas such as the play and firmly believes 'prisoners are here to be punished and we are here to make sure they get punished'.


In these extracts from the opening and ending of the scene, we see the censorious character of Major Robbie Ross and the journey of the debate between the authorities. 

From the beginning of the play we see how Ross uses long, overly complex words to try and assert his intelligence as a man of high class. Every line here is an exclamation, showing his definitive, undeniable passion for his argument.

At the end of the scene we see Ross completely exploding with hatred at the decision that the play will take place, he sees it as not merely a waste of time but as something that will completely challenge his own authority. He believes giving the convicts even the freedom to perform in a play will encourage them to revolt, showing his own undeniable self-importance. 

In Wednesday's lesson we rehearsed our piece numerous times, using the basic blocking we had previously worked out but changing and tweaking the interactions between the different men and the delivery of certain lines. Here is a run through from about half way through the rehearsal:

We then received notes from our teacher. The main note that I received was regarding my positioning and where I should deliver my lines, as you can see in the video, I quite often turn my back on the audience in order to explode my opinions towards the other characters which obviously needs to be tweaked as my lines will get lost and the audience will be unable to see my facial expressions. Also, it was pointed out to me that it makes sense for my character to deliver most of my lines to the audience as he is so strongly opinionated and would want the world to know his views.