Our Country’s Good

The Theatre Cooperative presents Our Country’s Good, by Timberlake Wertenbaker, directed by Linda Carmichael.

Winner of the Olivier Award, among others, Our Country’s Good follows English convicts as they set sail for Botany Bay in Australia, to a life of brutal and capricious servitude. Without the benefit of a Geneva Convention or any other type of scrutiny, these convicts can be treated in any way seen fit by those in charge. After spending months stuffed together in a transport ship not unlike those that brought African slaves to America, the convicts, many of whom have been accused of crimes such as stealing a pair of candlesticks or selling themselves for food, are dumped upon a foreign shore, only to find a worse fate awaiting them. In this savage place, one soldier reluctantly finds his mission: to bring humanity back into the lives of all who live within these horrible conditions.

In a time when our own civil rights seem on the brink of destruction, when prisoners can and are held at Guantanamo Bay without representation and without the protection of the Geneva Convention simply because they have been given a new label, Our Country’s Good exposes our own mistreatment of prisoners and suspects alike.

The Guardian calls Our Country’s Good “a triumph… a tribute to the transforming power of drama.”

Ms. Wertenbaker’s other plays have won her awards from Eileen Anderson Central TV Drama, the Writer’s Guild, Drama Circle Best West End Play, and Susan Smith Blackburn. Her translations and adaptations include works by Marivaux, Ariane Mnouchkine, Euripides, Sophocles, Maeterlinck, Anouilh, and Ismail Kadare.

Appropriate For Ages: 14+