Our Country’s Good

When was the last time you saw a historical drama that was potent and expansive, passionate and funny? Our Country’s Good has greatness to spare. The year is 1789. In the penal colony of Sydney, a young, married lieutenant is in the midst of directing the very first play ever to be performed in Australia. With a ragtag cast of convicts, a leading lady who may be about to be hanged, and only two copies of the play available, rehearsals for this Restoration comedy aren’t going well. Yet as the barriers between captors and captives break down, they start to discover each other, both onstage and behind the scenes. This wildly acclaimed co-production by Out of Joint and the Octagon Theatre Bolton celebrated the 25th anniversary of its premiere at London’s Royal Court Theatre, before it transferred to the West End and Broadway and won the Olivier Award for Play of the Year. The U.K.’s Sunday Express called it “one of the great plays of and about the theatre, staged with overwhelming warmth and humanity.”