The Playmaker

Seeing “Our Country’s Good” remains one of my outstanding theatre memories, at a time when I’m really not sure if I’ll ever go into a theatre again - their seating and my knees aren’t a good fit. But over the past couple of weeks I’ve run out of library books, so I’ve gone back to my “golden oldie” shelf, hardback copies of favourite novels I know I’ll want to re-read.

And faithfully waiting for me there is “The Playmaker”, by Thomas Kenneally. It’s the source for Wertenbaker’s play, and the main reason why any of us know anything about the performance of “The Recruiting Officer” in an early Australian convict settlement. Kenneally didn’t make it up. He drew on detailed sources, and almost all of his characters have real historical counterparts. It’s not an electrifying read, in terms of especially vivid language or originality of novelistic technique. But it is a warm, sensitive portrait of a group of people in tough conditions, against the odds, working together to produce a moving, unifying result. And in these gloomy, fractured times, that’s worth a lot.