New Anatomies / The Grace Of Mary Traverse / Our Country's Good / The Love Of The Nightingale / Three Birds Alighting On A Field. Introduced By The Author
New Anatomies, Grace of Mary Traverse, Our Country's Good, Love of a Nightingale & Three Birds Alighting on a Field
Australia 1789. A young married lieutenant is directing rehearsals of the first play ever to be staged in that country. With only two copies of the text, a cast of convicts, and one leading lady who may be about to be hanged, conditions are hardly ideal. . . "Wertenbaker has searched history and found in it a humanistic lesson for hard modern times: rough, sombre, undogmatic and warm" (Sunday Times); "Highly theatrical, often funny and at times dark and disturbing, it sets an infant civilization on the stage with clarity, economy and insight" (Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph)
Art galleries and auction houses often artificially inflate the values of works of art and in doing so, they undermine the appreciation of intrinsic artistry. This is the issue that confronts the central character in this play. The playwright also wrote "Our Country's Good".