This play, first performed in Sydney in 2013, has been called a classic of Australian theatre.
The big question was whether Andrew Bovell’s adaptation of Kate Grenville’s historical novel about the collision between white settlers and Indigenous Australians would excite the same response outside Australia. Judging by the reaction of the Edinburgh audience, it undoubtedly will, since Bovell’s play and Neil Armfield’s production combine masterly storytelling with metaphorical resonance.
Nathaniel Dean as William suggests a decent, hardworking man trapped by a mixture of ignorance and condescension while Georgia Adamson, as his wife, displays a far superior awareness of historical reality. There is outstanding support from Jeremy Sims as a brutish white settler, Melissa Jaffer as a sage, pipe-smoking elder and from Major “Moogy” Sumner as a white-bearded Dharug veteran.
