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November 5-8, 1998 Wells Theater |
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| Our Country's Good was the first Monmouth College full
production entered into the American College Theatre Festival since One Flew Over the
Cuckoo's Nest in 1974. This play is based on fact. By the middle of the seventeenth
century the middle class and wealthier citizens of England were deeply frightened of a
rising crime rate - particularly crimes against property - which had been created by a
swelling population and widespread unemployment. did not result in funding for such
construction. The idea was proposed that convicts could be transported - exiled would be a
more accurate term - to a remote part of the globe where the British where they could be
used as free laborers to create a strategically located naval outpost: Australia. We learn from soldiers' diaries, in 1789, several of the convicts and one of the officers decided to put on a play for the enjoyment of the entire camp. None had any experience in the theatre, and only a few of the convicts could read, but, against all odds they mount a production which teaches themselves and their observers much about compassion, cooperation, and creativity.
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