The Drover's Wife
By Leah Purcell
Themes: Racial discrimination, Gender & Race, Heritage
Genre: Realism / Period piece
Key Scenes: pp. 99-106 (1F, 2M); pp. 153-156 ; pp. 153-156 (1F); pp. 107-117 (1F, 2M)
Age recommendation: 16+ (strong language, weapons and explicit sexual violence)
Number of characters: 8 (1F, 7M)
Country: Australia
Original language: English
Description:
Living in the Snowy Mountains, New South Wales, Australia in 1893, a heavily pregnant woman, Molly Johnson encounters Yadaka, an Aboriginal man on the run from the colonial authorities. Her husband is away for long periods as a drover leaving Danny, her son, to adopt Yadaka as a father figure, assuming a learner position towards him. Over a few days, and the visit of a trooper, a peddler, a swagman and a pair of stockmen, they will find out more about each other’s origins, and discover the real meaning of belonging.
The Drover’s Wife is a play written in English by Leah Purcell. It is loosely based on the classic short story of the same name by Henry Lawson. It premiered at the Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney on 17 September 2016, directed by Leticia Càceres. The cast included Purcell in the title role, Mark Coles Smith, Tony Cogin, Benedict Hardie, and Will McDonald.
+ DETAILS
Author: Leah Purcell
Original language: English
Publisher: Currency Press, 2017
World Premiere (in the Engl. lang.): Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney, 2016
Education Pack Resource Writer: Almiro Andrade
+ CHARACTERS
MOLLY JOHNSON / THE DROVER’S WIFE: (F) A mother whose husband is absent trying to protect her children. Pregnant. (40)
YADAKA / BLACK: (M) Young aboriginal man, escaping the authorities who accuse him of a crime he says he did not commit. (38-45)
DANNY JOHNSON: (M) Molly’s son. He is quite enticed by Yadaka’s dexterity and assumes a learner position towards him. (14)
Multiple Characters who can be played by two actors:
Douglas Merchant (M):** a peddler (35-40)
Spencer Leslie (M): a trooper (35-40)
John McPharlen (M): a stockman (25)
Thomas McNealy (M): a swagman (60)
Robert Parsen (M): a stockman (45-50)
+ PLAY TEXT BLURB
Tarantino meets Deadwood in this full-throttle drama of our colonial past, written by the indomitable Leah Purcell.
Henry Lawson’s story of the drover’s wife pits the stoic silhouette of a woman against the unforgiving Australian landscape, staring down a serpent—it’s our frontier myth captured in a few pages. In Leah’s new play the old story gets a very fresh rewrite. Once again the drover’s wife is confronted by a threat in her yard in Australia’s high country, but now it’s a man. He’s bleeding, he’s got secrets, and he’s black. She knows there’s a fugitive wanted for killing whites, and the district is thick with troopers, but something’s holding the drover’s wife back from turning this fella in…
A taut thriller of our pioneering past, The Drover’s Wife is full of fury, power and has a black sting to the tail, reaching from our nation’s infancy into our complicated present.
Buy the play text here
