Breaker Morant

I saw the Old Mill Theatre production of the Kenneth Ross play last night and was most impressed. Despite the small theatre, narrow stage and big cast of mixed experience, Garry Lawrence has achieved an amazing result.

In real life, Morant was among other things a contemporary of Ned Kelly. Interestingly, they were both executed without fair trials and both ended up national legends. I sometimes wonder whether, had he not died at the age of 25, Ned might not have gone on to be an Aussie war hero too.

The play deals mainly with the 'trial' of Morant and his comrades Handcock and Witton for the murder of Boer POWs. It raises issues of justification of violence and the politicisation of the military which are as relevant today as they were in 1902. We end up sympathising with the soldiers who were 'only following orders', although what they did was really inexcusable.

Production-wise, I found the set design, AV, light and sound all very slick and supportive of the on-stage action. The cast also all handled their roles in a professional and convincing manner. I don't usually like to single anyone out for particular praise, but the two characters that linger in my recollection are Handcock and Hamilton.

Well done, all. Hope the house is full for the rest of the run.

stinger@iinet.net.au




Thou tottering reeling-ripe burn-bailey!

Thanks for the review, yes we are filling up very fast!
tonight, Saturday is FULL HOUSE.
There are still seats for Sunday August 3 Matinee at 2 pm and Thursday 8pm show.
Friday/Saturday Aug 8/9 FULL HOUSE.

Call 9367.8719 as there could well be a few cancellations

Thou surly sheep-biting burn-bailey!

A timely production in the event of David Hicks's present incarceration at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The introduction of the Defence Act of 1906 played a large part in stopping the execution of Australian troops in the First World War, unlike other Empire troops. Canadian troops had no similar legislation to fall back on when they were executed for military offences.

However, this act does not protect Hicks.

I suspect that Handcock and Morant were executed because of the German missionary's death rather than the deaths of Boer prisoners of war, and this wasn't made too clear with this play (apparently this was changed in the script). It seems their deaths were needed to placate a hostile and powerful Germany, so their deaths were certainly political in that respect. Certainly my German guest liked the idea of seeing an anti-British play rather than an anti-German play. It should go down well with the Gaelic-Irish people as well.

I don't agree with one reviewer's assessment of Breaker Morant as some great Aussie hero. That kind of Nationalistic mythologising is shortsighted and naive to say the least, and that's putting it mildly. I certainly would not agree with the view that they were just innocent saints (not every soldier is after all!) but seeing them as
exterminating angels that went too far may seem a bit extreme as well. The truth lies some where in between.

The production started off a bit too slow but the pace quicken a bit and by the second act it seemed to run comfortably. Accents were generally pretty good, but sometimes it sounded as if Australians were playing British and British were playing Australian. I'm not sure if that was deliberate. The actors who played Afrikaaners handled their accents superbly, especially the actor who played van Rooyan who sounded like a true blue Afrikaaner. The set and decor was fine.

The court-martial scene was nicely understated, which is no mean feat. I did this play some years back and one actor in the cast who had the misfortunate of being court-martialled in the British Army, said that a court-martial is a much more subdued, informal affair. It came across this way really well. The scene with the last night of the condemned men was nicely done and the use of sound effects was good too.

The actor who played Morant was fine. He was particularly effective in the poetry scenes where he seemed to to have great feeling for the text. I thought the chap who play Witton was too old for the part though. I think he should have played Handcock.

The other actor who played Major Thomas had some effective moments, but at times he seemed a little unsure of himself, which was fine at the start - as Thomas was meant to be a little green at the start of the play- but he seemed to lack strength or authority at the end of it.

Minor roles all round were handled ably by the actors and there are too many of them to consider at this point although there were some moments when some actors were giving away too much with their faces. One scene stands out when Kitchener's aide-de-camp, when asked about the standing order about the execution of Boer Prisoners by Kitchener himself, gave a guilty facial gesture that would not have looked to out of place in a murder whodunit, but was really inappropriate for this kind of drama. It also gave the impression that the aide-de-camp was responsible for this standing order, not Kitchener the prime villain of the piece. There was also another problem which I take issue with.

I cannot possibly understand why there was the Daisy Bates/Katherine role in this play. I have no objections to the actress herself, she did the role well, but the monologue that she was using was supposed to be Major Thomas'. I can't quite understand the logic of this, other then the fact that the monologue was too much for the young actor to learn, or the director decided to have a female role in order to 'soften' the cast, as an all male cast can be a bit much for an audience. This monologue for Major Thomas is a nice piece for any actor worth his mettle to chew on. It seems a bit of a cop out to give this away to someone else. Also the play loses the impact of Major Thomas' role as the narrator as it were. He lacked any kind of emphathy with the man he was supposed to be defending.

And why Daisy Bates? A character briefly connected to Morant, so to speak. She is really irrelevant to the story even though she is something of an historically relevant figure. But then so is Lord Baden-Powell and I didn't see him walk on the stage and say 'dib dib dib'. I also thought it was a bit confusing when the actress (Rebecca Bauert, is it?) reappeared as katherine.

Aside from that , there was a nice touch when Harry Morant reappears at the end of his firing squad scene to offer a postscript on the principle characters. This was not in the script but it actually works well. But why wasn't Kitchener mentioned? There is an irony of sorts that in his placating the "Hun" he would lose his life when his ship struck a German mine in 1916, an amusing irony not lost on an Englishman like me or my German girlfriend sitting in the back row of the theatre.

I used the expression 'hero' in the sense of 'legend' which I think applies to both Kelly and Morant. That does not necessarily imply goodness, although there are many who would argue that both deserved commendations for bravery.
As for "nationalistic mytholigising", that is certainly not something that you, I or even this play can do much about. It has to do with how we see ourselves, which includes where we came from, and lets face it, lots of good Aussies started out as the refuse of the British Empire. "Naive" it may seem to some, but then our nation is only 102 years old and still has a long way to go to become as mature as Mother Britain. So, we have Harry Morant while the poms have Harry Potter.
This 'right of reply' also gives me the opportunity to mention that I thought the use of Morant's own poetry throughout the play added greatly to the authenticity of the narrative. He was certainly an excellent bush poet, as well as whatever else he was.


Thou beslubbering plume-plucked maggot-pie!

dear friend I am a teacher in san francisco, california currently teaching a unit about the boer war to my high schoolers. Found your bit about Kitchener"s demise rather amusing. A sort of bad kharma case. Anyways, I have had rather difficulty in finding a copy of the play itself. No library, including universities here carry it !! WEll, US education is the pits. Would it be possible for you to tell where i could order one from your city bookstores ?
Keep in touch. Again, thanks for your thoughtful comments.
louiscamacho2003@yahoo.com
(415) 641-3708

Yeah ... it is called the 'Iraq Handbook' by George Bush, co authored by Tony Blair, John Howard

Hi Louis,

There is a copy available on ebay australia which ends today, so better look straight away...

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=11431&item=7921181116&rd=1

Regards,
Jason

Dear Louis

I am also a teacher and I think it is great that you are so interested in what happened to Breaker (Harry) Morant. My copy of the play was publisher by Hodder Education a division of Hodder Headline Australia 10-16 South Street Rydalmere NSW 2116 playwright Kenneth Ross.

Good Luck.

Brigitte

Hi Stinger, I'm not too sure that we can describe Ned Kelly and Breaker Morant as contemporaries. The Breaker arrived in Australia in 1883, three years after Kelly's death. Kelly was born in 1855 and the Breaker in 1864. I think the claim that both received an unfair trial could be debated. I'm always suspicious of claims about the Australian character being traced back to larrikin-types such as Ned Kelly, since the bulk of Australia's population arrived here post WW2, and Ned Kelly means little to us. I think we make too much of the conflict between authority and rebels, too -- other countries had it worse than we did, and again, the convict heritage is irrelevant to recent arrivals from countries like France, USA, Lebanon, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Croatia, Italy, etc.
I just read this back and it sounds a bit negative -- I guess I'm just trying to stir a little debate on this national identity issue, which always seems to assume that no other countries have mateship, ironic humour, rhyming slang, disrespect for authority, etc.!!

Bonjour, you cheese eating surrender monkeys!!! i amdoing a book reporton Breaker Morant and it is a good book, i nearly cried at the end when they were shot. Also, i believe that evreyone should be eaten alive and get bananas to throw at the British and American government. Shun Shum Shu,i believ lord Kitchener was a republican, anti-socialist, democratic, communist, anti-authoritarian, egalitarian, anti-republican spy for the Estonian government. one last thing:
I EAT CHEESE, GIVE ME BANANAS, AND GET A LIFE YOU PEOPLE WHO HAVE WRITTEN PAGE-LONG REVIEWS ABOUT THIS BOOK!!!!!!
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! ha! my name is Nigel von poopenstein and i live in America. only joking, i actually live in.....ESTONIA!!!! HAHAHAHA TRICKED YOU ALL. I am A SENILE OLD FART AND MAKE 1 PESO PER DAY.I AM RICH!!!!!!!!!! WOOT sry for wasting your time if u read this. i really am doing a book report on this and i was board and, finding myself on this site after hours of research, i just had to vent out my boredom.No hard feelings, and i thought thebook was great!
:) ;) :P

The review was actually on the play not the book - you stupid twat!

stinger wrote:
>
> So, we have Harry Morant while the poms have Harry Potter.


No...we have Andrew Flintoff - Go England!

Thou weedy knotty-pated haggard!