Timberlake Wertenbaker

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)

Our Country's Good

Sophie Bush

Based on the Novel 'the Playmaker' by Thomas Keneally

Torn between army politics and the love of his soldiers on the front line, a legendary leader spirals out of control. Inspired by Sophocles' classical play, Our Ajax draws on interviews with contemporary servicemen and women to create a modern epic of heroism, love and homeland. Timberlake Wertenbaker's Our Ajax premiered at the Southwark Playhouse, London, in November 2014.

Our Ajax

The Love of the Nightingale

A young man flees to a distant land and vanishes. His mother follows, certain she will find him, but in this unfamiliar place all certainties seem to crumble. In this story of love and loss, Wertenbaker explores passions simmering in contemporary Britain: the longing for identity, the despair of fragmentation and the fragile hopes of lives redefined.Credible Witness premiered at the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs of the Royal Court, London, 2001

Credible Witness

Observed by a lone, mystified Aboriginal Australian, the first convict ship arrives in Botany Bay, 1788, crammed with England's outcasts. Colony discipline in this vast and alien land is brutal. Three proposed public hangings incite an argument: how best to keep the criminals in line, the noose or a more civilised form of entertainment?The ambitious Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark steps forward with a play. But as the mostly illiterate cast rehearses, and a sense of common purpose begins to take hold, the young officer's own transformation is as marked and poignant as that of his prisoners.A profoundly humane piece of theatre, steeped in suffering yet charged with hope, Timberlake Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good (based on a true story) celebrates the redemptive power of art.It premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1988, winning the Laurence Olivier Play of the Year Award. This edition was published to coincide with a major revival production at the National Theatre, which opened on 19 August 2015.

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... Winner of the Laurence Olivier Play of the Year Award in 1988, and many other major awards, Our Country's Good premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1988 and opened on Broadway in 1991. 'Rarely has the redemptive, transcendental power of theatre been argued with such eloquence and passion.' Georgina Brown, Independent It is published here in a new Student Edition, alongside commentary and notes by Sophie Bush. The commentary includes a chronology of the play and the playwright's life and work as well as discussion of the social, political, cultural and economic context in which the play was originally conceived and created.

Based on the novel 'The Playmaker' by Thomas Keneally

THE STORY: Mary Traverse, the pretty, carefully schooled daughter of a wealthy London merchant, chafes at her pampered existence, and hungers for knowledge and experience of the outside world. Leaving her father's protection she is, at first, shock

The Grace of Mary Traverse

He suddenly looks different, less bent, less old, less broken, what a strange man. Is there some magic here? Is he a wizard? Old man . . . No that's not right. Telemachus' father left long ago to fight a war. Telemachus doesn't remember him. Now the man of the house, he must step up to defend his father's legacy and protect his mother from the suitors that lounge around the court. Meanwhile, the great Odysseus has been trapped by the goddess Kalypso for ten long years. Lost in his memories of past glories, he longs to return home. This timeless Greek myth has been reinvented by playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker to create a modern, rich and powerful new work about a son searching for his father and a father searching for himself that is, at the same time, an exploration of masculinity and the effects of war. My Father, Odysseus received its world premiere at the Unicorn Theatre, London, on 13 March 2016. It is ideal for young people over the age of 11.

My Father, Odysseus

Heroism is danger and risk, and frankly, until now, it's been male. In the near future a group of women gather in a half-built structure on Winter Hill in Bolton. Is it a chance to have a drink with friends? Is it a book club discussing famous heroines? Or is it a revolution? Set in the near future, Winter Hill centres on a eight women as they deal with the sale of local land to developers of a luxurious skyscraper hotel. Questioning the lengths people should go in the name of a cause, Timberlake Wertenbaker's Winter Hill premiered at the Octagon Theatre, Bolton, in May 2017.

Winter Hill

A play by the author of The Love of the Nightingale, The Grace of Mary Traverse and Three Birds Alighting on a Field.

The Break of Day

America. 1776. Christian is a Quaker. His family came to America to live in peace. But he is a young man fired up by dreams of revolution. Should he defy his community and pick up a gun? Thomas Jefferson is an idealist, with a vision of liberty for all. But America is a fractured coalition of states, in a bloody war for independence. How will he balance the ideal with the reality? Susanna was born a slave. But the British promise liberation for those who join their fight against the revolution. Where does true freedom lie? Jefferson's Garden by Timberlake Wertenbaker premiered at Watford Palace Theatre in February 2015.

Jefferson's Garden

Based on a historical incident. In the early days of the settlement of Australia by British prisoners, as supplies grow short and hope dwindles, Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark decides to raise morale by staging a comedy, using illiterate prisoners as actors. The project takes on political dimensions and meets with opposition among the other officers. As opening night nears, Clark struggles to ready the play amidst a storm of questions about the possibility of redemption and the transforming powers of theatre.

In 'The Break of Day' Timberlake Wertenbaker turns a sharp and beady eye on three women and their partners. The century is coming to an end and a feeling of dissatisfaction and unease seizes the group. Is it too late to have children? Were they wrong to focus so much on work? These questions force each of them to recast their future.

Furious that Prince Hippolytus will not worship her, Aphrodite, goddess of love, seeks revenge. Infecting Hippolytus' stepmother, Phaedra, with an overpowering desire for him, Aphrodite's retribution will sweep both prince and queen to a brutal end. A secret torment Storms through her Tosses her into that black harbour Death. Timberlake Wertenbaker's translation of Euripides' tragedy Hippolytus premiered at Riverside Studios, London, in February, 2009 in a production by Temple Theatre.

A New Version

Euripides' Hippolytus

Alice Birch

E.V. Crowe

Abi Zakarian

A volume of four new plays as part of the RSC’s Midsummer Mischief by Alice Birch, E. V. Crowe, Timberlake Wertenbaker and Abi Zakarian. The writers had the famous quote by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “Well-behaved women seldom make history” as an initial provocation and each writer has responded to this line in a unique and distinctive way. Contents: The Ant and the Cicada by Timberlake Wertenbaker A mysterious investor has set his sights on a prime piece of Greek real estate. Owned by two sisters whose lives and beliefs are at odds, and with debts rising all the time, the property's future is uncertain. In a Greek tragedy, everybody loses. Through the struggle between two very different sisters for control of their family home, Timberlake Wertenbaker's new play explores why we are willing to let the home of art and democracy crumble as the rest of Europe looks on. Revolt. She said. Revolt again. by Alice Birch You are expected to behave... Use the right words Act appropriately Don't break the rules Just behave This play is not well behaved Alice Birch examines the language, behaviour and forces that shape women in the 21st century and asks what's stopping us from doing something truly radical to change them. Winner of the George Devine Award for Most Promising New Playwright 2014 I can hear you by E.V. Crowe Tommy is dead. It's always tragic when they die young. People have posted loads of nice stuff on his Facebook page. His sister Ruth has returned for the funeral and wants to get it just right. Proper cutlery and a good spread. The send-off he deserved, and certainly better than they managed when mum died. The following Sunday Ruth's plans to leave again are interrupted as the doorbell rings and in walks a still very much dead, Tommy. E.V. Crowe's naturalistic supernatural play examines what the possibilities are for the women in Tommy's family, and questions if it's as easy for everyone to reveal what it is they want. This is not an exit by Abi Zakarian You wake up, tied to a radiator. Your hands are bound and there is a bag over your head. You know you should fight, but you don't know how or against whom. But you can't have it all: where would you put it? Abi Zakarian's new play is a funny and ferocious drama about the absurdity at the heart of modern womanhood, and what really stands in the way of fulfilment.

Four Radical New Plays

Midsummer Mischief

When an invitation to The Ball arrives at the Ash girl's house, from Prince Amir, she can't bring herself to believe that she, like her sisters, can go. With her mother dead and her father away, she must learn to fight the monsters that have slithered and insinuated their way into her heart and mind. In this wondrous drama Timberlake Wertenbaker explores the beauty and terror inherent in growing up. The Ash Girl premiered at Birmingham Rep in 2001.

Timberlake Wertenbaker

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