THE KELLY GANG

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 741, 25 September 1953, Page 16

THE KELLY GANG

wordy but powerful Ned Kelly, the story of the life and death of the last of the bush. rangers, was a bold choice by the New ‘Zealand Players for their second: tour. which began in Wellingtoa recently. In a production notable for its lighting effects. and for the use of sets which could suggest equally well the vastness of the Australian bush or the sticky heat of a* backblocks pub the outstanding thing was the complete naturalness with which the four voung larrikins of the Kelly gang were represented on the stage by Roy Patrick (as Ned Kelly). Michael Cotteril] (as [oe Byrne), Barry Linehan (Dan Kelly), and Keith Bracey (Steve Hart). This seemed to be due not only to the casting ability of the play’s producer (Richard Campion). but to a feeling by the players themselves that they were taking pari in a drama whose themes have a real significance in the life of this country. Ned Kelly was first produced in Australia eleven years ago by.sthe ABC in an abridged version for radio. Since then it has become accepted as an Australian classic and is a permanent part of the repertoire of stage companies across the Tasman. In this its first professional STEWART’S

New Zealand production the audience was not allowed to forget that the author is a New Zealander whose verse drama. The Fire on the Snow, was broadcast a year or two ago by the NZBS. Ned Kelly is also written largely in poetic form; but its blank verse lines come across the footlights with the effect of a rich, emotional prose whose rhythms are in general as colloquial as those of everyday speech. Like’ the American gangsters in Maxwell Ander son’s Winterset, the Kellys and their friends make continual use of slang and swear-words but they are words and expressions which most of us are so familiar with that we accept them with out questioning their rightness on the stace. The play’s colonial atmosphere is set by the introduction of an Australian stockman (Bernard Shine) who walks on to the stage from the orchestra pit sing ing a bush ballad, as the curtain opens on an interior of the Jerilderie bank in New South Wales iin the year 1879, a hot Monday morning. Two bank clerks, Living (John Carson-Parker) and Mackin (Desmond Digby) are counting the day’s takings. Joe Byrne, an affable Irishman disguised in a policeman’s uniform, enters at left with revolver in hand. With much amusing byplay ("Living, you’l] soon be dead," Byrne

says), the bushranger tells the clerks that the entire town has been held ur by the Kelly gang, Ned Kelly, a tail, powerful, beatded man, also in police uniform, now strolls through the door, and the bank manager (John Gordon) a

is dragged out of his morning bath and clad only in a towel is forced to open the safe. Ned puts the money in a sack and_ persuades everyone,. at pistol point, to come down to the pub and have a drink with him. After a neat piece of scene changing in which the curtain is not lowered, but the flats moved around to the accompaniment of | tne stockman’s balladry, Dan Kelly and Steve Hart are seen in the pub with the customers bailed up, shouting free drinks to all at the expense of the hotel-keeper (Willis Williams). Dan and Steve are portrayed as the lesser pair in the quartet, swaggering and oafish in contrast to the witty, high spirited Byrne and the dedicated leadership of Ned. In the pub Constable Richards (Bernard

Shine) and Parson Gribble (Richard Campion) engage in a series of eloquent but overlong arguments with Ned and Joe Byrne which contain the moral core of the drama. Gribble cannot understand why Ned should have taken to the bush

and become an outlaw when there ware | a thousand other ways "to ease your blood Of Australia’s restlessness or Ireland’s rebellion or the bitter convict memories. whatever it is That denies you ace and sleep." His message is one of "mercy and understanding," but Ned says, "Oh, don’t talk rot," and goes off into an inflated justification of his career and a romantic description of his life in the bush ("A man’s country, all ridges and rocks and gum-trees. . . They call it the Kelly country. We ride the boundaries"). The gang are next seen in their hideout several months later. The first signs of disintegration appear when Steve Hart, a weak, grafting whinger, wants to get away to Queensland or else kill Ned himself in the hope of a light sentence in reward. The arrival of Ned’s girlfriend (Ruth Alley) reveals a plot by Joe Byrne’s friend Aaron Sherritt to inform on the gang. They decide to. kill Sherritt and then deraij. the train of police and black trackers who will be sent after them, This scene’s exterior setting demonstrates Raymond Boyce’s command of atmosphere in a design which matches well the verbal descrip- tion of the gang’s isolation and loneliness in the ranges, like "four dead trees in the sunset." The murder of Sherritt (John CarsonParker) inside his farmhouse is the most successful scene in the play, with its strong handling of suspense. Ned tears up the railway lines with the help of a rhetorical Irish ganger named Reardon (John Gordon), and the gang wait for the crash inside the Glenrowan pub, where the customers once again enjoy free drinks, this time to the tune of "A Wild Colonial Boy." When the police, or "traps" as they are called, surround the gang in the hotel, Byrne is shot at the window, Dan and Steve shoot themselves (offstage), and Ned stalks out in his armour to fight on single-handed, a grotesque automaton-like figure in the misty dawn’ light. Richard Campion has shown in his production a keen sense of the poetry of the text, which is _ reminiscent at times of the dramas of Yeats and Synge. There is an elfin quality in Michael Cotterill’s interpretation of the role of Joe Byrne, exploiting a genuinely poetic, Irish sensibility which appears in slightly different form in the character of Reardon, who is volubly aware of the "strangeness" of the deeds he is involved in. A good deal of condensing has been done in the longer poetic speeches, although in the bar-room scene where Gribble, Ned and Richards become symbols of the abstract forces of mercy, revenge and justice-the most difficult scene in the play-as well as in the hide-out scene, some more cutting is still needed. Roy Patrick, physically ideal for the leading role, hes got inside the part of Ned Kelly with strong sincerity. He gives a performance which reflects the degree of competence of al! who were concerned in the production

of this play.

P.J.

W.