The Drover's Wife (released in 2016) is a very loose reimagining of the classic short story of the same name by Henry Lawson. The play tells the story of a woman named Molly Johnson, who is very pregnant and living on a remote homestead in the Snowy Mountains. When she comes into contact with an Aboriginal man named Yadaka (who is on the run from the police), her life changes dramatically over the course of only a few very short days.
Upon release, Purcell's The Drover's Wife was met with sweeping critical acclaim. After giving the play 4 stars, The Sydney Morning Herald said that Leah Purcell (the main actor of the play as well as its writer) was "magnificent" and that "The Drover's Wife is unblinkingly bleak at times, but a strong sense of mission and hope emerges in the final scene as Molly and Danny set out to find and take back what has been stolen. Seldom do you see a play so deserving of a sequel." The play also won a number of awards both major and minor, including the Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting and the Helpmann Award for Best Play.
