The Influence of the Arts in The Playmaker Anonymous 12th Grade

Thomas Keneally’s 1987 novel The Playmaker follows the career and personal life of Ralph Clark, a British lieutenant (and prospective playmaker) recently relocated to penal Australia. The storyline is based loosely on true events of the late eighteenth century, when colonial Australia was still something of an experiment and the land was largely unexplored by Europeans. The novel opens with the colony’s overseer, commonly referred to as H.E., assigning Ralph to direct a theatrical production of George Farquhar’s comedy The Recruiting Officer starring the prison’s convicts. And as Ralph embarks on this mission, he begins to connect past and present realities to the art of theatre--seemingly the only solace in the enigmatic and unpredictable setting of Australia--and life proves to imitate art. As the play’s production matures throughout the novel, its participants mature with it, effectively altering character development and swaying the course of an indeterminate colony and its inhabitants.

The subject of morality and its connection to art is a recurring focus of the book; Ralph and several other characters frequently find themselves struggling with an ambiguous spectrum of right and wrong, and their theatrical pursuits are...