Sheep on Fire in Penal Australia: Abbie Spallen on her breathtaking Norfolk Island epic
Some time ago, I was asked what my new play was about. “Sheep on fire in penal Australia,” I drily replied. “Good title,” I was told. So I kept it.
I had been introduced to Robert Hughes’s book The Fatal Shore. I was particularly struck by the story of Norfolk Island. Situated some 870 miles from mainland Australia, Norfolk had been utilised as a tiny penitentiary specifically designed as a deterrent for incorrigible Irish political prisoners. It was a ne plus ultra in the colonies, an oubliette within an oubliette.
The National Theatre under Nicholas Hytner very kindly commissioned the play – and by the time I had finished, he had left and built an entirely new theatre. As an emerging writer, I told Sebastian Born, then the National’s literary manager, that I wanted to write a large-scale historical drama for the Olivier stage, taking place over two continents and sometimes at the same time. He didn’t laugh. Which was nice as my previous play had been a three-hander monologue. I think he got his own back, though, in that he sent me there. Not that there’s anything wrong with Norfolk – it’s breathtaking. Think tropical paradise with a very mild climate. And Colleen McCullough, RIP.
Oh, it is beyond beautiful, the people are lovely, the kind who clap on a plane when they hear they have “an Irish person” on board. They’re so chill out there that they don’t have a speed limit, but it is in the middle of the Pacific and I just didn’t anticipate mebeing sent there. Jesus, these people are serious. I looked it up on an atlas. I thought it was a fly on the map. Then, two weeks before I left, I spent a sober St Patrick’s Day working on a deadline. I got up to go for a walk and fell down the stairs. My ankle went off like a gunshot. It was the inevitable smite against my sobriety. I then had to fly to Sydney with my leg up the wall of the plane and hobble with a crutch round a 13 mile island in Tsunami season. They loved me. They’ve probably never laughed so much. And not with me neither.
Then to work and wrestle with the dialogue. I am fascinated by language. I like to say I speak four: French, Spanish, Irish and a smattering of colonist. Writing this felt like I was creating a new language and then trying to forget it to keep the thing natural. I wanted to stay true to the period but keep the rhythm current. It took years. It stalled for two while I figured out how to keep an audience with a protagonist while the action switches from Norfolk to London … without the protagonist.
In this short scene, Mortinet, the new governor of the island, has gathered the prisoners for his first address. Here, he has just furnished his lucky second-in-command and veteran of the island Foster Ffyans with a preview.
Unlike Mortinet, I won’t give away all my secrets in case it gets a production because hope is a fool called playwright.
Sheep on Fire in Penal Australia Act IScene II Immediate switch to daytime. We are still on His Majesty’s tiny penitentiary of Norfolk Island in the middle of the Pacific. It is circa 1828-29. We are on the shore. There is the sound of the sea booming off the rocks. Mortinet, the newly arrived governor, has been reading a speech aloud. It obviously contains his new strategy for the Island. Ffyans, his second in command, is both Anglo Irish and in shock.
MORTINET And that’s it …
FFYANS In effect …
MORTINET It ismy first address to the men, and that first address a matter of some public record I would have thought. What do you think? I worry that it might be too underwrought. For public record.
FFYANS Under …
MORTINET Is that a word? As a writer, of a speech, surely words are my dominion now. (Laughs, somewhat inappropriately) Would you like me to begin again?
FFYANS Oh, in earnest, no. MORTINET The current fashion does runs towards a less florid text …
FFYANS From what I heard of it, floridity is not the issue.
MORTINET One worries, however, that too few words, however new and unfashioned, might simply betray oneself as …
FFYANS (Quietly) Simple? MORTINET … quite the slave to fashion. On the other hand, one worries that a lack of flourish might also betray a certain …
FFYANS This is an island full of prisoners.
MORTINET … paucity.
FFYANS You’re really quite worried what they think?
MORTINET Paucity of spirit. Do give me your honest opinion? Honest?
FFYANS It’s perfectly … stylistically … exciting and uhm … fully present. The content, on the other hand …
MORTINET Are you drunk Mr Ffyans?
FFYANS Am I … relevance? Any? MORTINET You appear to be swaying. Which, begging all your pardons, might just nullify your literary faculties somewhat.
FFYANS Actually … technically sir, it is entirely possible that I am not. Inebriated. That is, technically by definition, lately inebriated by ingestion.
Pause.
FFYANS It is possible that I am, on the contrary, merely deeply and unutterably hungover.It is true that I have been drinking right up until … more or less an hour ago. But, if you’ll indulge me, I think it fair to say that the debate still rages as to whether or not I am, in fact, still drunkor merely entering into a place of actual withdrawal from alcohol.
MORTINET Why do I sense that you are about to tell me that the difference between those two things is … ? FFYANS(Smiling) Oh, enormous! Pause.
FFYANS(Still smiling) But … forget that. If I could remind you that I am, of course, an Irishman by birth … therefore still capable of summoning the literary faculties necessary to appreciate … that.
(The speech)
MORTINET Irish?
FFYANS We’re everywhere! Now where was I? Oh dear God and his mother, yes, the content.
MORTINET(Turns out) I see the brig is departing.
FFYANS Could we dissect the content before … ?
A figure appears behind them. Shuffling, in irons. Practically one of the undead.
FFYANS Ah. I see you have had the foresight to gather the men for an address.
Another figure appears. In a dress.
MORTINET We must trust, Mr Ffyans, that those men who venture further than most will find a reward for their recklessness on this most peculiar hinterland.
FFYANS I have no idea what that means. (Beat, panic) But I don’t like the sound of recklessness. What I do know … well. If I could furnish you with just a little knowledge of the particular vagaries of a place like Norfolk …
During this, another figure appears. And another. They shuffle round them, filling the stage. Ffyans begins to speak quickly and precisely.
FFYANS This is an island, sir, of Yahoovian oddness. A stretch of land on the backside of the world where our rules are upside down. When you take everything from men, as we do here, their priorities change. Small things take on a major significance; a stolen fork, an ounce of tobacco. And conversely, those things we consider important … like the life of a man … are rendered inconsequential. Now that I’ve explained that to you, I would hope that you might, indeed, rethink your decision, as laid out in your address, to impose further restrictions on the men in the immediate halving of already paltry rations and hard labour in the building of a bay.
MORTINET That brig is about to flounder on the rocks. Well we arein need of a bay.
Speedy rushes on stage, herding the prisoners. Speedy, a grunt of 18 years, believes he has been stationed on the wrong island. He specifically requested a much bigger island.
SPEEDY Get alive! Get alive! That cunt Mortinet has just made me haul the whole lot of them down here … ! Oh fuck, it’s him.
MORTINET Mr Ffyans, let us not allow ourselves to fall victim to the politics of fear.
FFYANS No let us. Out here, sir, let us fall face first, I beg you …
MORTINET If Norfolk is indeed such an exceptional place, such a topsyturvy world, then it deserves an exceptional strategy. I have been given the opportunity to do great work here.
SPEEDY What sort of work? (To the men) Get alive!
FFYANS He’s going to do a study. MORTINET It is a matter of economics.
SPEEDY Economics?
MORTINET The economics of austerity.
SPEEDY Study?
MORTINET Unofficially, of course. FFYANS Captain Mortinet wants to halve the rations, to stretch the men to breaking point. He wants to inflict as much punishment as possible on them to ascertain what that breaking point might be. He wants to quantify exactly how much is actually needed to keep a man inches from death.
SPEEDY Oh. Fuck. Oh small island fuck.
MORTINET Let it not be said that I simply fascinate myself with some malignant endeavour to profit from such an undertaking. I am, as you can see, merely the most honest and humble of citizens, whose only enterprise is to serve the common good. You see I have been grateful to spend some time in the company of the upper classes. Is it not common knowledge among all of us decent honest people that there are certain qualities peculiar to those classes? And to which the rest of us can only aspire? I give you the most arduous practices of absolute indolence and remorseless gaiety and torpor, the ability to gambol through life in the noble pursuit of authentic idleness, the true art of absolute sloth. You see, I understand the burden of these wretches. (Indicates the men) They have tried to master the very same art but how could they, being lately come to it and poor as shit. No, indeed, I shall take this burden from them. We shall endeavour to compile data on their function as a deterrent. To instruct those like them back home that sloth should only be undertaken by those who deserve it. Speedy looks at Ffyans. Mortinet is insane.
FFYANS And he’s going to do that here.
There is a murmur from the men. They’ve become distracted by the brig. One of the prisoners, English, speaks.
WALLACE That brig’s on the fucking reef.
All, except Mortinet, look out. All, except Mortinet, lean ever so slightly to one side.
MORTINET I shall make them famous. Their influence will travel.
WALLACE In my opinion that brig is definitely buggered now.
MORTINET Why is that man allowed to speak?
MOONEY (Remarkably loudly) I PLACED A BET AT 10 TO ONE THAT SHE WOULD PREVAIL! I WAS NOT IN POSSESSION OF THE FULL FUCKING FACTS!
MORTINET And why is that one allowed to shout?
SPEEDY He doesn’t know about the shouting?
WALLACE(Not bothered) Cunt’s on t’reef.
They start to place bets again.
MORTINET What are they doing? Why is that man wearing a dress?
CALLAN I AM REALLY VERY TIRED AND PATHOLOGICALLY IRRITATED WITH ALL OF THIS. WHY HAVE WE BEEN BROUGHT DOWN HERE?
MORTINET And again, the shouting.
FFYANS(Laughing) As I said, there are peculiarities to Norfolk. Several of which you are about to experience.
MOONEY THE COMMANDANT HAS A FUCKING SPEECH!
CALLAN OH IN THE NAME OF JAYSUS! (Sarcastically) THAT’S NICE!
FFYANS Some of them like to wear a dress.
MARTINS(To Callan, not shouting) I concur.
Mortinet looks at Martins. A much older man, Martins is also Irish and blind. He has the surprised face of a man who has been squeezed from the outside in.
FFYANS And some of the Irish prisoners have a tendency to shout.
MARTINS I don’t have a tendency to shout. I did, however, blind my own eyes with lime to get out of backbreaking work.
MORTINET And the dress?
FFYANS You are aware that there are no women on the island.
CALLAN PRIESTS, ARSE BANDITS AND A PAEDOPHILIC POX!
FFYANS Indeed.
WALLACE(Still looking out)Ah shit. That’s disappointing. The brig appears to be righting itself.
He begins to pay out tobacco to the other prisoners.
FFYANS The Irish, being Irish, have developed a singular, and Irish, form of protest. They have decided to abstain from what is in fact a rather rampant proclivity, amongst the other prisoners, for the most colourful of vices. This means that whilst everyone else is indulging in buggery, fellatio, masturbation, female impersonation, mutual masturbation, Dutch ruddering and a rusty trombone …
MOONEY CAN YOU DO US A FAVOUR AND KEEP THAT SORT OF TALK TO A MINIMUM?
FFYANS The Irish, willingly, lead lives of impeccable sexual morality. MORTINET The shouting?
FFYANS Ah, yes, this lack of release … has a tendency to render them … SPEEDY Super bloody aggressive. MOONEY I DON’T THINK IT’S ACTUALLY POSSIBLE FOR A MAN TO FEEL SO PERMANENTLY …
FFYANS Keeps them a heightened state, even for the Irish, rendering them immutably …
MOONEY … LIVID!
MARTINS At least you can fuckin’ see.
They all look at Martins.
MARTINS Oh, I don’t bother with that shite. I haven’t needed a release since 1803 …
MORTINET This is absurd.
FFYANS This is Norfolk.
MOONEY YOU’D BE WELL ADVISED TO HEED THE MAN!
FFYANS I would hope that you now understand why I would counsel against that speech.
MORTINET (Opening his pages) On the contrary Mr Ffyans …
FFYANS Make no mistake sir. That speech will endanger my men.
MARTINS Why, what’s in the speech?
SPEEDY Were you not listening? MARTINS Some eejit was shouting. MORTINET From the beginning then. (Reads) It is from afar that the vortex of fate has flung me prostrate onto this estuarian mass...
MARTINS Bloody hell, that’s appalling. TAKE MY EARS TOO. POKE OUT MY FUCKIN’ EARS!
Everybody laughs. Except Ffyans.
MORTINET As I survey, with both orbs of view, the wraith-like matter in my vicinity, I am drenched through to my cavities with unrestrained duty …
FFYANS Ah pity me, I feel the onset of …
SPEEDY Responsibility?
MORTINET I transplant with humility a proposal that might unfetter you all from bonds you don’t know you have.
CALLAN I KNOW EXACTLY AND CATEGORICALLY WHAT FUCKING BONDS I HAVE!
SPEEDY Does he know what he’s doing?
MORTINET I am flattened before you all, without affectation. Merely “le
plus modeste des vos serviteurs”.
FFYANS(Quietly) Oh yes he knows exactly that.
MORTINET Let me refurnish you back with your dignity, your worthiness as mortal men. Let me engulf you in your identification, come one, come all …
FFYANS He, the overblown word murderer, is about to get us all killed.