Setting South Africa. Playwright Kenneth G. Ross Place premiered Melbourne Athenaeum | Date premiered 2 February 1978 First performance 2 February 1978 | |
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Characters Lieutenant MorantLieutenant WittonLieutenant HandcockPresident of the Court-MartialDr. JohnsonMr. RobinsonColonel HamiltonMajor ThomasLord KitchenerSgt-Major DrummittTrooper BothaCaptain TaylorCorporal SharpVan RooyanInterrogatorsMilitary personnel Subjects Military history of South Africa, Court-martial, Military justice, Summary execution | ||
Breaker Morant: A Play in Two Acts is a significant Australian play written by Kenneth G. Ross, centred on the court-martial and the last days of Lieutenant Harry "Breaker" Morant (1864–1902) of the Bushveldt Carbineers (BVC), that was first performed at the Athenaeum Theatre, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, on Thursday, 2 February 1978, by the Melbourne Theatre Company.
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Described at the time as an "interesting, though underwritten biographical study", the first performance of the play was directed and designed by John Sumner, the founding director of the Melbourne Theatre Company.
First performance
The cast of the first performance of the play, directed and designed by John Sumner, on 2 February 1978 were:
Review of first performance
"In this interesting, though under-written, biographical study, Adelaide writer, Kenneth Ross, turns his attention to the Boer War and to an unsavoury episode involving two Australian lieutenants, who were tried and executed by the British." (Childs, 1978).
Conversion to a movie
The script of Ross's play was almost immediately converted into the screenplay for Bruce Beresford's 1980 film Breaker Morant.
The screenplay of the film, to which Ross had made a considerable contribution as a writer (i.e., in addition to his stage play having been the inspiration and basis for the screenplay), was nominated for the 1981 Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.