AustLit

A 2016 Drama adaptation of Henry Lawson's 'The Drover's Wife' (1892)

Overview: Leah Purcell's The Drover's Wife is a reimagining of Henry Lawson's short story of the same title. Belvoir St Theatre introduces the play as follows: 'Once again the Drover’s Wife is confronted by a threat in her yard in Australia’s high country, but now it’s a man. He’s bleeding, he’s got secrets, and he’s black. She knows there’s a fugitive wanted for killing whites, and the district is thick with troopers, but something’s holding the Drover’s Wife back from turning this fella in…'

It is suggested for Senior English, Literature and/or Drama, but note, it does contain sexual violence.

Leah Purcell’s play The Drover’s Wife is rich in potential as a text to study in Senior English alongside more traditional stories of the Australian frontier. In particular, Purcell’s work appropriates Lawson’s iconic story, infusing it ‘with First Nations and Women’s history, calling into question the shameful treatment endured by both, at the hands of white men’ (Leticia Cáceres in Purcell 2016: xii).

AustLit contains Teaching resources and Lesson plans developed around this play, and the original by Henry Lawson. Titled 'Challenging Terra Nullius of the Mind', and written by Lindsay Williams, the resources offer ways to:

• discuss issues using 'iconic' texts in the classroom
• provide an opportunity to use BlackWords texts
• embed the cross-curriculum priority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures
• examine contemporary writing by an Australian Indigenous Woman

Access these resources here.

The Drover's Wife is a postcolonial reimagining of a white colonial text from the nineteenth century (see The Drover's Wife by Henry Lawson, 1892). It explores Aboriginal and white relations and conflict, and isolation. It reimagines the snake in Lawson's work as an Aboriginal man, hurt and bleeding.

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