The Drover's Wife

Tarantino meets Deadwood in this full-throttle drama of the Australian colonial past, written by the indomitable Leah Purcell.  Full of fury and power, Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson is a brave reimagining of the Henry Lawson short story that has become an Australian classic. 

"This layered adaptation reminds me how retellings by those who can offer a different perspective can unsettle the status quo. More appropriations and contestations of ‘the classics’ by First Nations writers, please."   -  Ellen van Neerven, Australian Book Review

Henry Lawson’s story of the drover’s wife pits the stoic silhouette of a woman against the unforgiving Australian landscape, staring down a serpent — it’s our frontier myth captured in a few pages. In Leah’s new play the old story gets a very fresh rewrite. 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. Both know that justice in this nation can be as brutal as its landscape. But in their short time together, Yadaka shows Molly a secret truth, and the strength to imagine a different path. Brilliantly plotted, it is a compelling thriller of our pioneering past that confronts head-on issues of today: race, gender, violence and inheritance.

A taut thriller of our pioneering past, The Drover’s Wife is full of fury, power and has a black sting to the tail, reaching from our nation’s infancy into our complicated present.