Presented by DoMaur Productions
By Arrangement with the Licensor, Kenneth Ross, c/- Curtis Brown (AUST) Pty Ltd
The Story
Harry “The Breaker” Harbord Morant (9 December 1864 – 27 February 1902) was an Anglo-Australian drover, horseman, poet, and military officer.
While commanding an elite British Army unit during the Second Boer War, Captain Morant was arrested and court-martialed for war crimes. According to military prosecutors, Morant had retaliated for the combat death of a fellow officer with the summary execution of nine Afrikaner POWs. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. Captain Morant was then court-martialed for the murder of a Lutheran minister, Rev. Daniel Heese. The German-born Heese had witnessed the POW massacre, indignantly vowed to inform Morant’s commanding officer, and had been shot to death on the way the British Army HQ. Morant was acquitted of the Heese murder, but his sentence for the POW massacre was carried out by a firing squad drawn from the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders on 27 February 1902.
Despite having left a written confession in his cell, Captain Harry Morant has become a folk hero in modern Australia. His court-martial and death have been the subject of books, a stage play, and an award-winning Australian New Wave film adaptation by director Bruce Beresford.
Many now regard Morant as a scapegoat of the Empire or even as the victim of a miscarriage of justice. This performance is the script of that film adapted for the stage and rewritten by Kenneth Ross in 2012. It is a play in two acts set predominately in a court room in Pietersburg South Africa. This performance will be the Tasmanian premier of this play and a fitting tribute to those who served our country in time of war especially in this centenary of ANZAC year.
