“Our Country’s Good”

Philip Brandes might have done helpful research for his review of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s “Our Country’s Good” (Theater Beat, July 13) before he labeled the play performed by the convicts as “inconsequential farce” and then indicated his discovery of the ironic appropriateness of its title, “The Recruiting Officer.”

This play was written by one of the Restoration’s great playwrights, George Farquhar. It was the first major success in Farquhar’s short life, and for 73 years afterward the London theater season was never without its revival. It was the first play performed in the American colonies as well as in the Australian penal land. In 1963 “The Recruiting Officer” was part of London’s National Theatre’s opening season, and in 1988 the Royal Court Theatre ran Farquhar’s play in repertory with Wertenbaker’s. Bertolt Brecht saw fit to recast Farquhar’s play as his own “Pauken und Tromptin.”

Brandes used “inconsequential farce” to describe Farquhar’s play when he reviewed this same play for The Times in 1994 and did nothing to correct this misunderstanding in a similar review in 1997. Despite Brandes’ unfamiliarity with the history of English drama, Farquhar’s “inconsequential farce” has traveled well.

JOEL ATHEY

West Hollywood