The Bushrangers

The issue of bushrangers[1] is a feature of Australian writing and there have been a number of Australian plays by this name.

Early plays about bushrangers include David Burn's The Bushrangers (1829), William Leman Rede's Faith and Falsehood, or The Fate of the Bushranger (1830), The Bushrangers, or Norwood Vale (1834) by Henry Melville and The Bushrangers, a Play in Five Acts, and Other Poems (1853) by Charles Harpur.

The Bushrangers by David Burn

Most writers date the indigenous drama from 1828, when David Burn (1799-1875) wrote his melodrama The Bushrangers . This was first staged at the Caledonian Theatre, Edinburgh in 1829.

Faith and Falsehood, or The Fate of the Bushranger by William Leman Rede

1830,

Faith and falsehood, or The Fate of the Bushranger is a drama in three acts by W. L. Rede (William Leman Rede, 1802-1847)[2]

First performed in London at the Queen's Theatre, Sept.22, 1834 and later at the Surrey Theatre, and published in London as Issue 263 of Duncombe's acting edition of the British theatre in 1834 and later as Dicks' standard plays ; no. 548 by John Dicks, London, [1884].

https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/3665821

Facsimile version of the text[3]

The Bushrangers, or Norwood Vale by Henry Melville

According to Wikipedia[4], The Bushrangers, or Norwood Vale was the first substantial play with an Australian theme to be written, published and performed in Australia. It examines honor and trust in the harsh Australian bush and the relationship between white settlers, the aboriginal people and the bushrangers and thus marked the earliest appearance of an actor in blackface in an Australian play.

First produced in an extended form at the Theatre Royal in the Argyle Rooms, Hobart, 29 May and 2 June 1834. Also produced at the Launceston Theatre, 1835. According to the website AustLit[5] there is no known published version from the time, only published version available is in the anthology of drama called Australian Plays for the Colonial Stage : 1834-1899 by Richard Fotheringham (editor), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2006 (pp. 3-39).[6]

The Bushrangers: A Play in Five Acts by Charles Harpur (1813-1868)

Also known as The Bushrangers, or The Tregedy of Donohoe, the work was first published in 1853 in the volume The Bushrangers: A Play in Five Acts And Other Poems by W. R. Piddington, Sydney. The play, written in verse, was never produced.

Sources

John Gassner and Edward Quinn. 1969. The Reader's Encyclopedia of World Drama Reprinted in 2002 by the Courier Corporation[7]

"The Bushrangers, or Norwood Vale" in The AustLit website[8]