Shop

THE DROVER’S WIFE

$23.99

Tarantino meets Deadwood in this full-throttle drama of our colonial past, written by the indomitable Leah Purcell.

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. 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…

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.

WINNER OF:

AWGIE Awards: Stage AND David Williamson Prize AND Major award (2017)

Helpmann Awards: Best Play AND Best New Australian Work (2017)

Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards: Best Drama AND Victorian Prize for Literature (2017)

NSW Premier's Literary Awards: Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting AND Book of the Year (2017)

Sydney Theatre Awards: Best New Australian Work (2016)

Balnaves Foundation Indigenous Playwright’s Award (2014)

  • drama
  • 0
  • 8 total
  • 1 female identifying, 7 male identifying
  • history, people of colour
  • 18+
  • adult
  • Currency Press


  • MONOLOGUES
  • PRODUCTION HISTORY

You can preview the full online text with a Membership

The Drover's Wife

Female | 40s | under 3 minutes
Starts on page 16

EXTRACT: It was afternoon, just over a week and a bit now. I came outside to call Alligator. I hadn’t even got my nose out the front door when … Lord Almighty … I came face to face with this big bloody wild, grey bullock. I froze, as it had. Both of us not sure what the other was gonna do, should do, could do. Lucky for me, you kids were inside or out back and normally would have no reason to come around the front to enter the house. A quick scan of the yard, no Alligator, good. The bullock would have ripped him apart; horns the width of a grown man’s arm span. Dog may be old but he’s loyal, eh, a good protector.


Search for details of past productions at AusStage.edu.au

AusStage provides an accessible research facility for investigating live performance in Australia.


Search by play title and/or playwright name
Results will open in a new window

PLEASE NOTE: You will be directed to AusStage.edu.au for search results; Australian Plays Transform is not responsible for their completeness. Refer to our terms of use.

Purchase at Currency Press$23.99
SKU: CP-3283 Category:

We acknowledge that we live and create on unceded lands. We pay our respects to the First Peoples of Australia, and to their elders past, present and future.

© Australian Plays Transform 2024