Summary: | Set in Sydney Cove, the remotest penal colony of the Empire where, in 1789, a group of convicts stage a play after travelling "eight moons distant from their homes on the other side of the sun." As felons, perjurers, whores and thieves, captives and captors unite to reenact a story, their playmaker becomes strangely seduced. For the power of the play is mirrored in the rich and varied life of this primitive land, and - not least - in the convict and actress, Mary Brenham.
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