Ostracised (play)

Ostracised, or Every Man's Hand Against Them is a 1881 Australian play about Ned Kelly by E.C. Martin. It was the first straight dramatisation of the Kelly story from an Australian writer although there had been one in London. The play was banned in Sydney.

Ostracised, or Every Man's Hand Against Them
The Age 10 August 1881
Written by	E.C. Martin
Directed by	W.G. Carey
Music by	Pat Finn
Date premiered	6 August 1881
Place premiered	Princess Theatre, Melbourne
Original language	English
Subject	Ned Kelly
Genre	melodrama

Martin was a journalist and occasional playwright (What May Happen to a Man in Victoria). He claimed to have "not written it to pander to the morbid tastes of the public, but rather-to show that vice ever meets its reward."

According to academic Richard Fotheringham "Martin seems to have developed the idea that Dan Kelly was the true psycho path of the piece and that Ned Kelly... had been dragged unwillingly into the disaster." The play appears to have been interspersed with songs.

In the lead up to the play debuting there were rumours the play would be banned "on the grounds of its alleged demoralising tendency, and the reflections cast by it upon the character of the police force ; but as the play proceeded, it became evident that theie rumours were unfounded."

Public reaction

Contemporary accounts say the play "hit the morbid public taste in Melbourne." According to the Truth the play "made a pot of money".

Sydney Sportsman said the play "made a pot of money, though the dramatist... saw little of it." Another account said "the author did not collect in full, for every barnstorming co. in Australia froze on to the play with more or less distorted versions of it."

The Perth Daily News said "The piece was one of the greatest successes ever known, and for six solid weeks the performance ran to huge business. The papers gave the piece 'what for,' but the public appetite was fairly whetted."

A writer claimed prior to a performance of the play in Benalla, local police advised the removal of the prologue involving Harry Power, and this was done. Mrs Kelly reportedly attended this performance. Reporting on this performance the Benalla Standard said "the audience... throughout were orderly; and although several well-known Kelly sympathisers were present, the attendance of the three policemen on duty was not required."

Another story says the real Constable Longeran attended one performance and objected during the show to how he was portrayed.

Sydney banning

The play had two seasons in Melbourne and toured New Zealand but was banned from playing in Sydney in 1882 (after one performance there) due to the intervention of the Inspector General of Police. According to contemporary reports, the play, then called Ostracised, or the Downfall of Crime, debuted in Sydney at Victoria Hall on 8 April 1882. On Monday 10 April 1882 audiences arrived to see a second production and were told that the play at been banned. Instead a production of Ticket of Leave Man was put on. According to The Bulletin in 1920, "after the overture" the manager "stepped to the front of the curtain and announced that the police had banned the play. Uproar ensued. Some men-of-war’s men from the Raleigh then in port got at loggerheads with the police; reinforcements were rushed up, the lights were put out, and so were the rioters."

This banning effectively ended production of plays about the Kelly gang for over a decade until The Kelly Gang played in Melbourne in 1898 without controversy, prompting a boom in Ned Kelly plays over the next decade.

Critical reaction

The Weekly Times said "The dialogue is poorly written, and the first two acts drag somewhat, and could be judiciously curtailed. The character are unusually numerous, and representing persons familiar by repute to the audience."

According to the Leader the author "wanted to evolve a moral play from the tragic incidents connected with the career and fate of the Kelly gang of outlaws; but the actors, desirous of rendering the piece more diverting than instructive, introduced so much of the farcical element that it was at times extremely difficult to trace the author's meaning."

The Ballarat Star said the author "has managed to string together the incidents of the Kellys career with some degree of consecutiveness, and prepared a drama which at the events raises a laugh and evidently excites the auditor’s interest. It is not a very high literary ambition to produce such a piece but apparently it pays, and - we presume - this was the real reason for its production."

The Evening Journal said "I am astonished at the performance being permitted. I am quite willing to admit that the author does not intend its production to do any harm, and that he may even have had a moral purpose in view in writing it. But it does harm unquestionably, and the moral doesn't show out. There is certainly... nothing dangerous in it. The Chief Commissioner of Police is not called a fool or a coward, nor is Ned Kelly held up as an example of injured innocence. But the effect of making these four bloodthirsty cowardly murderers the centre features in a play is bad."

The Benalla Standard said, "The several characters were well sustained by the different parties engaged, and the shooting of Constable Fitzpatrick by Dan Kelly was most realistic. The murder of Sergeant Kennedy was a most affecting scene, and his piteous appeals for mercy produced the most profound sensation, especially when it was resolved that he should be killed, to put him out of misery."

One critic said "A wit remarked to me that the play was made up of firing revolvers, which would not go off, and dancing Irish jigs. The guns and revolvers had a knack of missing fire jnst when a leading character had to be killed... Honesty speaking the production is most reprehensible, and I regret that a gentleman like Mr Martin should have allowed his name, to be associatid with a catch-penny affair. Kate Kelly was not allowed to earn a few shillings by exhibiting herself the night her her brother was hanged why should these play actors be allowed to gather a few pound by catering to the morbid curiosity of-the evil disposed?"

According to one review "the character of Ned Kelly is rather inappropriately drawn, there being a deficiency of random roughness which the original possessed. The man in the play is gifted with more brains than the real bushranger had. The play is not an inviting one, and there is not so much 'moral' as might have been embodied in it."

The Bulletin said "Ostracised is stated, as a literary production, to be beneath criticism and beneath contempt." However a critic in the same magazine in 1898 said the play was superior to the later The Kelly Gang.

Reviewing a 1882 production at Victoria Hall the Sydney Daily Telegraph said "The leading characters were fuil|y sustained, and the whole production was a decided success."

Original 1881 cast

Advertisement in Lorgnette 8 Sept 1881

There were 36 speaking characters. Some of the cast included:

• W.G. Carey as Ned Kelly
• George Coleman as Dan Kelly
• George Atkins as Steve Hart
• Walter Carle as Joe Byrne
• Ada Grantleigh as Kate Kelly
• Mrs Ford as Mrs Kelly
• W.B. Warmer as Constable Fitzpatrick
• Tom Forde as Constable Johnson
• Charles Newton as Sgt Kennedy
• Pat Finn as Power the Bushranger
• E.C. Smith as Aaron Sherritt
• Nellis Greenloes as Mrs Russell
• F. Forde as Mrs Russell
• Miss May Vivian as Biddy
• J.H. Clifford as Mike
• Bob Watson as Sgt Steele
• K Huntly as Constable Lonergan

See also

• Gratitude