Burke's Company

Burke's Company is a 1966 Australia stage play about the Burke and Wills expedition. It was later produced by the Melbourne Theatre Company.[1]

An early production was sponsored by the Elizabethan Theatre Trust. It was adapted for ABC radio in 1969.[2]

Historian Peter Fitzpatrick called it "the most achieved of Reed’s plays. It juxtaposes the events of the trek itself with the agonizings of Brahe, the man left in charge of the stockade to wait for the return of Burke, Wills and King. Brahe’s decision to give up the wait and go back, his discovery later with King’s return that Burke might still he out there and later still that he decamped just nine hours too soon, and the proceedings of the court of enquiry, all slip in unchronologically. Reed draws on a number of telling non-naturalistic devices to mime the horrors of Burke’s return, and to counterpoint Brahe’s anguish."[3]

According to Gabrielle Wolf, the play "had a significant impact on the local theatre scene. Members of the La Mama Company learned from and were inspired by it."[4]