Pitcairn

by Richard Bean

In the southern Pacific Ocean on the remote island of Pitcairn, the infamous mutineers of The Bounty, led by Fletcher Christian (or should it be Titreano?) begin to establish a new society alongside their Tahitian followers. Tensions quickly swell as the British settlers refuse to relinquish the vices of their past. Social, racial and sexual schisms render the once paradisiac island into a hotbed of discord and bloody violence.

Pitcairn vividly explores the conflict between personal freedoms and public responsibilities. Pitcairn is Richard Bean’s brutal telling of the colonisation of the remote island of Pitcairn by Fletcher Christian and the Bounty mutineers. The play charts – with salty humour and growing horror – the spiralling descent of the colony from a new Eden of freedom and equality to a brutal dystopia.

104 pages, Paperback

First published December 16, 2014

Reviews

[Inés Chamarro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had of course heard about the Bounty and its mutiny, and I knew captain Bligh made it to land, but I had never actually wondered what happened to the mutineers afterwards, other than assuming terrible retribution by the Navy. Well, no. This is their story, and it starts when, roaming the South Seas with the Bounty wondering how to escape the Navy, they come across a mischarted island - Pitcairn. There they settle with a few Tahitians, intent on creating their own utopia, or at least a home away from home. Twenty years later, the Navy finds the island, but find only one survivor plus a bunch of Tahitian women and twenty three children. What happened to the others is the purpose of the play.