Prison Ship Sets Sail With a Rebel on Board
Laura Collins-HughesFebruary 19, 2014: Bound for Australia, the prison ship is packed with Irishwomen brought aboard in chains. The year is 1838, and a rebel among the convicts is plotting insurrection. A small, fierce creature with streaming red hair, Kate O’Hara dreams of seizing the vessel and sailing for the freedom of New York. “And did God give me my raging heart,” she asks, “that I should swallow it and let it be turned to a stone behind my ribs?” Politics, history and exile are much on the mind of the new musical Transport, an intriguing but disappointing collaboration between Thomas Keneally, the Australian novelist who wrote Schindler’s List, and Larry Kirwan, best known as the leader of the New York Celtic rock band Black 47.
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