O.C. THEATER / MARK CHALON SMITH : Prison, Art and ‘Our Country’s Good’ : South Coast Repertory takes on the 1991 Timberlake Wertenbaker drama about a group of 18th-Century inmates who stage Australia’s first play.

As a parable about the liberating nature of art, “Our Country’s Good” might seem too good to be true.

Timberlake Wertenbaker’s drama, which is in preview this week and opens Friday at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, is set during Australia’s rough days as a penal colony in the late 1700s. Out of hard times, a few prisoners produce the first play ever staged in that new country, finding a measure of dignity and freedom along the way.

If the ironies sound a tad easy, keep in mind that the story is based on history. Inmates did stage George Farquhar’s “Recruiting Officer,” a Restoration comedy from 1706, all the while they stood in the noose’s shadow. UC Irvine creative writing professor Thomas Keneally retold the event in his 1987 novel, “The Playmaker,” the primary inspiration for Wertenbaker’s drama.

“It’s a terrific story (from both a) historical and literary perspective,” said Martin Benson, SCR’s artistic director who is staging this production. “I think it examines humanity and art, especially the nature of theater. . . . It has a redemptive quality.”

The play also has other admirers, on both sides of the Atlantic. Wertenbaker, an American-born writer who has lived in England for several years, won the prestigious Olivier Award in Britain in 1988, and “Our Country’s Good” was named the best foreign play of 1991 by New York critics after a run at the Nederlander Theater in Manhattan, despite failing at the box office.

Frank Rich of the New York Times said the drama “champions the theater with eloquence and, at its best, does so by example rather than preaching . . . (it) says, yes, the theater is important, inspiring, a boon to civilization.”

That thrill didn’t register as strongly on the West Coast, both in Los Angeles and San Diego, where “Our Country’s Good” received earlier stagings. Dan Sullivan, the Los Angeles Times drama critic at the time of its American premiere at the Mark Taper Forum in 1989, found it to be “a rather small story (and, more often than not) a play of conversation” instead of ideas.

Benson, as you’d expect, sides with Rich on this one. Besides its more symbolic side, he believes “Our Country’s Good” is a great yarn. “For my way of thinking, this tale of the convict fleet (that settled in Australia) and their terribly brutal world makes for a good melodrama; the individual stories make it fascinating.”

At the drama’s center is Lt. Ralph Clark, an idealist who sees the project as something of a social experiment. Against the protest of other English colony officers, he forms a motley cast out of thieves, prostitutes and rogues, hoping the experience will bring a taste of civilization to their lives.

Like erosion, the effects are slow in coming but far-reaching. One convict dives into his roles with almost frenzied abandon; another finds the liberating quality of words and decides to become Australia’s first playwright.

The experience affects the others, mostly in restorative ways, and none more than Mary, a comely hooker who, like many lead actresses before her, falls in love her director. Ralph, a man partial to happy endings, responds in kind.

Beyond exploring how art can change us, Benson believes that “Our Country’s Good” deals with several themes that resonate today. Perhaps the most profound is how society views crime, punishment and rehabilitation. Benson appreciates the play’s sympathetic message.

“This presents, very fairly I think, issues of criminology and what good intentions can do,” Benson said. “There was a prevalent thought in the (late) 1700s that criminals were genetically produced and basically couldn’t be helped . . . I hear rumblings in our society today that we should hang thieves from the nearest light pole, that they aren’t salvageable.

“But this (supports) the notion that if we treat them well, they will respond in kind, that they have an instinct to improve their lives.”

As for the staging itself, Benson warned audiences to be prepared for actors inhabiting several roles and even a bit of cross-sex casting. For that reason, “Our Country’s Good” has been favorably compared to Caryl Churchill’s experimental “Cloud 9,” which also strives for metaphor in having women play men and vice-versa.

“There is a conceit in the play of having the 10 actors play a variety of roles, an example being when a captain goes off to see the flogging of a character he also plays,” Benson said.

“The challenge is in making that all seem graceful and easy to understand. It’s an important device because it shows that we do live on both sides, that we are the persecuted as well as those who persecute.”

To keep the drama as atmospheric as possible, SCR decided to do something new. Gerard Howland’s set design encompasses the entire Mainstage theater, a playhouse first. Period-piece lanterns hang from the ceiling, and two huge boat sails reach out from the stage and over the audience.

Howland, a British designer with most of his experience in opera, said he wanted to create an ambience that “fuses the audience with the stage and makes it part of the event.

“I’m hoping that it gives everyone a sense of the era, of being close to the essence of the play . . . as the British colonized Australia, I’ve taken a little step to colonize SCR in the look of the set.”

* Previews of South Coast Repertory’s production of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s “Our Country’s Good” continue through Thursday at 8 p.m. at 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. The regular run opens Friday and continues through Nov. 22. Performances Tuesday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. $25 to $34. (714) 957-4033.