Local legacy of a stowaway story

Playwright Rachel Pengilly… “The story is so theatrical, that only a few little things
are tweaked and some parts are taken verbatim from the court transcription and the newspapers.” Photo: Helen Musa

by Helen Musa

AN extraordinary historical story of adventure and tragedy with a local link is the basis for an original play coming up at The Q in August.

“Legacies”, by Rachel Pengilly, is part of the “Q the Locals” season and tells the true story of the so-called “Arran Stowaways”, a group of young lads from Greenock in Scotland who, keen to test their emerging manhood, stowed away on a boat on a cargo ship, the “Arran”, bound for Quebec. 

They were abandoned to their fates by the captain, Robert Watt, in the icy wastes of Newfoundland. Most were rescued but two died.

Watt and his first mate, James Kerr, booed by angry crowds, were later tried at the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh.

Pengilly is not the first person who has thought of turning this yarn into art – there have been a podcast, two novels and a graphic novel.

I caught up with Pengilly for coffee at The Q recently, where she presented herself as a natural storyteller who had hardly stopped talking since age two.

It turns out that her great great great grandfather, David Brand, 16, was one of the stowaways who survived and, naturally, she was keen to turn it into drama.

By day Pengilly is a drama teacher at Narrabundah College and she’s also directing the show, but is working under the watchful eye of Jordan Best as dramaturg.

Audiences will remember her playing the dangerous child in Hilary Bell’s play “Wolf Lullaby”, directed by Best at The Q in 2021.

Five and a half years ago, Pengilly heard the story from her grandma about how a bunch of kids from Greenock who didn’t know each other had stowed away in 1868, a rite of passage at the time when, Pengilly notes, there was a popular saying that no man was “worth his salt” until he had been at sea.

There were seven stowaways, six aged 11 to 17 and one in his 20s. That didn’t fit Pengilly’s narrative, so he doesn’t appear in the play.

The grand adventure turned nasty when they got stuck in an icefield near Newfoundland and “the captain decided that the only reasonable thing was to take the young stowaways off the boat and leave them there to their own devices.”

Was it some kind of weird sacrifice? Was it that on a small ship with only 15 men on board six extra were too many to feed?

“It first struck me that this was strange – why did he make that decision? In the court case, they mentioned another ship nearby, couldn’t they have helped?” she says.

Another part of the drama is that a woman, Catherine Ann Gillis-MacInnis, saw them and they were rescued by local Newfoundland men.

If not, she says, “my family wouldn’t be here today and I wouldn’t be here today – life is full of little choices by people who don’t think of the consequences.”

This is beginning to sound a little familiar. Haven’t we all just been to see another show about the kindness of Newfies (Newfoundlanders) in the musical “Come From Away”?

“Exactly,” Pengilly says. “Not all survived [two had died], but the generosity of the Newfies came to the fore.”

By no coincidence at all, the cast was treated to a backstage visit to “Come From Away” at Canberra Theatre. They’d also enjoyed an excursion on board a tall ship at the Australian Maritime Museum in Sydney.

“The story is so theatrical, that only a few little things are tweaked and some parts are taken verbatim from the court transcription and the newspapers,” Pengilly says.

She’s done a lot of research and says her biggest help was chatting to descendants, including Newfie Don Macinnes, a descendant of Catherine, whom Pengilly calls “our hero” – she’ll be played by Heidi Silberman.

It’s a largely chronological telling, with occasional flashbacks and physical theatre, but Pengilly attributes its appeal to the story itself, the alluring nature of the ocean, and the idea of running away to sea, with its modern-day equivalents of running away to the circus or to be an actor.

It’s not her first show, but praises the “very experienced actors, who trust me enough to share their thoughts” and she is optimistic that the show will look good, with Mel Davies as set designer, costumes by Helen Wojtas and Shannon Purnell having composed the original score.

“So cool,” she says.

“Legacies”, at The Q, August 2-5, 2023

First published at Canberra City News online, July 26 2023