The
Lieder Theatre Company presents an amazing and
entertaining slice of local history in its latest
production opening on Friday 18th March. Captain Rossi
and the Bishop of Goulburn, written by John Spicer and
directed by Chrisjohn Hancock, continues the Lieder's
celebration of 120 years of entertainment in our
community.
Captain Rossi and the Bishop of
Goulburn is set in Goulburn in 1887, twenty four years
after the town had been proclaimed a city, Australia's
first inland city. A city because it held the seat for
an Anglican bishop; Bishop Mesac Thomas who oversaw the
completion of Goulburn Cathedral's first stage in 1885.
He was the driving force who raised the twenty five
thousand pounds needed to undertake the mighty task,
believing that the bell tower complete with spire would
be erected shortly after.
The play deals with the real
events which threw the Goulburn Cathedral into a dispute
receiving world-wide coverage and lasting ten years.
The Goulburn Cathedral dispute is complex and
convoluted to the point that historians today find it
difficult to explain clearly. But there’s little doubt
that the placing of a memorial plaque by Captain Rossi
of Rossiville, in the Cathedral without permission from
the Bishop caused a major stir in the community and led
to an almost unbelievable sequence of events over
Christmas of 1887. The play touches on these amazing
events, and provides an enlightening and comic look at
our city's past heroes and
personalities.
Captain Rossi and the Bishop of
Goulburn is a humorous look at part of our local history
and the colourful figures who helped shape our city 125
years ago.
The fantastic local cast
features Bruce Gerard, Greg Seckold, Martin Sanders,
Christine Bentley, Jo Cooper, Lyn Lace, Brian Hill,
Shane Daly, Amanda Aitken, Kyle McKenna and Gosh
Waters.
For
those who don’t know, Captain Rossi was the ‘mad count’
whose family once owned vast tracts of land to the west
of the city. Artistic Director Chrisjohn Hancock
describes Rossi as a “trouble maker…odd, mad and just a
cantankerous character”. It was this wonderfully unique
character who locked himself in St Saviour’s Cathedral
for 8 days after a dispute with the
Bishop.
Rossi attracted a large crowd of
over 700 followers outside the Cathedral, some of them
so supportive that they fed him through the keyhole with
a hose!
When the local constabulary
finally removed him from the Cathedral, he lay down in
the gutter and waited for the local press to photograph
him. Rossi was certainly ahead of his time in
knowing how to attract media
attention!
Captain Rossi’s removal from the
Cathedral, photo courtesy of the State Library of New
South Wales.
Come along to the Lieder
Theatre’s production of ‘Captain Rossi and the Bishop of
Goulburn’ to find out what happened in the Cathedral,
learn more about Goulburn’s colourful history and enjoy
a fantastic night of theatre!
