How we moved from convict brutality to songs around the piano Weâre sorry, this service is currently unavailable. Please try again later. Dismiss How we moved from convict brutality to songs around the piano As The Sydney Morning Herald celebrates its 190th birthday, three leading Australian writers consider the stepping stones to the development of Sydneyâs artistic culture. Save Normal text size Advertisement On June 4, 1789 a theatrical cast made up of young convict performers performed a play in Sydney. It was George Farquharâs The Recruiting Officer, a play full of humour and melodrama, both of which would become the fortes of the Australian shore and hinterland. The convict cast, young performers rejected and ejected from Europe, yet felt driven to reproduce the great European ritual of the play even as, along the harbour at Mosman and up the ascent of North Head, an epidemic of smallpox was striking the Eora people and killing them unceremoniously.