The German dramatist Bertolt Brecht adapted The Recruiting Officer as the play Trumpets and Drums in 1955.
It was the first play performed in Australia. Thomas Keneally wrote a novel, The Playmaker, based on a staging of the play in Sydney by those who came ashore from the First Fleet. That novel was adapted into a play, Our Country's Good, in 1988, by Timberlake Wertenbaker. Both works deal with the nature and merits of punishment, rehabilitation and theatre.
