Australian Theatre

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31724, 6 July 1968, Page 4

Australian Theatre

Australian One-Act Plays, Book Three. Edited by Musgrave Horner. Rigby. 95 pp. (Paperback.)

The four plays in this volume show something of the diversity and competence of Australian writing at present In “The General," by Leonard Radio, the main character is engaged in completing his memoirs of an anticipated World War HI, while his relatives are plotting to have him removed to the “Happy Haven Home for the Mentally Unwell.” Both the situation and the characters of this play are light-hearted and amusing, and the Issues handled are universal enough to make the play a success on any stage. “Pay Cisca Manetti,” by Jean Oliver, is a cheerful story of an Italian woman’s struggle to support her family when her husband is crippled, and to find common ground

with the women of a new country. “Dark Out There,” by Bee Robinson, is only partly successful because one .is left with the impression that the author herself shares the smugness she ridicules in the characters, a middle-class couple whose domestic life is disturbed. The best play in the volume is “King Tide Running,” by Barbara Vernon and Bruce Beaver. The three main characters (a “surfle,” Ma adolescent admirer, and the latter’s mother) are depicted with a psychological realism that can only convince. The action and dialogue penetrate deeply into their most profound hopes and disappointments. Writers seldom put their best into one-act plays, and none of these are great plays. But they are all easy to follow, present no significant acting difficulties, and are thus ideal for small, amateur theatre production.