Drama In Australia

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32322, 13 June 1970, Page 4

Drama In Australia

Six One-Act Plays. Introduced by Eunice Hanger. University of Queensland Press. 194 pp. As with the previous three volumes in the University of Queensland Press “Contemporary Australian Plays” series, this collection leaves the reader with the strong impression that, like poetry, drama in Australia is in a remarkably healthy condition and is being encouraged to stay that way by some excellent publishing facilities. None of these one-acters is particularly original in technique, nor is there much evidence of the drama getting outside that primitive (but still generally popular) area of people speaking to each other; but all the playwrights do show a high level of competence in the mechanics of dialogue and the development of character conflict. Ron Hamilton’s “The Spiders” is heavily Pinteresque in both the communication gap in its divergent dialogue and the way it isolates a single episode without bothering about motivation. Another obviously derivative style is that of Barry Oakley’s “Witzenhausen, Where Are You?” in which the influence of Henry Livings is continuously apparent. The whole action takes place outside a factory lavatory, the characters are coarsely drawn, and the tone approaches farce. Neither of these plays is seriously hampered in its lack of originality: within their admitted mode, they are creditable variations. In a

vaguely - defined, but nevertheless fashionable, vein,,,Tony Morphett’s “I’ve Come About the Assassination” employs inconsequential dialogue patterns and characters who without hesitation accept each other's inanities. All three plays are very funny, fluid in their dialogue, and well suited to the requirements of suburban theatre.

The remaining three are rather more complex. Irene Summy’s “The Man on the Mountain” and Elizabeth Perkins’s “A Squeaking of Rats” are both, in their different ways,’ atmosphere plays and consequently demand delicate production and intense rehearsal. The editor dissociates herself from the last play, an experiment in the Theatre of Cruelty. “The Pier” by Michael Thomas is, despite the editor’s lack of enthusiasm, the finest and most inventive script in this collection. Echoes of other playwrights there are, but Mr Thomas has welded his material into a most unusual compound with a strikingly original structure and a remarkable statement of the final enigma. Two years ago, Elmwood presented at the British Drama League festival an act from a play in the last “Contemporary Australian Plays” volume. Its obvious success should encourage local societies to consider this collection in choosing a play for the British Drama League, for which all these scripts are eminently suitable.