Australian Theatre, Modernism and Patrick White

Sandra D'Urso, Denise Varney

Description

Story of the rejection of two Patrick White plays by the Adelaide Festival of Arts in the early 1960s.

In the early 1960s the board of governors of the Adelaide Festival of Arts in Australia rejected two Patrick White plays, The Ham Funeral in 1962 and Night on Bald Mountain in 1964. Australian Theatre, Modernism and Patrick White documents the scandal that followed the board’s rejections of White’s plays, especially as it acted against the advice of its own drama committee and artistic director on both occasions. Denise Varney and Sandra D’Urso analyze the two events by drawing on the performative behaviour of the board of governors to focus on the question of governance. They shed new light on the cultural politics that surrounded the rejections, arguing that it represents an instance of executive governance of cultural production, in this case theatre and performance. The central argument of the book is that aesthetic modernism in theatre and drama struggled to achieve visibility and acceptability, and posed a threat to the norms and values of early to mid-twentieth-century Australia. The recent productions indicate that despite the Adelaide Festival’s early hostile rejections, White’s plays endure.

List of Illustrations; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. The Archive, Governance and Sovereignty; 2. ‘Words Fail Me’: The Ham Funeral and the 1962 Adelaide Festival; 3. Night on Bald Mountain and the 1964 Adelaide Festival; 4. The ‘Clowns’ Who ‘Cling to the Past ’: Sovereign Decision and the Practice of Exclusion; 5. The Sovereignty of the Plays and Opportunities for New Publics; Index.

Sujets

• Arts
• Theatre
• Performing arts
• Dráma

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 15 septembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783088379
• Langue: English

Extrait

Australian Theatre, Modernism and Patrick White
Anthem Studies in Theatre and Performance
Anthem Studies in Theatre and Performance takes a broad, global approach to cultural analysis to examine and critique a wide range of performative acts from the most traditional forms of theatre studies (music, theatre and dance) to more popular, less structured forms of cultural performance. The twenty-first century in particular has seen theatre and performance studies become a major perspective for examining, understanding and critiquing contemporary culture and its historical roots. In addition to traditional theatre studies, then, the series takes as its subject international folk performances, minstrel and music hall shows, vaudeville, burlesque, ballroom dance, rock concerts, professional wrestling, football and soccer matches, snake charming, American snake-handling religions, shamanism, street protests, Nascar or Formula 1 races, tractor pulls, fortune telling, circuses, techno-mobbing, the gestures of painting and writing, and even the performance that denies itself, that pretends that it is not play(ing). Performance is thus a vital manifestation of culture that is enacted, a form to be experienced, recorded, analysed and theorized. It is among the most useful and dynamic focus for the global study of culture.
Series Editor
S. E. Gontarski – Florida State University, USA
Editorial Board
Alan Ackerman – University of Toronto, Canada
Herbert Blau – University of Washington, USA
Enoch Brater – University of Michigan, USA
Annamaria Cascetta – Università Cattolica, Milan, Italy
Robson Corrêa de Camargo – Universidade Federal de Goiás, Brazil
Stephen A. Di Benedetto – University of Miami, USA
Christopher Innes – York University, Canada
Anna McMullan – University of Reading, UK
Martin Puchner – Harvard University, USA
Kris Salata – Florida State University, USA
W. B. Worthen – Barnard College, Columbia University, USA
Australian Theatre, Modernism and Patrick White
Governing Culture
Denise Varney and Sandra D’Urso
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com

This edition first published in UK and USA 2018
by ANTHEM PRESS
75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA

Copyright © Denise Varney and Sandra D’Urso 2018

The authors assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owners and the above publisher of this book.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-1-78308-835-5 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78308-835-4 (Hbk)

This title is also available as an e-book.
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. The Archive, Governance and Sovereignty
2. ‘Words Fail Me’: The Ham Funeral and the 1962 Adelaide Festival
3. Night on Bald Mountain and the 1964 Adelaide Festival
4. The ‘Clowns’ Who ‘Cling to the Past’: A Sovereign Decision and the Practice of Exclusion
5. The Sovereignty of the Plays and Opportunities for New Publics
Index
Illustrations
0.1 Amanda Muggleton as Alma Lusty in Patrick White’s The Ham Funeral , directed by Adam Cook. Adelaide Festival of Arts, State Theatre Company of South Australia, 2012. Photo: Shane Reid
0.2 Julie Forsyth as Miss Quodling in Patrick White’s Night on Bald Mountain , directed by Matthew Lutton. Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne, 2014. Photo: Pia Johnson
1.1 Letter from Charles Wicks to Patrick White. 24 April 1961. Courtesy of State Records of South Australia
2.1 Program Cover. The Ham Funeral , World Premiere Season, produced by the Adelaide University Theatre Guild at the university’s Union Hall, 15–25 November 1961. Courtesy of the Barr Smith Library, University of Adelaide
2.2 Ephemera. List of Borrowers of The Ham Funeral . Adelaide Festival Correspondence, 1959–1962. Courtesy of State Records of South Australia
2.3 Geoff Revell and Jacqy Phillips as the Two Ladies in State Theatre Company of South Australia’s 2012 production of The Ham Funeral . Photo: Shane Reid
2.4 Letter from Patrick White to Charles Wicks, 26 April 1961. Courtesy of State Records of South Australia
3.1 Program Cover for World Premiere of Night on Bald Mountain by Patrick White, 1964. Courtesy Barr Smith Library, University of Adelaide
3.2 Nita Pannell as Miss Quodling in Night on Bald Mountain by Patrick White, 1964. Guild Theatre at Union Hall, University of Adelaide. Photo: Sheridan Photography
3.3 Alexander Archdale as Hugo Sword, Barbara West as Stella and Joan Bruce as Miriam in Night on Bald Mountain by Patrick White, 1964. Guild Theatre at Union Hall, University of Adelaide. Photo: Sheridan Photography
3.4 Letter from Harry Medlin to Stefan Haag. 31 January 1963. Courtesy of the Barr Smith Library, University of Adelaide
3.5 Poster for World Premiere of Night on Bald Mountain by Patrick White, 1964. Courtesy of the Barr Smith Library, University of Adelaide
4.1 Cartoon by Pep, 16 December 1961. The Bulletin . Courtesy of Bauer Media Pty. Ltd./ The Bulletin
Acknowledgements
Research for this book was made possible through the Australian Research Council Discovery Grant Scheme. The book would not have been possible without the funding to visit the archives that we draw on so extensively in this book. We have been fortunate to be able to work with many archivists and library staff, who have provided invaluable assistance with the research. We are especially grateful to staff at the Baillieu Library at the University of Melbourne, the Barr Smith Library at the University of South Australia, the State Library of South Australia (State Records Section), the Adelaide Festival Archive and the National Library of Australia. Librarian Andrew Cook at the Barr Smith Library has been a constant source of information for the project and has been incredibly helpful and supportive. His information about Beryl Sheasby, former board member and secretary of the University of Adelaide’s Guild Theatre and correspondent with Patrick White, led us to an amazing array of sources. In 2010, Sheasby donated her collection of archival materials that became the Patrick White Collection at the Barr Smith Library at the University of Adelaide. This collection sheds new light on the important and often little recognized work of academic and professional staff involved with making of theatre on university campuses and their contribution to the development of modern Australian drama.
We especially thank Philippa Moylan for her impeccable editing support. Her enthusiasm and excellent humour helped get us over the line especially with the archival notes. We are immensely grateful to the Adelaide Festival for permission to reproduce images from its holdings in the State Records of South Australia and to photographers Pia Johnson and Shane Reid for providing images of recent productions of Patrick White’s plays.
Finally, we thank our colleagues in the Australia Centre in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne, particularly Ken Gelder and Amanda Morris. And our family and friends.
INTRODUCTION
In March 2012, the Adelaide Festival of Arts staged an exuberant steampunk version of Patrick White’s comic play The Ham Funeral , originally written in London in 1947 and first performed in Adelaide in 1961 . The 2012 production celebrated the centenary of the writer’s birth and marked 50 years since the Board of Governors of the 1962 Adelaide Festival had refused to stage the play’s world premiere. Amid claims of philistinism , paternalism and amateurism , the Board had determined that the play’s unsavoury themes, modernist form and poor box-office outlook made it unsuitable for a festival production. In recognition of the troubled history between the Adelaide Festival and White, 2012 Artistic Director Paul Grabowsky announced that the new production, directed by Adam Cook , would pay ‘tribute to our Nobel Laureate ’ and finally see ‘unfinished business finished’. 1 The Festival production, presented by the State Theatre Company of South Australia , made amends with a dazzling interpretation that drew out the flamboyant theatricality, humour and pathos of the play ( Figure 0.1 ).

Figure 0.1 Amanda Muggleton as Alma Lusty in Patrick White’s The Ham Funeral , directed by Adam Cook. Adelaide Festival of Arts, State Theatre Company of South Australia, 2012.
Photo: Shane Reid.
In May 2014, Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre staged White’s ambitious and challenging modernist drama, Night on Bald Mountain , written between 1963 and 1964 . As was the case with The Ham Funeral two years earlier, the world premiere of Night on Bald Mountain was rejected by the Board of Governors for the 1964 Adelaide Festival and took place instead at the University of Adelaide’s Union Hall theatre . At the Malthouse Theatre 50 years later, director Matthew Lutton’s production e