Stephen Sewell’s 1986 exemplifies the traits of the decade: apocalyptic in feel, epic in scope and unforgiving in length
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Articles on The great Australian plays
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The 1970s transformed Australian drama. It was a time of imaginative brilliance as the Empire wrote back.
Robert Merritt, author of The Cake Man, grew up on the Erambie Mission at Cowra. His play captures the grinding poverty and emotional paralysis of the mission experience.
David Williamson and Jack Hibberd tower over Australian drama. Williamson’s The Department and Hibberd’s A Stretch of the Imagination both showcase the strange yet compelling detachment of these playwrights’ visions.
No other Australian playwright has mined their own life as much as Dorothy Hewett. In this expressionist drama, she depicts a girl of yearning heart, looking for love and hungry for life.
The plays of Alex Buzo captured the spirit of rebellion of a new generation of theatre artists.
An early review of Patrick White’s A Cheery Soul said it ‘upset everybody who saw it’. But this extraordinary play, once a victim of 60s cultural cringe, marked a turning point in Australian theatre.
In 1955 two plays – The Torrents and Summer of the Seventeenth Doll – burst into Australian theatre. Funny and tragic in deeply Australian ways, they marked a new horizon of creative possibility.
The best Australian play ever written is revolutionary in its treatment of plot, character and language. It has a weary, sardonic perspective on war and an unheroic worldview.
The idea of a ‘canon’ changes over time and despite its elitist overtones, identifying one can be both illuminating and fun. In a new series, we nominate the best of Australian drama.
