Compiled and Edited by Jack Bedson and Julian Croft |
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The body of plays is a remarkable window on the period from the First World War to the nuclear age. Major writers such as Katharine Susannah Prichard, Dymphna Cusack, Vance Palmer, Louis Esson, Ruth Park, and Patrick White are represented. As social history they are a rich source material relating to aboriginal people, class and society, the Australian language and slang, mental health, family relations, war and the Anzac myth, the role of women, work and money, public life, and much more. Being largely unpublished they offer fertile ground for original research and scholarship.
The collection was largely assembled by the late Campbell Howard in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Howard set about to hunt down and preserve "the manuscripts of those Australian plays that had been performed by a reputable company and reviewed by a responsible critic, or by an unnamed critic in a reputable journal."(Australian Plays in Manuscript: A Checklist of the Campbell Howard Collection held in the University of New England Library (1968), ed. Sheila M. Apted, p. 4). By perseverance and tact he built his collection with texts supplied from playwrights, actors, drama companies, from executors of estates, and from relatives and friends of the dramatists, while at the same time gathering information and reviews of productions.
SAMPLE ENTRY
| Title | Ruling Passion, The |
| Author | Duhig, James Vincent |
| Date | 1935 |
| Length | One Act |
| Setting | The bar of the pub in a small town in Western Queensland |
| Characters |
JAMES MCCALL, a horse trainer MARY MCCALL, his wife DAVE, a stockman BILL, a saddler TONY, an auctioneer STEVE, a storekeeper HARRY, a drover GERTIE, a barmaid BARNEY SCANLAN, a publican |
| Cast | |
| Synopsis |
Deals with the ruling Australian
Passion of betting. Jim, a horse trainer, has backed horses all his life, but with no obvious result. His wife Mary has expressed pretty clearly just what she things of his betting activities. Yielding at last, Jim makes a decision: "our life's just hell. The wife's right," and doesn't bet on his horse. However, the horse wins, and Mary is disgusted to find that Jum has not put his money on the horse as usual. All the boozers in the pub realise the position and the hat is taken around. Mary says in the second last speech of the play, 'you had the chance of a life time but you got scared as I might have expected. You've ruined yourself now, and me and the kids". Whereupon Jim grabs the money that has been collected and the ruling passion wins again, he places the lot on "Last Hope" for New Market. |
| Subject(s) | Domestic Life; Gambling |
| Production Notes | |
| Awards/Performances | The Play won the Laura Bogue Luffman prize (ADB) |
| Critics | |
| Published | The Best One-Act Plays of 1935, Harrap, London, 1936. |
| Held in MS/TS | |
| Comments
|
It is actable,
it is good theatre, it reads well, and it possesses some literary merit as well. |
425 Pages, Paperback, ISBN 1 86389 005 6
To order a copy of The Campbell Howard Annotated Index of Australian Plays 1920 -1955, email CALLS and state the number of copies required at $30 each (incl. postage and handling), your name, return snail mail address and a contact phone number.
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Created
by Lindsay Rowlands Revised 22 June, 2001 Contact fplunket@pobox.une.edu.au |