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Eilzinbetfln Iperkin Eilzinbetfln IPerkIn Richard Fotheringham editor, Robbery Under Arms by Alfred Damp- ier and Garnet Walsh. Sydney: Currency Press in association with Australasian Drama Studies, St. Lucia, 1985. approx. $7.95. 136 pp. Albert Moran and Tom O'Regan editors, An Australian Film Reader. Sydney: Currency Press, 1985. Approx. $24.95. 391 pp. Ron Blair editor, Popular Short Plays for the Australian Stage. Volumes 1 and 2. Sydney: Currency Press, 1985. $9.95 each. 152pp. 134 pp. John Lonie editor, Learning From Life: Five Plays for Young People. Sydney: Currency Press, 1985. Approx. $14.95. 208 pp. Patrick White, Collected Plays volume 1: The Ham Funeral, The Season at Sarsaparilla, A Cheery Soul, Night on Bald Mountain. Sydney: Currency Press, 1985. Approx. $19.95. 361 pp. David Williamson, Collected Plays volume 1: The Coming of Stork, The Removalists, Don's Party, Jugglers Three, What If You Died Tomor- row. Approx. $19.95. 358 pp. These substantial texts are only a sample of the work that Currency Press has produced over the last twelve months. They represent some of the valuable work that editors and publishers are busy with in Australian drama for stage, television and film, and the support that Currency Press continues to give to dramatists and Australian theatre and cinema. The National Theatre series, initiated by Philip Parsons in 1973, is now supported by Veronica Kelly and Richard Fotheringham as editors of Australasian Drama Studies, and the projects have collabo- rated to publish Richard Fotheringham's meticulously edited text of RoIf Boldrewood's Robbery Under Arms, as adapted for the stage. The adaptation was made in 1890 by Alfred Dampier and Garnet Walch, both experienced men of the theatre. Fotheringham's Intro- duction gives detailed and lively accounts of the life, work and theatri- cal milieu of Dampier and Waich, and reconstructs the history of the Alexander Theatre seasons for 1888-1892. Because theatre reflects the concerns of society with a particularity and immediacy not readily available to other forms of art, an account like this has a sociological interest beyond that which occupies the enthusiast for theatre. Fothe- ringham's account of Dampier's theatre management, for example, 62 brings to life the stratification of Melbourne society at the end of the century, and reminds the reader of the variety of social, cultural and political forces that were active at that time. Plays like Dampier's Irish nationalist drama, Shamus O'Brien, and the re.working of Marvel- lous Melbourne - re-worked most recently by Romeril and Hibberd in 1970 - not only appealed to larrikin, provincial and nationalistic tendencies, but also helped to promulgate them. Yet Dampier himself, as Fotheringham points out, was "a sophisticated and restrained actor", whose disposition was "respectable, English, pro-Imperialist": The 1890 stage version of Robbery Under Arms does not bear much relation to Boidrewood's middle-class, moralistic novel, for Dampier and Walch knew how to appeal to the colonial theatre audience who would perhaps not have bothered to read the novel even as it appeared in serial form between 1882 and 1883 in the Sydney Mail. The Marstons now have a strong resemblance to the Kelly family, and the tragically blemished Starlight and Dick Marston have become upright heroes threatened by the constabulary of a corrupt society. All comes well at the end when they are integrated into that respectable, corrupt society. As Starlight says at the close of the play: Bushrangers no longer. But men, who, having passed through the furnace, are purified, who have sounded the depths of true woman's devotion, and are now contented - happy. Robbery Under Arms could well be revived as a roistering epic show, and its entertainment potential would certainly be no less in the 1980s than it was in the 1 890s. Its sociological usefulness would be even greater for a society whose detailed study of its own structures and forces has become one of the dominant preoccupations of the late twentieth century. The general editors of this edition, Veronica Kelly and Richard Fotheringham, have conceived a very worthwhile project and executed it with fine judgement. It would be pleasing to see their work carried into the theatre so that the widest possible audience gets the benefit of it. Albert Moran and Tom O'Regan have edited An Australian Film Reader as part of the Australian Screen series under the general editorship of Sylvia Lawson. These editions are invaluable for all institutions where film studies are taught, but are also very useful to the general reader who may see only a handful of Australian films every two years, but who nevertheless is interested in and curious about what has gone into, and what lies behind, their production. An Australian Film Reader begins with eight articles from the 1920s to the present, each written from a different point of view, and again, rich in sociological interest. The authors write briskly and professionally, and, like all the pieces in this anthology, the chapters are pleasantly readable and give the impression of sound thinking. The second part of the Reader analyzes the hopes that the Australian film industry had of establishing the documentary film as a strong and exciting genre. It includes much discussion on the aesthet- ics of the documentary, not only in John Heyer's thoughtful chapter on this topic, but incidentally in many other articles. The political and sociological criteria involved in this section of the Reader should make it necessary reading for all students of Australian history and literature. The Renaissance of the feature film, which is covered in Part Three of the Reader, possibly has most interest for a general reader who is more engaged with the entertainment value of the product on the cinema or television screen than with the sociological or aesthetic implications of the film as an art form. Conflicting opinions about particular films, as for example, those of P.P. McGuinness and Ian Hunter on Picnic at Hanging Rock are stimulating. This section of the Reader raises further questions, discussed elsewhere, on the extent to which Australian film has or has not been influenced by Hollywood, and how Hollywood styles and values have been transformed here. The last section of the Reader is concerned with Alternative Theatre, which includes avant-garde forms, socialist film, feminist film and black film. As in other articles, the writers here are sophisticated in their analysis and arguments. Throughout the Reader, the writers demonstrate the relevance of what might appear to be the esoteric criteria of contemporary aesthetics, to material matters of free enter- prise financing, grass-root community, party political and establish- ment politics, in-trade promotion, and government sponsorship. Over thirty writers have contributed to this anthology, bringing a challenging variety of view points and a range of expertise. There is a great deal in An Australian Film Reader to interest anyone who seldom attends the cinema and who has little pleasure in sophisticated "reading" of film - although many who go merely to enjoy a film as entertainment are often expert "untrained" readers in this sense. The appeal of this anthology should be very wide. Ron Blair has selected and edited two volumes of stage-tested popular short plays which should be a god-send to Little Theatres and drama groups, and which could introduce more variety into the programmes of English and American plays which form the staple diet of too many small theatres. This reliance on well-worn overseas pieces is all the more regrettable since it handicaps many fine amateur actors throughout Australia, who never have a chance to develop their skills and insight by depicting native characters and situations. 64 The first volume includes plays by John Romeril, Michael Cove, Ron Blair, Philip Ryall and Timothy Daly, which supply sufficient variety of theme and dramaturgy to occupy any drama group for a year. The second volume includes plays by John Mulligan, Gordon Graham, John Summons, Pamela Van Amstel and Mil Perrin, sev- eral of which this reviewer has seen on stage and can endorse as excellent theatrical entertainment. There are dozens of good short plays around, tested on stage but still unavailable to directors and drama students - for example, Alma de Groen's The foss Adams Show and Perfectly All Right are currently unavailable - and this series is one that could most usefully be continued. Learning From Life, edited by John Lonie, includes five plays for audiences in the twelve to seventeen age group, and could also, of course, be performed by students. Originating with the Theatre in Education project, the plays are socio-dramas, and as Lonie says in his Introduction: "these plays are unashamedly 'message' plays and for that, they are better theatre". Their obvious contemporaneity of situation and dialogue gives these plays a special appeal, but it is possible that at times the message could be more subtly embodied, or perhaps, especially for older students, given a greater complexity. Yet if one envisages students chafing a little at the blatancy of the moral when reading the plays, at least there is something to be argued in them, and there is no doubt that the stagecraft of the pieces would submerge any difficulties when the plays are performed. The plays pull no punches in confronting young people with their own problems. Perhaps Richard Tulloch's if Only We Had a Cat, a useful study of what it is like to be thrown into a Retirement Home, stretches reality a little by retiring the woman academic only when she reaches the age of eighty-two! It could be more realistic not to hold out to students employment prospects of such magnitude.
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