Australian plays for the Colonial stage.

UQP 2006 Australian Academy Editions The Theatre was one of the most popular forms of entertainment in Australia during the nineteenth century. The plays presented were for the most part plays that had been previously performed on the British stage. One of the reasons for this, apart from their familiarity to the mainly immigrant audience, was that it was not necessary to obtain permission from the authorities to present the play. It had already been approved for public performance in Britain.

Some Australian written plays were performed on the colonial stage and they had been approved by the Colonial Secretary in Sydney. Censorship was considered necessary to prevent criticism of the government and to avoid any criticism of the convict system and transportation. There was also the question of libel which was used as one of the ways the government prevented any adverse comments. Convicts were prevented from writing for the theatre and writing on the subjects of convicts and bushranging (mainly convicts) had to be restrained.

The result was that many of the plays written for the Australian stage were not on Australian subjects nor portrayed Australian characters. Historical dramas set in England or on the European continent became one of the staples of the stage. One example was the play written for Eliza Winstanley called Isabel of Valois which I have already claimed was written by John Lang. During the nineteenth century many stories were published in magazines like The Australian Journal with a medieval background influenced by the Gothic revival in architecture, art and poetry.

Some of the Australian plays which were performed in Sydney and in some of the other Australian cities have been gathered together by Professor Fotheringham and published recently by the University of Queensland Press. This is an important book because it gives the full text of the plays together with a detailed introduction. There is a general introduction as well as numerous scholarly notes through out the book and also the book contains the music which often accompanied the plays.

There are in total ten plays included in this book which is a small proportion of the plays written and presented on the stage between 1834 and 1899. Some well known names appear such as Richard Henry (Hengist) Home and Walter H. Cooper.

The first play to be presented here appeared on the stage in Hobart. Things were much freer in Van Diemen's Land and the controls operating in Sydney did not apply. Thus the first play written and published by Henry Melville was Australian in character. It was called The Bushrangers or Norwood Vale. Such a play would not have received permission to be performed in New South Wales Hence it was possible to present bushrangers on the local stage in Hobart. In fact there were three bushrangers in the caste. It is a short play in two acts. The heroine is captured by the bushrangers. She is eventually rescued by her lover whom her father dislikes but all ends happily. There are a few Australian references. It is an important play because it presents the bushrangers for the first time in Australian literature. Charles Harpur's play The Tragedy of Donohoe also on a bushranger was never performed

The second play in Fotheringham's book has not been presented on the professional stage and was not given permission to be performed in Sydney in 1843. It was entitled Life in Sydney or the Ran Dan Club by A.B.C. The Colonial Secretary said it was libellous. This was a common method used by the government to prevent freedom of speech or publication, a method first promoted by Governor Darling when his attempt to restrict the press in New South Wales was thrown out by the British Government. The play Life in Sydney is interesting because it includes actual Sydney characters like a well known auctioneer and the famous walking pieman. Much of the humour passes us by because we are unfamiliar with the characters.

The third play is entitled Arabin or The Adventures of a Settler. It is based on a novel of the same name written by Thomas McCombie. The novel was adapted for the stage by James R. McLaughlin. The novel was quite a good story and the play uses incidents from the life of the Doctor in out back New South Wales to make an entertaining play. I have read the novel and now the play and although I enjoyed the novel the play has one advantage in that it concentrates on the story and leaves out the bits of information meant for possible immigrants to Australia. This is a fault common to quite a lot of early writing.

The fifth play is not really a play at all It is a lyric Masque called The South Sea Sisters. It was a series of poems written by Richard Henry [Hengist] Horne and set to music and sung. It was performed at the opening ceremony of the Intercolonial Exhibition of Australasia in Melbourne in 1866. The 'South-Sea Sisters' were the colonies of Australia and included New Zealand. This was a usual form of entertainment at special events like the various Colonial Exhibitions during the nineteenth century. In this case the music was written by Charles Edward Horsley and that his music for a corroboree caused quite a sensation and was encored. It seems his music was lost but it wold be an exciting event if it were discovered. Richard H. Home was well known as a poet when he arrived in the colony in 1852 and he spent seventeen years in the colony. He wrote and published a number of works while he was here. He became a well known literary figure in Melbourne and was a friend to writers like Marcus Clarke and Adam Lindsay Gordon. Horne's poem for the Cororoboree does sound rather odd but it probably needed the music to interpret it. The conductor Horsley was well known for his music in Melbourne but like most of our nineteenth century composers his music is lost to us mainly because it was never published and the manuscripts were most likely discarded. The Corroboree was sung by the chorus.

   From creek of Worooboomi-boo!
   And sheep-run Woolagoola-goo!
   Come Dibble Fellow dancing in fog!
   Al over Mount Wooloola-yah!
   And earthly holes of Worondi-wah!
   Till he vanish in the yellow Wog-wogl
   Old Chief of Woolonara--nah
   From Great River banks, far-far!
   Hasten here with spear and boomerang--
   The to snowy Woologoomerang--
   For white Fellow comes to make war!

That concludes the list of early Colonial plays. There were other plays written but they are not included in this collection-like The Currency Lass of 1844 but it had already been republished in a modern edition. To print the full text of every Colonial play would take a few volumes and therefore there is scope for further publication.

The collection of plays now moves on to Pantomimes, a very popular form of theatre entertainment in the second half of the nineteenth century. Some of these were actually plays or pantomimes of British origin and adapted and localised for the Colonial stage. Many of these emerged from Victorian 'State' authors, for the theatres in Melbourne and were then adapted for other Australian cities.

The First of these was The House that Jack Built or Harlequin Progress and the Love's Laughs, Laments and Labors of Jack Melbourne and little Victoria. A Fairy Extravaganza opening to Pantomime by William Mower Bathurst. (1869). One could hardly call it a short and snappy title. The Sydney version was then called The House that Jack built, or, Harlequin Jack Sydney, Little Australia & the Gnome of the golden mine and the Austral Fernery in the golden conservatory the home of Diamantina. A Pantomime. Anonymous (1871) Another long title which gives some idea of what the 'play' is about, the cover wrapper of the Melbourne libretto which is headed 'London Music Hall'. This gives a further clue about the origin and style of the type of theatre that was being presented.

The next play was called Hazard; or Pearce Dyceton's Crime. A Sensational Comic Drama in Three Acts by Walter H. Cooper. It was produced in the Victoria Theatre in Sydney in 1872. Walter Cooper was a journalist, playwright, politician and barrister. He was also an actor and closely connected the the NSW Premier Henry Parkes. He wrote a number of plays but by Hazard survived because it was published as a booklet. It was what became known as a typical sensational melodrama which included a near murder with the victim being rescued from Sydney Harbour and the hero tied to a log approaching a circular saw. In spite of these sensations it seems its success was more likely attributed to it being well plotted and that it was a comedy thriller. It did give a view of Sydney populated by both high and low life and it was the first time that an Australian city was presented on the stage at least in the same light as cities like London and New York. The hero was an Australian born bushman indicating a new awareness of Australian characters as part of the development of theatre in Australia. In spite of its initial success it has not had later performances. It would be fun to see a new Australian production or perhaps a TV version. Cooper's bushranger play Foiled has had more success with later performances.

Then followed a play written by a woman, one of the few instances where a woman ventured on to the stage in the role as playwright. The play For 60,000 [pounds sterling] was written by Helen Lucy Benbow. The play was successfully presented in Bendigo in their newly built theatre. It was also produced in Melbourne but there it was a disaster. Professor Fotheringham claims it was a parody of the older sensational melodramas and the audience was expecting a different sort of play. It would have been better if presented by amateur performances. Helen Lucy Benbow was not a professional actor or connected with the professional theatre. She was a 'Lady' and had trained as an artist and had successfully exhibited her paintings in Melbourne. The play should be taken as a production especially suited for 'home' theatre or for amateur performance. Its interest for us is that it was a play written by a lady at a time when such an activity was most unusual. She even appeared on the stage in the Bendigo performance which was certainly unusual for a respectable young lady.

The title for the next play will be familiar to many Margin readers. It was entitled For the Term of His Natural Life. Seven versions of Marcus Clarke's famous Australian novel were performed in 1885-86 on American, Australian, New Zealand and British stages. It quickly became a classic Australian play and was a long running commercial success. The most successful version was written for Alfred Dampier a most popular actor manager and the play was actually written by Thomas Walker an M.L.A. in NSW. Some of the other versions are similar in the way they have adapted the novel for the stage, a not very easy task for such a long and complicated novel. There were numerous changes as to the motives for the murder for which Rufus Dawes was accused, tried and sentenced to transportation to Van Diemen's Land. Further complications as to authorship occurred when Dampier later claimed that he was in fact the coauthor of the version of the play. The plot was complicated with numerous coincidences. Interestingly a film was made of the play in 1927.

Professor Fotheringham gives us a long and detailed comparison of the three main versions of the play and the representations of them on the stage. It is fascinating to read these aspects of the Australian stage at the end of the nineteenth century. Dampier's production for example was not popular in Melbourne but was very much a success in Sydney. He quotes a Melbourne review which said 'It is somewhat different from other versions which have been played in this colony, [Victoria] but it is equally doleful and depressing and one could well wish that these convict dramas were banished from the stage'. (from the Australasian 1888). The play continued to be popular in Sydney with performances in 1886, 1887, 1893, 1895, 1899, 1901 and 1905 which was its last appearance. It was again produced by another company in 1900 and 1912 and yet again in 1917 and 1921. It was certainly an amazing run for an Australian play.

The actual text is equally interesting for anyone who knows Marcus Clarke's novel. A personal comparison is most rewarding especially the ending which was changed by Clarke from a happy ending to a tragedy.

The final play in the book is about another Australian icon. It is called The Kelly Gang, or, The Career of Ned Kelly the Iron-clad Bushranger of Australia and it was written by Arnold Denham and 'another'. The real author is unknown but it was the best known version. The various versions known to have been produced in New South Wales and Queensland and possibly elsewhere seem to have been borrowed and plagiarised.

Soon after the execution of Ned Kelly various attempts were made in both Melbourne and Sydney to stage some kind of Ned Kelly production. They were closed down by the governments of both colonies. The first real stage productions were produced in New Zealand and then in London A version of Robbery under Arms from Rolf Boldrewood's novel of the same name appears to have included incidents taken from the Kelly story. Professor Fotheringham goes into great detail of not only the whole Kelly gang story but in dissecting the various stage versions. It makes for great reading for anyone interested in the development of Australian drama as well as those persons who are obsessed with the Ned Kelly story and legend. 1 must quote Fotheringham's final paragraph indicating a different Australian approach to the English story of the Highwayman.

'In melodrama good usually overcomes evil but popular Australian stories had to reconcile this essentialist moral idealogy of character with competing beliefs about behaviour being a product of circumstances and environment. The Kelly Gang plays took this second story type to its logical extreme: they showed a deeply unjust society in which acts of violent resistance were presented with only token condemnation and were seen implicitly justified as an alternative to despair, in the face of a persecuting system with which there could be no accommodation'.

There follows in this book the music that often accompanied colonial plays. There are detailed notes to conclude the book.

There were many other Australian plays written and produced for the 'Colonial Stage'. This book presents us with only one small group selected by Professor Fotheringham and explained and compared in great detail. Some of the plays not included have been published separately over the years and others remain unread and hidden in various archives. There is much work to be done in revealing the unknown Australian plays of the past. We must thank Professor Fotheringham for revealing and explaining the details about these ten plays. We must also compliment the Australian Academy editions of Australian Literature under the general editorship of Professor Paul Eggert for this the latest of what is now an impressive collection of scholarly editions of important nineteenth century books. This book of plays is a hefty paperback and is not cheap. If you cannot afford to buy it yourself ask your local library to buy a copy so that you may read and enjoy a really fascinating and important book.