‘The worlds present in these plays have passed away,’ says Katharine Brisbane, ‘but these plays remain a dense and telling record of their times.’
Crossfire by Jennifer Compton juxtaposes family life in the 1910s with family life in the 1970s and raises sensitive questions about women’s position within domestic structures.
The Christian Brothers by Ron Blair is a moving dramatic monologue in which a teaching Christian Brother grapples with personal anguish and a sense of time departed, while trying to hold the attention of his class.
A Happy and Holy Occasion by John O’Donoghue shows a family party in Newcastle on the eve of the eldest son’s entrance into a seminary. A portrait of the Irish-Australian heritage of romanticism, humour, guilt and vulnerability.
In Inner Voices by Louis Nowra, the son of Catherine the Great, who has been locked away since childhood, is set upon the throne of Russia knowing only his name. Music by Sarah de Jong.
