The Chapel Perilous is an Australian classic, and Sally Banner is now a national heroine. A major statement on the female artist’s quest for freedom and self-realisation in a community uncertain of its standards, the epic play is full of lyricism, music, satire and self-parody. It traces Sally’s life from school days, through lovers, attempted suicide, marriage and politics to disillusion. At the end of her life, the artist’s ever-present sense of failure is ironically coupled with worldly success.
Music by Frank Arndt.
‘The Chapel Perilous is a remarkable play […] It stands now like a bridge over the New Wave, linking the vision of Patrick White to the post-naturalistic, epic work of the 1980s writers such as Louis Nowra and Stephen Sewell […] Sally’s glorious embodiment of divine whore, bitch goddess, political agitator and romantic dreamer has endured through the transformations of feminism since the early 1970s.’ —John McCallum in Belonging
