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Each chapter begins by setting the critical interpretive
scene through which the plays and activities of the women
are read. Thus each chapter offers valuable analyses of
particular areas and eras and can be read independently
of the others. That said, however, the work as a whole is
a very easy and interesting read and the companion volume
of plays, Tremendous Worlds: Australian Women's Drama
1890-1960 firmly grounds the interpretative exercise
in a body of work that can be studied and used in a variety
of ways. Both works should be incorporated into twentieth
century Australian drama courses and would be useful recommended
reading on twentieth century Australian history courses
as well. They provide an entry point into the actuality
of women in Australian theatre during the period and of
women in Australia generally through the subject matter
of the plays as well as the activities of the playwrights.
Founded firmly on feminist principles of interrogation,
rather than a standard historiographical approach, the authors
ensure that their interpretation of the absence of Australian
women playwrights and their work in standard theatre histories
is put clearly in perspective. Masculinist interpretations
of Australian theatre history have simply ignored, or greatly
undervalued, the material that in this book is given its
full weight and accorded its rightful place in the development
of Australian theatre. Because women were involved in the
repertory or little theatre movement, often in establishing
roles, where community and amateur participation underpinned
their success it seems that the contributions they made
were almost entirely dismissed by earlier Australian theatre
historians. Yet these theatres and organisations provided
the humus from which a healthy theatre industry could grow
in the 60s and 70s - the era traditionally seen as the 'birth'
of an Australian theatre culture.
Reading into the texts using feminist deconstructive methods,
the authors interrogate the plays for their underlying meanings
or messages that may be superficially obscured (sometimes
purposefully) because of the political and social contexts
in which they were written. In Playing with Ideas Pfisterer
and Picket do what Miles Franklin hoped critics would do
when reading her plays, 'to see the underside or innerness
of what I write.' And this is an important point to make
about the work of many of these playwrights - that the period
was, largely, not a time of overt feminism (at least not
after the vote was won). The methods the writers employed
to explore issues around the desires for individual and
political autonomy and greater economic independence were
frequently written in palimpsest upon the page/stage. Women's
agency in economic, family, cultural and sexual terms is
analysed through the ways these themes are represented in
the plays that explore both the potential for women to become
fully actualised individuals and the reasons they do not.
The conservative era in which these playwrights worked,
and against which they often struggled, is mirrored in the
conservative and often unreflective synopses by the theatre
historian Campbell Howard (and his assistant, Colin Kenny),
whose invaluable work in collecting Australian plays of
the 1920s to the 1950s has not been ignored by Pfisterer
and Pickett. The Index to the Campbell Howard collection
(published in 1993) provides brief synopses written by Howard
and Kenny of the plays in the collection. These synopses,
however, undermine the potential value of the plays for
contemporary readers and researchers by their frequent misreading
of the themes and subject matter. The Index, which should
give a good first access point to the plays, also contains
some very value-laden comments that often miss the point
of the playwrights' work. Pfisterer and Pickett sometimes
use these interpretations (which were often the first critical
accounts, albeit brief and unreliable) to highlight the
distorted reading of the plays, and to show the conservatism
that the women playwrights faced, both at the time of writing
and later.
Of particular interest is the chapter 'Stages of Subversion:
Experiments with Dramatic Form.' Its interpretation of the
subversive uses to which the playwrights put the convention
of realism in plays containing a 'message' (often covertly
feminist) through the dramaturgy employed in stage directions
is absorbing. The readings of Miles Franklin, Marjorie McLeod
and Millicent Armstrong's plays are excellent; I think,
however, that the authors have been a little too generous
towards Dulcie Deamer's 'morality plays.' It's my opinion
that, although she may have been crowned Queen of Bohemia
in 1926, Deamer soon 'repented' of her party-girl ways and,
by the early 30s, was a staid and rather religious woman.
Her morality tales certainly belong to the later period.
She does, nevertheless, remain a fascinating individual
as do many of the women of these times and these plays.
'Brave Red Witches', Chapter 5, covers the rise of socialist
consciousness during the 1930s to the 1950s, and explores
the impact that involvement in the various writers' and
cultural organisations sponsored by the Communist Party
had on their work and lives. The freedom to write drama
for assured performance by the New Theatre League offered
many playwrights the opportunity of seeing their work on
the stage but, due to Australia's conservatism and rightist
leanings, it also closed off opportunities for work in the
mainstream theatres, often for the remainder of their professional
lives. Some of the writers involved in the New Theatre were
committed and signed up communists; others were motivated
by humanist principles, feminism and pacificism, and didn't
ever become CPA members. Quite a few went to Russia and
other Eastern Bloc countries as feted guests, and this phenomenon
could have been problematised more here. A discussion of
how their works were propagandised for political purposes,
and how some of the writers were used by Stalinist regimes
is not explored fully enough. This is, admittedly, a very
big area and worth a study of its own; a brief discussion
would, however, have been able to contextualise rather than
simply lionise.
The fact that women writers won so many competitions during
the period but still did not manage to get into the written
histories of Australian theatre before now must indicate
how little historiographers thought of the method of meritorious
awards. This absence does not result from a lack of evidence,
as there was frequent press coverage about the award winners
and their work, along with articles in contemporary literary
journals. Nor can it be because they were only writing about
women's issues - far from it, in fact - the pre-1960s generation
of women wrote relatively little about women, seeing themselves
as members of the body politic and often disavowing membership
of any overt feminist movements. They used the whole world
as their subject matter, taking to the stage with the biggest
as well as the most intimate of issues. Far from confining
themselves to women's worlds, they wrote about war, nationalism,
and international politics as often as, or as a part of,
their engagement with family life, women's roles and romance.
There is no doubt that plays of Oriel Gray, Mona Brand and
Betty Roland should be as well known as those by Louis Esson,
Douglas Stewart and Vance Palmer. Thanks to work such as
this book, they will take their rightful place alongside
these iconic figures of early twentieth century Australian
drama. Indeed the value of plays such as Here Under Heaven,
A Touch of Silk and The Torrents in reflecting
Australian culture is easily of as high quality, if not
higher, than that of their theatre brothers'. But then,
during the course of a long-winded Masters Thesis on the
same subject that Pfisterer and Pickett cover, I read many
of these plays and feel a fondness for the efforts these
women put into their literary lives. It was great to be
reminded of their worth and of the strange, fabulous and
poignant topics they covered.
Pfisterer and Pickett conclude with the statement that,
due to the lop-sided historical tellings of Australian theatre,
'Perhaps [there] is justification enough to allow their
frustrated promise a second hearing.' Certainly there should
be - if not on stage, then definitely in the corridors and
classrooms of our educational institutions.
Kerry Kilner is the Manager of AustLit: Australian
Literature Gateway (www.auslit.edu.au)
the largest resource discovery service about Australian
writers and writing - a collaboration between eight universities
and the National Library of Australia. She is the compiler
of From Page to Stage : An Annotated Bibliography of
Australian Drama, published in the AustLit Gateway and
has had a lengthy interest in the works of Australian women
playwrights of the early twentieth century. She also edited
Playing the Past: Three Plays by Australian Women
(Currency 1995).
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