Production
The play was broadcast live on 29 January 1958 on ABC's Sydney station from its studios at Gore Hill. It was broadcast on the night the Gore Hill Studios opened. The bulk of the play was done live with some prerecorded scenes shot on location at Bondi Beach. [4]
The play was selected by ABC's head of drama Neil Hutchinson. [5] It was chosen to broadcast on the ABC the night the new £620,000 Gore Hill studios were opened. Chairman of the ABC Richard Boyer said "it is our greatest hope to make a contribution to Australian life and culture. We want to provide a medium to spread what is the genius of Australians." [6]
According to Filmink:
The shortened running time meant cuts had to be made, the most notable being the removal of the character of Eileen and the entire scene where she tells Kate about their father leaving their mother. This is one of those excisions that Kerr probably thought was okay because it doesn’t affect the story per se… but, in actual fact, it was massive because the Kate-Eileen moments are crucial for fleshing out Kate’s character. It is through these that the audience can properly see Kate’s world view, especially her feelings about Joe, marriage and sex – she can be honest with her sister in a way she can’t be with the Donnellys. Without those moments, her character’s actions don’t really make sense, and Kate goes from being the lead character to a support player in “The Ben and Joe Show”, throwing the whole play out of balance. [7]
Reception
It was advertised as "the exciting drama about present-day Sydney." [8]
The Australian Women's Weekly called it "an excellent production". [9]
According to Filmink
It’s a decent production, with an impressive set (bar the painted backdrops), interesting location cut-aways to Bondi Beach, well-choreographed fight sequences and very effective quiet moments. The best of the cast is Ken Wayne, who is superb as Joe, even if he’s too old for the part as written (Joe is meant to be aged 24 while the hard-living Wayne was a craggy-looking 33). Deryck Barnes, a fine actor, seems miscast as the swaggering, Burt Lancaster-y Ben – I get that there was a shortage of attractive, virile male actors in Australia at the time, but I kept wishing that, at the very least, Wayne had played Ben’s part and some younger, more obviously callow actor was cast as Joe. [7]
Political controversy
The play was denounced by MLA W. R. Lawrence who said it "had all the evil elements one can imagine" and showed hysterical scenes, blasphemy of a low type and an immoral level of entertainment... If this is persisted in we can only expect to have difficult times, and unsettled and unhinged minds among our people." [5]
There were calls of complaint to the station, one called claiming an actor said "Jesus, mama". This was denied by ABC's head of drama Neil Hutchinson who said the word was not in the script. [5]
The chairman of the ABC, Richard Boyer, said he did not feel the broadcast could have offended public taste. "The version tonight was abridged from the stage presentation," said Boyer. "The play is of the type of offering we hope to give and we hope will be accepted as worthwhile by the viewing public." [5]
Hutchinson said "the play concerns a warm-hearted Christian Australian family. They are a bit rough and uncouth but their true solid Christian values emerge as the play progresses. Australia is just coming into its own in the drama field, which such plays as Summer of the Seventeenth Doll , The Shifting Heart and this play. In America top playwrights like Tennessee Williams are using realism to achieve authenticity in their plays. The Australian plays are doing this to but unlike the Americans and some of the prominent French authors they do not end on a note of despair." [5]
The Sydney Morning Herald wrote an editorial calling Lawrence "an unmitigated bore" and Vernon "a serious playwright", claiming Lawrence was motivated by a desire for personal publicity. [10] Lawrence denied this. [11]
Other church leaders and critics also complained about the play. [12] One writer to the Herald called it "common and vulgar", [13] another "sordid and moronic and in no way reflected the Australian way of life as most of us know it"; [14] one said it would "drag Australia's name further into the gutter" and asked "why must everyone present the Australian scene in the degrading manner of Rusty Bugles , The Doll, Shifting Heart and Multi Coloured Umbrella. [15] Other writers defended the play [16] [17]
George F. Kerr, who did the adaptation, defended the play in a letter to the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, claiming that "It is perfectly possible for a play to be good and yet give offence to some... The writer of a good play is likely to have broken new ground, either in thought or technique, to have given the audience a fresh vision on a scene as seemingly familiar as a Bondi family group. But many people could do without this fresh vision; they resent being told that whereas they thought the world was flat, it is in fact round." He argued that the Donnellys of the play "are not the cosy Mr and Mrs Everybody of Bondi that many viewers may have expected to see on their screens see and, in all honesty, be bored by. The Donnellys are closer to the truth; like all of us from time to time, they are people in trouble.... Certainly this is not a cosy picture of the neighbours. But which is better? To lie about .them or, knowing the truth about their trouble, to be glad for their sake that they emerged from it?" [18]
The play was kinescoped for Melbourne broadcast in February 1958. However, the planned Melbourne broadcast did not happen, as the kinescope recording ("telerecording") that was made of the broadcast was said to be "poor quality". The play was instead broadcast on Melbourne radio. [12]
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