Australian Theatre, Modernism and Patrick White
Governing Culture
The story of the rejection of two Patrick White plays by the Adelaide Festival of Arts in the early 1960s.
'This timely book emphasizes the vitality of Patrick White's plays and his contribution to current Australian theatre. Although White's 1973 Nobel Prize was for his novels, Denise Varney and Sandra D'Urso present a compelling and detailed case for the drama's enduring status. Their thoughtful exploration of the 1960s rejection of White's drama reveals a radical challenge to types of modernist governance and sovereignty including the Australian separation from British culture.' — Peta Tait FAHA, Emeritus Professor, Theatre and Drama, HUSS, La Trobe University, Australia
'Australian Theatre, Modernism and Patrick White details the rejection of two Patrick White plays — The Ham Funeral and Night on Bald Mountain.' — by the Adelaide Festival of Arts in Australia in the early 1960s
Denise Varney is professor of theatre studies and co-director of the Australian Centre in the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, Australia. She publishes on Australian theatre, feminist and women’s theatre, theatrical modernism, and theatre and ecology.
Sandra D’Urso holds a PhD in performance studies and is currently a researcher at the Australian Centre in the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, Australia. D’Urso has published in the areas of theatre and politics, performance art in the twenty-first century, Australian aesthetic modernism and the plays of Patrick White, as well as in contemporary Australian poetry.