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Issue Details: First known date: 2021... 2021 Patrick White's Theatre : Australian Modernism on Stage, 1960-2018
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'One of the giants of Australian literature and the only Australian writer to have won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Patrick White received less acclaim when he turned his hand to playwriting.

'In Patrick White’s Theatre, Denise Varney offers a new analysis of White’s eight published plays, discussing how they have been staged and received over a period of 60 years. From the sensational rejection of The Ham Funeral by the Adelaide Festival in 1962 to 21st-century revivals incorporating digital technology, these productions and their reception illustrate the major shifts that have taken place in Australian theatre over time. Varney unpacks White’s complex and unique theatrical imagination, the social issues that preoccupied him as a playwright, and his place in the wider Australian modernist and theatrical traditions.'

Source: Abstract.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

Review : Patrick White's Theatre : Australian Modernism on Stage, 1960-2018 Stephen Carleton , 2024 single work review
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 84 2024; (p. 342-348)

— Review of Patrick White's Theatre : Australian Modernism on Stage, 1960-2018 Denise Varney , 2021 multi chapter work criticism
'David Marr’s Patrick White: A Life was one of those foundational, al-most talismanic, books for me. I discovered White in the first year of my Drama major at university, and that book was the go-to resource. It followed me everywhere after graduation and beyond. Emerging playwrights didn’t have mentorships available to them in any formal sense in those days, and Marr’s tome stood in for the playwriting el-der I needed. The cover of the book has candlewax, red wine glass stains, coffee cup marks and cockroach poo over it from sitting on bedside tables in share houses in Melbourne, then Darwin, then Bris-bane. It is deeply used, and deeply cherished.' (Introduction)
Patrick White’s Theatre: Australian Modernism on Stage, 1960–2018 by Denise Varney (review) Anne Pender , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: Modern Drama , September vol. 65 no. 3 2022; (p. 466-469)

— Review of Patrick White's Theatre : Australian Modernism on Stage, 1960-2018 Denise Varney , 2021 multi chapter work criticism

'Patrick White’s literary reputation has been built largely on his achievements as a novelist. But the Nobel Prize winner and author of twelve novels, several collections of short stories, and a memoir wrote for the theatre throughout his life, and he began his career writing short plays. He enjoyed the theatre from a young age, when his mother took him to see plays in Sydney during the 1920s. White’s love of the theatre extended later in life to the generous patronage of several celebrated Australian actors, including Max Cullen, Kate Fitzpatrick, Robyn Nevin, and Kerry Walker. White’s friend from his London days, the actor Ronald Waters, said that White wanted to write “one great play more than all the novels”'  (Introduction)

Patrick White the Playwright Nicholas Duddy , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: TEXT : Journal of the Australian Association of Writing Programs , vol. 26 no. 1 2022;

— Review of Patrick White's Theatre : Australian Modernism on Stage, 1960-2018 Denise Varney , 2021 multi chapter work criticism
'Australian critics have lamented Patrick White’s disappearance from our literary culture in recent years. While the legend of the man remains – the man who refused a knighthood, the man who used his Australian of the Year speech to declare that Australia Day is for ‘self- searching rather than trumpet-blowing’, the man whose prose, a chapter from The Eye of the Storm (1973), submitted under the anagrammatic name ‘Wraith Picket’, was rejected by agents and publishers in a 2006 literary hoax by The Australian – so does the question of his legacy: does anybody still read White? Christos Tsiolkas (2018) admits feeling ‘ashamed’ for not engaging with ‘arguably the most eminent of Australian writers’ earlier in his life. Describing how his ornate style bewildered our nation of ‘plain-speaking larrikins,’ Madeleine Watts (2019) concludes ‘it would seem, in the end, that nobody could be bothered with Patrick White.’ Cultural cringe, identity politics, impenetrable style – many ponder why White, who felt Australia ‘in my blood’ but also acknowledged ‘at heart I am a Londoner’, has struggled for survival among our nation’s readership (Marr, 1994, p. 419). Despite offering different reasons, critics appear to have reached at least one in Martin Thomas’s (2021) words, ‘a Great Unread’. And this is to say nothing of his drama.' (Introduction)
Untimely Theatrics : A New Study of Patrick White's Drama Jonathan Dunk , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , January–February no. 439 2022; (p. 42-43)

— Review of Patrick White's Theatre : Australian Modernism on Stage, 1960-2018 Denise Varney , 2021 multi chapter work criticism
Untimely Theatrics : A New Study of Patrick White's Drama Jonathan Dunk , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , January–February no. 439 2022; (p. 42-43)

— Review of Patrick White's Theatre : Australian Modernism on Stage, 1960-2018 Denise Varney , 2021 multi chapter work criticism
Patrick White the Playwright Nicholas Duddy , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: TEXT : Journal of the Australian Association of Writing Programs , vol. 26 no. 1 2022;

— Review of Patrick White's Theatre : Australian Modernism on Stage, 1960-2018 Denise Varney , 2021 multi chapter work criticism
'Australian critics have lamented Patrick White’s disappearance from our literary culture in recent years. While the legend of the man remains – the man who refused a knighthood, the man who used his Australian of the Year speech to declare that Australia Day is for ‘self- searching rather than trumpet-blowing’, the man whose prose, a chapter from The Eye of the Storm (1973), submitted under the anagrammatic name ‘Wraith Picket’, was rejected by agents and publishers in a 2006 literary hoax by The Australian – so does the question of his legacy: does anybody still read White? Christos Tsiolkas (2018) admits feeling ‘ashamed’ for not engaging with ‘arguably the most eminent of Australian writers’ earlier in his life. Describing how his ornate style bewildered our nation of ‘plain-speaking larrikins,’ Madeleine Watts (2019) concludes ‘it would seem, in the end, that nobody could be bothered with Patrick White.’ Cultural cringe, identity politics, impenetrable style – many ponder why White, who felt Australia ‘in my blood’ but also acknowledged ‘at heart I am a Londoner’, has struggled for survival among our nation’s readership (Marr, 1994, p. 419). Despite offering different reasons, critics appear to have reached at least one in Martin Thomas’s (2021) words, ‘a Great Unread’. And this is to say nothing of his drama.' (Introduction)
Patrick White’s Theatre: Australian Modernism on Stage, 1960–2018 by Denise Varney (review) Anne Pender , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: Modern Drama , September vol. 65 no. 3 2022; (p. 466-469)

— Review of Patrick White's Theatre : Australian Modernism on Stage, 1960-2018 Denise Varney , 2021 multi chapter work criticism

'Patrick White’s literary reputation has been built largely on his achievements as a novelist. But the Nobel Prize winner and author of twelve novels, several collections of short stories, and a memoir wrote for the theatre throughout his life, and he began his career writing short plays. He enjoyed the theatre from a young age, when his mother took him to see plays in Sydney during the 1920s. White’s love of the theatre extended later in life to the generous patronage of several celebrated Australian actors, including Max Cullen, Kate Fitzpatrick, Robyn Nevin, and Kerry Walker. White’s friend from his London days, the actor Ronald Waters, said that White wanted to write “one great play more than all the novels”'  (Introduction)

Review : Patrick White's Theatre : Australian Modernism on Stage, 1960-2018 Stephen Carleton , 2024 single work review
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 84 2024; (p. 342-348)

— Review of Patrick White's Theatre : Australian Modernism on Stage, 1960-2018 Denise Varney , 2021 multi chapter work criticism
'David Marr’s Patrick White: A Life was one of those foundational, al-most talismanic, books for me. I discovered White in the first year of my Drama major at university, and that book was the go-to resource. It followed me everywhere after graduation and beyond. Emerging playwrights didn’t have mentorships available to them in any formal sense in those days, and Marr’s tome stood in for the playwriting el-der I needed. The cover of the book has candlewax, red wine glass stains, coffee cup marks and cockroach poo over it from sitting on bedside tables in share houses in Melbourne, then Darwin, then Bris-bane. It is deeply used, and deeply cherished.' (Introduction)
Last amended 27 Apr 2021 14:02:42
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