Cirrus@Austlit

According to contemporary newspaper reports:

The name of her long stage drama analysed, works down to the fact that there is no armour strong enough to fight destiny. In this case it applies to persons of roving nature being compelled to "stay put," on a New South Wales station property through love, or legacy.

Source:

E.C. 'They Like Comedies', Telegraph, 15 July 1939, p.20.

Monica Sefton has worked out the perfect murder, and once she finishes her crime play she is certain to be famous. But she doesn't count on her manuscript mysteriously disappearing, or on the sudden appearance of a stray black cat. These omens mark the beginning of events Monica never imagined—a real murder case where she is the key suspect.

Characters

BILL SEFTON A journalist

MONICA his wife (also a writer)

MRS. IDAMAE LAMPREY their landlady

DR. GILBERT NORTON a neighbour

SYLVIA MEADE (hat and gloves)

ANDREW MEADE (thin, untidy man in his mid-thirties, fellow journalist to BILL)

DETECTIVE DENNIS MARSH

CONSTABLE POGSON

CHIEF INSPECTOR WILLIAM BURKE (fifties, formal)

CORPSE (non-acting)

CAT (soft toy)

Described by contemporary newspapers as 'a play in verse expressive of the feelings and reflections of a young soldier travelling in a troop-train which passes, en route, through town ships and scenes familiar to him: in everyday life. The lines of the choruses, as rendered onomatopoetically'.

Source:

'A Radio Play', West Australian, 17 March 1945, p.3.

'Set in the staff room of an all-girl school, 'Morning Sacrifice' interrogates the stifling sexual morality of post-War Australia. The all female cast are divided by the conflict between a waning Victorian sensibility and the sexual freedom of the coming age.

'The play is a powerful critique of how women’s sexuality was controlled by law, and hostility between women formed a barrier to emancipation.'

(Source: publisher's blurb)