Cirrus@Austlit

Author's Preface: ...This is the first time an acting version of Ned Kelly has been published, but by no means the first time such a version has been made. The original being far too long for the normal two and a half hours one can have on the stage -and of course still further beyond the reach of the hour and a half which is the most one can steal from the radio-it has had to be cut for every production.

In making this present version for the first professional stage production in Australia, by the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust, I have had the advantage of many practical suggestions from Mr Hugh Hunt and Mr John Sumner. There is some re-writing in it; and the cuts, while substantially the same as those in earlier adaptations, give, I think much the clearest track yet through the long and sometimes tortuous course of the original.

While I should like this version to be used in any future production, I should still prefer the full text to be used if the play is reprinted at any time for what literary interest it may have; retaining, however, the present ending, which I trust is the ending to end all endings....D.A.S.