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y separately published work icon Rusty Bugles single work   drama   war literature   - Two acts
Issue Details: First known date: 1948... 1948 Rusty Bugles
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Adaptations

form y separately published work icon Rusty Bugles John Warwick , 1964 (Manuscript version)11649998 11649990 1964 single work film/TV war literature Adapted for television from Sumner Locke Elliot's play, Rusty Bugles is set in an ordinance camp in the Northern Territory in 1944. The men are neither in nor out of the war. A cross section of Australian soldiers go through boredom, the news of infidelities at home, endless hope for leave - all coloured by unquenchable humour and optimism.
form y separately published work icon Rusty Bugles Alan Burke , ( dir. John Matthews ) 1980 Australia : ABC Television , 1980 Z1585695 1980 single work film/TV Adapted by Alan Burke from Sumner Locke Elliott's play and possibly influenced by the 1965 ABC television version that Burke directed, Rusty Bugles is set in an ordinance camp in the Northern Territory in 1944. The men are neither in nor out of the war. A cross-section of Australian soldiers experience boredom, the news of infidelities at home, endless hope for leave, all coloured by unquenchable humour and optimism.

Notes

  • The play was controversial because of its strong language and was subject to censorship restrictions.
  • There are several different manuscripts extant of Rusty Bugles.

Production Details

  • Rusty Bugles began its stage life at a reading held at the Independent Theatre, Sydney, 4 July 1948.
  • First produced at the Independent Theatre, Sydney, 21 October 1948. Producer: Doris Fitton.
  • Produced at the King's Theatre, Melbourne, April 1949.
  • Two year Australian tour with the Independent Theatre and a season in New Zealand.
  • Performances in Brisbane commencing 31 July 1952 at His Majesty's Theatre.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

      1948 .
      Extent: 58 leavesp.
      Description: Typescript (photocopy).
      (Manuscript) assertion

      Holdings

      Held at: University of Queensland University of Queensland Library Fryer Library
      Location: Hanger Collection
      Local Id: H1032B
      1948 .
      Extent: 61 leavesp.
      Description: Typescript with ms. stage directions (photocopy).
      (Manuscript) assertion

      Holdings

      Held at: University of Queensland University of Queensland Library Fryer Library
      Location: Hanger Collection
      Local Id: H1032C
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Khaki, Bush and Bigotry : Three Australian Plays Three Australian Plays J. P. McKinney , Ray Mathew , Sumner Locke Elliott , Eunice Hanger (editor), Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press , 1968 Z276465 1968 selected work drama St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1968 pg. 24-105
    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Currency Press , 1980 .
      image of person or book cover 116293334002406205.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: xxxiii, 93p.p.
      Edition info: Revised ed.
      Description: illus., ports
      Note/s:
      • Introduced by Doris Fitton (q.v.) with an essay on the stage history of the play.
      • 'This published edition has been prepared from the 1948 typewritten prompt script held by the Mitchell Library, Sydney from the collection of records of the Independent Theatre Company. The first nineteen pages of this original are missing (to page 29 in this edition) and have been replaced by an unmarked typescript, identical with the version used by the University of Queensland Press in its 1968 publication.' Rusty Bugles (1980)
      ISBN: 0868190306
      Series: Currency Plays Currency Press (publisher), series - publisher
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Other Formats

  • Also sound recording.
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Works about this Work

On Not Having Sex : Sumner Locke Elliott and Queer History Ellen Smith , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , 19 December vol. 34 no. 2 2020;

'This essay argues that we need ways to read unexpressed queer desire and the absence of sex in writing by gay authors that don’t fall back on the trope of the closet. It makes this argument through pairing Sumner Locke Elliott’s 1948 play Rusty Bugles with his 1990 ‘coming out’ novel Fairyland, two texts that draw upon Elliott’s time at an ordinance depot during the Second World War. Elliott’s work has often been read as out of step with the politics of gay liberation. However I will argue that both these texts reflect upon the queer potential of not having sex. In Elliott’s writings about the Second World War the structured sexual abstinence of the ordinance depot provides his protagonists with an escape from the burden of homosexual identity in the twentieth century and allows for new modes of queer intimacy and exchange.' (Publication abstract)
Theatre Animals : Sumner Locke Elliott's Invisible Circus Anne Pender , 2016 single work biography
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 68 2016; (p. 34) 'Sumner Locke Elliott is remembered in Australia primarily for his novels and their popular screen adaptations. He is also known for his play 'Rusty Bugles' first produced in 1948. In the USA, he is know for his television writing. In spite of Locke Elliott's immense achievements as a writer who successfully wrote in so many genres and quickly adapted his craft to the rapidly expanding medium of television, there is little scholarship about his contribution to drama on stage, radio or television, with the exception of commentary on Rusty Bugles. Moreover the network in which he worked from 1934 until 1948 has also suffered critical neglect.' (Publication summary)
'But Even Memory Is Fiction' : The (Fictional) Life and (Self ) Writing of Sumner Locke Elliott Shaun Bell , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 75 no. 2 2016; (p. 172-192) 'Shaun Bell recuperates Lock-Elliott from his common status as footnote or aside in accounts of literary networks, to identify common figures and set pirces across his oeuvre, as a ways of reading of his 'construction of self through nostalgia, art and life.' (Editorial, 7)
Speaking ‘Orstyrlian’ in Rusty Bugles Julian Meyrick , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Conversation , 30 November 2016; 'Rusty Bugles is a comedy-drama by Sumner Locke Elliot, one of the many talented writers to abandon Australia in the 1940s and 1950s in search of an artistic living overseas. ...'
Worlds Within : Hayes Gordon, Zika Nester, Henri Szeps and the Transformations of Australian Theatre Anne Pender , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 15 no. 3 2015; 'This essay examines the lives and work of three important Australian actors, Hayes Gordon, Zika Nester and Henri Szeps. It explores their contribution to theatre in Australia in the context of Vilahsini Cooppan’s ‘politics of relationality’, in which the national and the global are ‘dual ideas held in balance’. The extraordinary work of Gordon, Nester and Szeps shows a direct connection between individual imagination and lived experience, and that of the nation in the post-imperial period. Each of the three actors have brought a unique understanding of Stanislavsky to the Australian theatre and have contributed to making the Ensemble Theatre in Sydney the most successful independent theatre in Australia over more than half a century.' (Publication abstract)
Books Graham Scott , 1980 single work review
— Appears in: AYPAA Lowdown , vol. 2 no. 4 1980; (p. 36)
— Review of Boy's Own McBeth : A Really Rotten Tragedy Grahame Bond , Jim Burnett , 1979 single work musical theatre ; And Here Comes ... Bucknuckle : The Story of a Racehorse and a Sequel to And the Big Men Fly Alan Hopgood , 1980 single work drama ; Rusty Bugles Sumner Locke Elliott , 1948 single work drama
[Review] Gentleman George [et al] Elizabeth Perkins , 1980 single work review
— Appears in: LiNQ , vol. 8 no. 2 1980; (p. 100-105)
— Review of Gentleman George - King of Melodrama : The Theatrical Life and Times of George Darrell 1841-1921 Eric Irvin , 1980 single work biography ; Rusty Bugles Sumner Locke Elliott , 1948 single work drama ; Visions Louis Nowra , 1978 single work drama ; Lamb of God John Summons , 1979 single work drama ; Travelling North David Williamson , 1978 single work drama ; Three Political Plays 1980 anthology drama ; The Great God Mogadon Barry Oakley , 1980 single work radio play
Untitled A. K. Stout , 1964 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Quarterly , December vol. 36 no. 4 1964; (p. 127-128)
— Review of Rusty Bugles Sumner Locke Elliott , 1948 single work drama
Anouilh B. Tivey , 1964 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 12 September vol. 86 no. 4412 1964; (p. 48)
— Review of Rusty Bugles Sumner Locke Elliott , 1948 single work drama
Trusty Bugles Brek , 1964 single work review
— Appears in: Nation , 5 September 1964; (p. 19)
— Review of Rusty Bugles Sumner Locke Elliott , 1948 single work drama
Remembering Masculinities in the Theatre of War Jonathan Bollen , 2005 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 46 2005; (p. 3-19) Surveys post-war theatrical productions of plays which articulate men's experiences at war and back home. '...this article explores the propagation of gender anxieties in performance during the post-war period of suburban expansion. In contrast with more recent productions which have sought to celebrate the survival, ingenuity and achievements of Australian men at war, productions from the post-war period were less overtly nationalistic and less assertively masculinist. ... post-war productions celebrated less the heroism of men at war than the nostalgia of their returning home' (3).
y separately published work icon [Conversation with Sumner Locke Elliott] Hazel de Berg (interviewer), 1970 Z1294207 1970 single work interview Locke Elliott speaks of his studies; his family; about writing one act plays; his decision to become a writer and not an actor; his return to Australia in 1950; writing Rusty Bugles; writing in New York (late 1950s) for television; the changing role of the television writer; his first novel Careful He Might Hear You and the ensuing success.
Peter Yeldham's Reunion Day : An Anzac Day Play on British Television Susan Lever , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , no. 9 2009; 'Though a few naturalist plays from the 1950s and 1960s are acknowledged in Australian drama history, the plays written for television by Australians who went to Britain and America have disappeared from consideration. This article discusses one of them, Peter Yeldham's Reunion Day as an example of the naturalism current in British television in the early 1960s. It discusses the play's deliberate restraint and depiction of 'ordinary' people. It also places the play in the context of other Australian plays that use Anzac Day or the veteran's reunion as subject matter. A copy of the screenplay is appended.'
Sumner Locke Elliott Candida Baker (interviewer), 1987 single work biography interview
— Appears in: Yacker 2 : Australian Writers Talk About Their Work 1987; (p. 42-70)
Blowing Rusty Bugles : The War and Territory Writing Mickey Dewar , 1995 single work criticism
— Appears in: Northern Perspective , Wet Season vol. 18 no. 2 1995; (p. 65-73)
VIEW ALL WORKS ABOUT (30)
Last amended 28 Mar 2019 12:03:35
Subjects:
  • Bush,
  • Northern Territory,
Settings:
  • 1940s
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