form Burst of Summer single work   drama   radio play  
Issue Details: First known date: 1959... 1959 Burst of Summer
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Conflict erupts when white townsfolk decide to build houses and move the Indigenous residents of the 'The Flats' into them.

Adaptations

form y separately published work icon Burst of Summer Oriel Gray , Melbourne : Australian Broadcasting Commission , 1961 Z1821227 1961 single work film/TV

Production Details

  • -First performed at the Little Theatre in Sydney on 20 February 1960.

    -Performed at ABC Television Studios, Southbank, Melbourne, VIC, September 1961

    -Arts Theatre, Adelaide, SA, 15 October 1966

  • The radio play was broadcast on AR, Melbourne Sunday 24 July, 1960 at 8 p.m.
    Source: The Age July 22, 1960, p.2

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

First known date: 1959
Notes:
Manuscript copies of the play are held in both the Campbell Howard Collection, University of New England and the Fryer Library, University of Queensland.
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Plays of the 60s : Volume 1 Katharine Brisbane (editor), Sydney : Currency Press , 1998 Z1174230 1998 anthology drama (taught in 2 units)

    'This collection includes: The Well (1960) by Jack McKinney, a rustic comedy in the Steele Rudd tradition set in Queensland; Burst of Summer (1960) by Oriel Gray is a realist play dealing with racial prejudice and is based on the brief success of the Aboriginal actress Ngarla Kunoth, who played Jedda in the Chauvel film; The Season at Sarsaparilla (1962), Patrick White's poetic satire examining the inevitable cycle of birth, copulation and death; White called it a 'charade of suburbia'; and The Promised Woman by Theodore Patrikareas which had its first stage production in Sydney in 1963 and is possibly the first play by a post-war immigrant staged in Australia. The play portrays migrants adapting to their new country and finding new identities and was adapted for the screen in 1974. (1 act, 2 women)' (Publication summary)

         Sydney : Currency Press , 1998
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Works about this Work

Ten Old Australian Plays Worthy of Another Look Stephen Vagg , 2023 single work essay
— Appears in: FilmInk , 6 March 2023;
'Sun Arise' : The Appropriation of Australia’s First Peoples’ Music, 1956–1974 Bill Casey , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 42 no. 3 2018; (p. 357-373)
The Sacrifice of Oriel Gray (1920-2003) : Australian Playwright Merrilee Moss , 2016 single work biography
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 68 2016; (p. 75-96) 'Between 1943 and 1960, Australian playwright Oriel Gray had more than fourteen theatre scripts produced in almost every capital city of Australia. She was arguably the first playwright-in-residence in Australia's history and one of only a few Australian playwrights to make her living from her work. She wrote numerous radio plays for 2KY in the 1940s and many more for the then Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) in the 1950s. She was well respected and well reviewed. She won many playwriting awards, including the Wagga Wagga play competition prize in 1946 for My Life Is My Affair, the J.C. Williamson Guild competition prize in 1960 for Burst of Summer and the 1955 Playwrights Advisory Board's (PAB) prize for the best Australian play with her script The 'Torrents'.' (Publication abstract)
Voices Unheard: The Representation of Australian Aborigines by Left-Wing Playwrights 1940s-1960s Gabriela Zabala , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 60 2012; (p. 42-55)
Rattling the Manacles : Genre and Nationalism in the Neglected Plays of the Campbell Howard Collection, 1920-1955 John McCallum , 2002 single work criticism
— Appears in: 'Unemployed at Last!' : Essays on Australian Literature to 2002 for Julian Croft 2002; (p. 86-104) McCallum draws attention to a number of neglected plays of the 1920s-1950s in the Howard Collection and discusses the reasons why they were neglected unlike, for instance, the plays of Louis Esson. He argues that many of the best Campbell Howard plays didn't fit into the standard history of Australian drama. However, many skillful and professional playwrights whose scripts Howard collected were trying to write for the commercial theatre, and, a nationalist theatre lacking, wrote genre plays, "mostly realistic melodramas, thrillers and drawing room comedies" - the truly neglected Australian plays. Focussing on the sub-genres of bush realist melodrama, station dramas, family sagas, and country town comedies and dramas, McCallum's essay looks at a number of these plays, and at the interaction between genre and the goals of the nationalists.
Prize-Winning Play A. S. J. , 1960 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 9 March vol. 81 no. 4178 1960; (p. 23)
— Review of Burst of Summer Oriel Gray , 1959 single work drama radio play
Rattling the Manacles : Genre and Nationalism in the Neglected Plays of the Campbell Howard Collection, 1920-1955 John McCallum , 2002 single work criticism
— Appears in: 'Unemployed at Last!' : Essays on Australian Literature to 2002 for Julian Croft 2002; (p. 86-104) McCallum draws attention to a number of neglected plays of the 1920s-1950s in the Howard Collection and discusses the reasons why they were neglected unlike, for instance, the plays of Louis Esson. He argues that many of the best Campbell Howard plays didn't fit into the standard history of Australian drama. However, many skillful and professional playwrights whose scripts Howard collected were trying to write for the commercial theatre, and, a nationalist theatre lacking, wrote genre plays, "mostly realistic melodramas, thrillers and drawing room comedies" - the truly neglected Australian plays. Focussing on the sub-genres of bush realist melodrama, station dramas, family sagas, and country town comedies and dramas, McCallum's essay looks at a number of these plays, and at the interaction between genre and the goals of the nationalists.
Voices Unheard: The Representation of Australian Aborigines by Left-Wing Playwrights 1940s-1960s Gabriela Zabala , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 60 2012; (p. 42-55)
Thoughts on the Australian Theatre Leonard Radic , 1960 single work criticism
— Appears in: Prospect , vol. 3 no. 3 1960; (p. 17-19)
Press Reports Provide Motivation for Drama 1960 single work column
— Appears in: The Age , 22 July 1960; (p. 3)
The Sacrifice of Oriel Gray (1920-2003) : Australian Playwright Merrilee Moss , 2016 single work biography
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 68 2016; (p. 75-96) 'Between 1943 and 1960, Australian playwright Oriel Gray had more than fourteen theatre scripts produced in almost every capital city of Australia. She was arguably the first playwright-in-residence in Australia's history and one of only a few Australian playwrights to make her living from her work. She wrote numerous radio plays for 2KY in the 1940s and many more for the then Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) in the 1950s. She was well respected and well reviewed. She won many playwriting awards, including the Wagga Wagga play competition prize in 1946 for My Life Is My Affair, the J.C. Williamson Guild competition prize in 1960 for Burst of Summer and the 1955 Playwrights Advisory Board's (PAB) prize for the best Australian play with her script The 'Torrents'.' (Publication abstract)
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Awards

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Last amended 5 Feb 2018 08:50:03
Subjects:
  • Bush,
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