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The story of theatre in Australia began in 1789 when a group of first-fleet convicts mounted a production of George Farquhar's military comedy, The Recruiting Officer, for an audience of their captors. Starting from this bizarre performance, the present collection offers a history of the Australian stage to the 1980s (some of it hardly less bizarre) told in the vivid language of the performers' contemporaries and supported by ten essays by leading theatre historians.
Ranging in its coverage from Shakespeare to vaudeville, from establishment to alternative, and from the art of the gold-boom tragedians to the problems of mounting plays in a converted factory in the 1960s, this book draws on an exhaustive search through memoirs and old reviews - much of its material representing important new discoveries about the performers and performances of our past.
A particular concern has been to illustrate the role of theatre in discovering and defining an Australian national identity, a process that began much earlier than is commonly realised.
A rich selection of pictorial documents and a comprehensive bibliography of writings about the Australian stage prior to 1980 make this the most important volume on its subject to have appeared and a resource of enormous value for the wider study of Australian social history.
This 383 page hardcover is illustrated with black and white photographs. This book is ex-library and as such has all the usual stamps and stickers, however there are no external markings. The dustjacket has some light creases, rubbing wear and indentations and there is fading to spine. The hardcover has some light shelfwear. Internally it is in a good, tight, clean condition. This is a great opportunity to pick up a copy of this hard to find book at a very cheap price.
This is a large heavy book and overseas customers should email me for a postage quote before bidding. | 
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