Theatre
Daybreak
Catherine Shepherd · 1938
Synopsis
Hobart Town, 1830. Caroline and Jeanne Martel return from England after six years away to their father, Simon, a hard and devout man. Jeanne, the idealist, falls in love with Francis Gillan, an Englishman opposed to the convict system, who dreams of founding an ideal society with them; Simon has him expelled. Two servants of the household, Phoebe and Rufus, are in love and ask permission to apply for conditional release: Simon refuses, despite Jeanne, because he holds that convicts must be punished. Gillan then prepares an escape, and Jeanne joins the group.
Context
Winner of the three-act play competition of the national theatre movement in Melbourne, the play was first staged at the Theatre Royal in Hobart in 1938 by the Hobart Repertory Theatre Society, in a production by Olive Wilton, and the public radio broadcast a one-hour version of it the same year, repeated several times until 1951. The Independent Theatre staged it in Sydney in 1939, the university troupe of Adelaide in 1943, and Hobart revived it in 1954 for the 150th anniversary of Tasmania. Published in 1942, it was praised by the Sydney Morning Herald.
Who it is for
A historical play in English, in three acts, set in a single drawing room; the BnF lists no French translation of it.
Prizes and reception
For the critic Leslie Rees, the satire of a self-satisfied and inflexible authority rather than of a deliberate tyranny.
Sources for this page 3
The pages consulted to check this page.