Australian Contemporary Drama 1909-1982: A Critical Introduction by Dennis Carroll (review)

Book Reviews 137 of the iceberg. Perhaps Joseph Papp and Ellen Stewart ought to be given copies of Wand~r's book. I plan to order it at once for our university library. ROSETTE C. LAMONT, QUEENS COLLEGE, CUNY DENNIS CARROLL Australian Contemporary Drama 1909-1982: A Critical Introduction . New York: Peter Lang 1985. Pp. viii, 271. $31.20. Dennis Carroll has set out "to introduce the non-Australian readerto the youngest mature English-language drama of the present century". Unfortunately his book does not display those qualities which Australasians generally associate with goods designed for export. The text is photo-offset from a manuscript of indifferent quality. It is cramped and full or errors - not all of them mere hterals. ("In Tomball's plays," we are told, "visual qualities receive strong valediction" - validation, I suppose, though even that sounds a bit awkward.) In addition to these downright solecisms there is an irritating degree of inconsistency in the treatment of Australianisms. It seems to have been Carroll's intention to translate them for the benefit of North American (and other) readers, but "cattle duffing", "primaries" (nothing to do with presidential elections), "boong", "the University of W.A.", "N.I.D.A." and numerous other expressions remain unglossed. This book provides conclusive proof that there is still something to be said in favour of that much-maligned species, publishers' editors. Carroll's arrangement of his material is also open to criticism. The book is split into eleven chapters, each devoted to a group of authors whom Carroll associates with some prominent "ism" in world theatre - symbolism, expressionism, surrealism, social realism, absurdism, etc. TIris approach creates several problems. First, it sometimes gets in the way of chronology. especially in the latter stages. Several of the groups belong to that post-1967 renaissance of theatrical activity in Australia which Carroll refers to as the New Wave. The New Wave is alluded to frequently (in connection with Alexander Buzo and David Williamson) in chapters nine and ten, but it is not defined until chapter eleven, when Carroll backtracks to discuss two mainstays of the movement, John Romeril and Jack Hibberd. A second problem posed by Carroll's approach is that - as he himself admits from time to time - several of the dramatists in question resist grouping. For example, Buzo, Thomas Kenneally, and Bill Reed constitute a fairly heterogeneous trio of absurdists. Kenneally looks particularly out of place in this category. Another problem is the whiff of factitiousness which clings to some of Carroll's "isms". Forexample, as well as straight realism (Ray Lawler, Richard Beynon and Alan Seymour) there is social realism (George Landen Dann, Dymphna Cusack and Sumner Locke-Elliott) and "alienated"realism (Hal Porter, PeterKenna and David Williamson). Carroll has obviously had to work hard to find enough "isms" to go around. Book Reviews More important, by tying the Australian scene to European and American models, Carroll has forfeited a proper sense of perspective. Few commentators would rate Sydney Tombolt, EJ. Rupert Atkinson, and Hugh McCrae as highly as Patrick White and Dorothy Hewett, or Romeril and Hibberd, and yet Carroll treats each group in the same way at much the same length. Critics like Katherine Brisbane (in the Penguin Literature ofAustralia), Peter Fitzpatrick (in After 'The Doll' .. Australian Drama Since 1955) and Terry Stunn (in The Oxford History ofAustralian Literature) adopt a more flexible approach, which allows the highlights to stand out in bold relief. (They are also less fussed about the different types of realism mentioned in my last paragraph.) Anyway. there is surely something close to a contradiction involved in the attempt to define a "mature" specimen by means of exotic formulae. If Australian drama mere1y replicates the "isms" found elsewhere it has presumably not progressed beyond childish imitation. (Of course, the biological metaphor on which Carroll hangs his story is a nonsense; it implies that future playwrights can aspire only to middle-age and senility.) It is perhaps almost too late to say it, but Carroll's book is not all dross. The problems lie in the presentation; the content is often worthwhile. Carron has put in a lot of hard work. He has personally interviewed most of...