THE SHAPING OF A THEATRE

As the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel said, “those who don't know the past are bound to repeat it”. A great body of Australian drama has been written in the last two centuries, but the repertoire of Australian plays is still relatively small, partly because the dramatic canon is rarely revived. Theatres have instead been encouraged by audiences and funding bodies constantly to renew themselves. This has led to a tendency to stage a catalogue of productions without any sense of the traditions to which the plays belonged, or the larger context in which they were written. Australian drama has kept re-inventing itself without forging a theatrical culture.

But before there is a repertoire there has to be a tradition. First of all, Australian theatre had to be invented. The task of chronicling a country, a psyche, an identity from an apparent tabula rasa was an intimidating one, as the poet Judith Wright points out. She also argues that the perception of living in an "upside-down hut" caused a sense of disconnection which stifled creative development through "death by apathy". That the language of drama was that of British and American theatre did not help the feeling of inferiority from which the phrase "cultural cringe" was coined. This inherent suspicion of inadequacy is brilliantly satirised in David Williamson's Don's Party: "[My prick] isn't small. I just think it is."