Ever wondered…?

By the The Constellation Team

Ever wondered why theatre companies pour so much love, sweat and caffeine into developing ‘new work’? Creative development is the messy, playful, vulnerable part of making theatre. It’s tears and fears, drafts and redrafts; script readings and inspired actors; long hours and very tired dramaturgs. It’s the place where risk sits comfortably beside failure, expectations run high, and artists are given the time and safety to try things that might crash and burn — or just might change the country.

It is vital.

The First Night (of The One Day of the Year), a new play written by Stephen Vagg, reveals the hardship, controversy and bomb threats behind staging one of Australia’s most iconic plays — a work that, in reality, almost never made it to the stage. The One Day of the Year by Alan Seymour evolved from draft to national controversy to canonical status, demonstrating why the development of new work is both artistically necessary and socially transformative.

The late 1950s Australian theatre landscape was conservative and dominated by British imports, with little infrastructure for developing new work. It was the period in which ‘Lucky Country’ rhetoric took root. ANZAC Day culture was strong, sentimental, and largely unquestioned. Johnny O’Keefe was singing ‘Shout’ and becoming Australia’s first rock star. Youth culture was stirring, class divides were more visible, and political conservatism was being subtly — and sometimes not so subtly — challenged.

Into this climate came Alan Seymour, a young writer who had read an article in Honi Soit, the University of Sydney’s student newspaper. The article described university students attempting to film drunken behaviour on ANZAC Day. It reminded Seymour of his own brother-in-law, who came home smashed every 25 April. Seymour later reflected in an interview:

‘This dichotomy, or connection, between the sombreness [of the service] and the Bacchanalian break-out fascinated me.’

To write a drama that openly questioned the sanctity of the tradition was a bold artistic act — one that could easily have ‘crashed and burned.’ Written in 1958, the play was selected by a panel of judges to open the inaugural Adelaide Festival of the Arts (1960) but was ultimately rejected for fear of offending the RSL. At a time when ANZAC commemoration was largely beyond critique, Seymour’s play was both personal — drawing on memories of his own family — and socially responsive, shaped by the generational tensions of post-war Australia. While Seymour always maintained that the play was essentially about a father–son relationship, The One Day of the Year quickly became known as ‘that play attacking the ANZACs.’

Despite the controversy, police presence and bomb threats, The Adelaide Theatre Group — an amateur company led by producer - director Jean Marshall — staged the play in Willard Hall (Wakefield Street, Adelaide, July 1960). This amateur production provided the play’s bold initial outing, while the Elizabethan Theatre Trust delivered its first professional staging in Sydney, July 1961.

Established in 1954, AETT (named to evoke the cultural renaissance of Elizabethan England) sought to build a national performing arts identity. Its Playwrights Advisory Board (PAB) played a major role in stimulating new Australian writing through its national playwriting competition, which gave rise to Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (Ray Lawler, 1955), The Torrents (Oriel Gray, 1955, joint winner), and The Slaughter of St Teresa’s Day (Peter Kenna, 1959). It was this cultural ecosystem that first propelled The One Day of the Year into public consciousness.

The play’s Sydney season (Palace Theatre) was not without its own controversy when a bomb hoax disrupted Opening Night. Seymour’s life was also threatened. Post Sydney, John Sumner directed a production for the Union Theatre Repertory Company, opening at Russell Street Theatre. Alan Seymour directed a touring production to Queensland and New South Wales; some 96 performances playing to 16,000 audience members. There was a television dramatisation (GTV-9) and a production opened at Theatre Royal, Stratford East in London (October 1961). The play had wings…

The First Night (of The One Day of the Year) stands on significant cultural ground. It embraces the long, scrappy, determined journey of Australian artists trying to seize their ‘day’ — to tell Australian stories for this lucky, unfinished country we call home, built on ancient First Nations lands and still learning how to reckon with its own history.

From pushing back against American distribution chains that strangled Australia’s first cinematic golden era, to building world-class yet culturally specific training grounds for our artists and makers, to campaigning for tax relief, government grants, local content laws and, finally, streaming quotas, the fight has always been the same: carving out room for our own stories.

And back in Willard Hall, Wakefield Street, in 1960, under the threat of bombs, protests, and death threats, that spirit was already alive — in a contentious little play performed by brave artists.

Stephen Vagg’s beautiful farce captures that spirit: chaotic, courageous, and utterly Australian.

The First Night (of the One Day of the Year) plays the Cosmos Theatre, Ad Astra, Petrie Terrace, Brisbane, December 10th, 8pm. 

Book tickets here

Photo credit to Tom Mac Photography

By the The Constellation Team

Reference

Bollen Jonathan (nd) Revisiting and Re-imaging The One Day of the Year Reading Australia https://readingaustralia.com.au/essays/revisiting-re-imagining-one-day-year/

Galloway, Paul (2015) Reading The One Day of the Year https://www.mtc.com.au/discover- more/backstage/from-the-reading-room-re-reading-the-one-day-of-the-year-by-alan-seymour/ 23 April 2015