Men Without Wives is a 1938 Australian stage play by Henrietta Drake-Brockman. It was her best known play.[1][2]
| Men Without Wives | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Henrietta Drake-Brockman |
| Date premiered | April 30, 1938 |
| Place premiered | Sydney Players Club, St James Hall, Sydney |
| Original language | English |
| Subject | male-female relationships |
| Genre | drama |
| Setting | A remote north Queensland cattle station |
It won first prize in a 1938 playwriting competition held to celebrate the New South Wales Sesquicentenary.[3]
The Sydney Morning Herald said the play has "a passionate sincerity and an earnest conviction which outweigh the inconsistencies and flimsiness of its development und the artificiality of its construction... a not insignificant monument to the dauntless and magnificent courage of the woman outback."[4]
Leslie Rees said "it had atmospheric cogency and hard unflinching truths, but the best of it was the character of Ma Bates, a horsey, betrousered, tough-living, genuine nor’-wester, a splendid study, who should have dominated the play from the beginning, instead of merely from the second act. Better construction would have made of Men Without Wives an important and memorable drama."[5]
The play was published in a collection of her plays which also included Dampier's Ghost.
Adaptations
editThe play was adapted for radio in 1948.[6]
References
edit- ^ "Woman's Play Tells of Men Without Wives". The Australian Women's Weekly. Vol. 5, no. 40. Australia, Australia. 12 March 1938. p. 12. Retrieved 7 September 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ Peter Cowan, 'Drake-Brockman, Geoffrey (1885–1977)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/drake-brockman-geoffrey-10047/text17719, published first in hardcopy 1996, accessed online 7 September 2023.
- ^ "Henrietta Drake-Brockman". The Sun. No. 1826. New South Wales, Australia. 27 March 1938. p. 3 (Supplement to the Sunday Sun and Guardian Magazine). Retrieved 7 September 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ "Winning Play". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 31, 304. New South Wales, Australia. 2 May 1938. p. 9. Retrieved 7 September 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ Rees, Leslie (1953). Towards An Australian Drama. p. 120.
- ^ "New South Wales Commercial Programmes", ABC Weekly, 10 (41), Sydney, 9 October 1948, retrieved 7 September 2023 – via Trove
External links
edit- Men Without Wives at AustLit
- Part One of Play at Sydney Mail
- Part Two of Play
- Part Three of Play
- Part Four of Play