Daybreak (play)

Daybreak is a 1938 Australian play by Catherine Shepherd.[2] [3]

Daybreak
Written byCatherine Shepherd
CharactersSimon Martel
Caroline Martel
Jeanne Martel
Mrs Carmichael
Francis Gillan
Captain North
Lt Prideaux
Phoebe Moon
Rufus Blainey
Mrs Turner
Mrs Moss
Ellen
Beam
Date premieredAugust, 1938[1]
Place premieredTheatre Royal, Hobart
Original languageEnglish
SubjectHobart
Genredrama
SettingColonial Hobart

It won the Melbourne National Theatre Movement’s Australia-wide three-act play competition, and is on the Playwrights’ Advisory Board’s list of recommended plays. [4]

The play was published in 1942 at a time when that was rare for Australian plays. It was one of the most successful plays to come from a Tasmanian author.[5][6]

Leslie Rees wrote of the play in his history of Australian drama, calling it "Catherine Shepherd’s most considerable “Australian” drama... Perhaps Daybreak lacks the scope of a “full-length” play and has a certain starchiness, along with its fine feeling, but is a worthy conception, a criticism of smug inflexible authority rather than of deliberate tyranny."[7]

One critic felt it was "heavily indebted" to The Barretts of Wimpole Street.[8]

Adaptations

The play was adapted into a 60 minute version for radio in 1938 (as part of the ABC's Australian Radio Drama Week[9]), 1939, 1940,[10] 1944 (when it was the first play broadcast by the ABC from Newcastle[11] 1948 and 1951.[12]

Premise

In colonial Hobart, harsh Simon Martel is the father of two girls, Caroline and Jeanne. They revolt against him and Jeanne runs off with an English idealist man called Francis, who is determined to build a utopia with some convicts. Francis dies and Simon is killed by a convict.[13]

References
  1. "Good Play Well Produced". The Mercury. Vol. CXLIX, no. 21, 117. Tasmania, Australia. 1 August 1938. p. 5. Retrieved 24 July 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  2. "The Drama in Ausctralia". The West Australian. Vol. 55, no. 16, 553. Western Australia. 22 July 1939. p. 5. Retrieved 24 July 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. Australian Broadcasting Commission. (1939), "Plays of the Air— CATHERINE SHEPHERD", ABC weekly, Sydney: ABC (Vol. 2 No. 22 (1 June 1940)), nla.obj-1370701369, retrieved 5 September 2023 – via Trove
  4. Australasian Radio Relay League., "PLAYWRIGHTS OF AUSTRALIA FLAIR FOR CHARACTER STUDY", The wireless weekly : the hundred per cent Australian radio journal, Sydney: Wireless Press (Vol. 35 No. 30 (July 27, 1940)), nla.obj-720049308, retrieved 5 September 2023 – via Trove
  5. ""Oliv[?]" Looks at Life Topics of the Moment from a Woman's Point of View". The Mercury. Vol. CLXVI, no. 24, 010. Tasmania, Australia. 20 November 1947. p. 10. Retrieved 24 July 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. "Play on Tasmania Well Received". The Mercury. Vol. CLXXIV, no. 25, 942. Tasmania, Australia. 15 February 1954. p. 6. Retrieved 24 July 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  7. Rees, Leslie (1953). Towards an Australian Drama. p. 117.
  8. Australasian Radio Relay League., "Between You and Me and the Microphone THEY CUT HIS HAIR", The wireless weekly : the hundred per cent Australian radio journal, Sydney: Wireless Press (Vol. 31 No. 22 (June 3, 1938)), nla.obj-714445799, retrieved 5 September 2023 – via Trove
  9. Australasian Radio Relay League., "AUSTRALIAN RADIO DRAMA WEEK Commissions Festival —May 8-15", The wireless weekly : the hundred per cent Australian radio journal, Sydney: Wireless Press (Vol. 31 No. 17 (April 29, 1938)), nla.obj-714357728, retrieved 5 September 2023 – via Trove
  10. Australian Broadcasting Commission. (1939), "Plays of the Air — Catherine Shepherd", ABC weekly, Sydney: ABC (Vol. 2 No. 22 (1 June 1940)), nla.obj-1370701369, retrieved 24 July 2023 – via Trove
  11. Australian Broadcasting Commission. (1939), ABC weekly, Sydney: ABC, nla.obj-1310765389, retrieved 5 September 2023 – via Trove
  12. Australian Broadcasting Commission. (1939), "A.B.C. Radio Plays", ABC weekly, Sydney: ABC (Vol. 13 No. 1 (6 January 1951)), nla.obj-1436677666, retrieved 5 September 2023 – via Trove
  13. "Repertory Play". The Mercury. Vol. CXLIX, no. 21, 118. Tasmania, Australia. 2 August 1938. p. 2. Retrieved 24 July 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
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