The Season at Sarsaparilla

THE SEASON AT SARSAPARILLA (1962)

John Brack, The Bar (1954)

“And the dogs… The dogs have never really stopped barking in anybody’s mind.”

The Season at Sarsaparilla: A Charade of Suburbia in Two Acts

Plot: Three families living side by side in suburbia: the affluent middle-class, the upwardly mobile, and the solidly working. Through the eyes of working class Nola Boyle and her husband Ernie, fashionable wife Girlie Pogson, their children – imitating adults in their quest for maturity – and the disheartened writer Roy Child, we witness these figures working through an eternal cycle: conformity and mediocrity against hope and individuality.

Editions: First published in paperback by Currency Press (1984) in association with State Theatre Company of South Australia. Published again by Currency Press in 2019.

First collected in Four Plays, aka Collected Plays, Vol. 1 (E&S, Viking, Sun Books, Currency). Translated by Curt and Maria Prerauer into German but reportedly never published.

History: PW wrote this while suffering from fever during the winter of ’61. He was motivated by the cold response he was receiving from theatre companies as he attempted to sell his play The Ham Funeral, as well as an ongoing feeling that Australia was not warming to his novels despite rapturous praise overseas. (It should be noted some Australian critics and readers fully recognised his genius by this point.) As opposed to Ham, which was written and set in the UK: “This one is purely Australian, and at the same time has burst right out of the prescribed four walls of Australian social realism”.

Notes: The Season at Sarsaparilla was written at the height of PW’s 1960s fascination with suburbia. May-Brit Akerholt sees the play as being a “strong indictment of the stultification of initiative, individuality and talent in our contemporary society” where “individualism and initiative are rejected, even feared”. Here, PW explicitly compares the classes of suburbia, showing how individual growth is hampered by a repressive culture which ultimately leads to a negative outcome for all involved. The repression of individuality here, from Roy’s artistry (and potential homosexuality?), Nola’s lust, and young Pippy’s discovery of both herself and her sexual maturity, leads to characters succumbing to whatever satisfaction they can find, as in Nola’s affair with her husband’s old friend Rowley. Ultimately, the “season” of the title – the time in which a dog is in heat – is cyclical. The play overtly suggests that, just like nature, humans enact a cycle, and this cycle will continue. This denial of sexuality features constantly in the works of this era, from the short stories to The Vivisector, although PW evolves a more open, life-affirming view of sexuality in his later works. Just as importantly, the bourgeois adults’ clear lack of comfort with local vernacular (“bitch” is not appropriate, we’re told; it should be “female dog”) shows their ill-at-ease nature with the ordinary person, with the life of an authentic Australian as opposed to a transplanted colonial Brit.

As in The Ham Funeral, we have a young man who witnesses the action and is our narrative introduction into the world, literally stepping outside of the proscenium arch for some of his monologues. Roy is less optimistic than the Young Man of Ham.

Critics were divided on the melding of modes and styles, a trait that PW came to utilise with increased frequency. The play is filled with rapid transitions between humour and darkness, and a playful intermingling of naturalism and non-realist modes of representation. Moments of stylised thought burst out of the characters, suggesting that most of us possess the extraordinary if only we can locate it inside our ordinary selves. While the initial production was staged and designed naturalistically wherever possible, later revivals played up the symbolist elements in their staging.

By the time Season was completed, the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild was staging The Ham Funeral. As a result, PW offered them the first opportunity to produce Season. John Tasker, PW’s favourite director at the time, was given the reins, although the pair’s relationship became more fractious this time around due to their differing visions of how to realise the script. With its stage set immediately recalling the ironies and deceptions of suburbia, and the script veering between modes, the play demanded a critical response, whether positive or negative. Noted theatre critic Harry Kippax called The Season at Sarsaparilla the best play ever written by an Australian (up to that point) excepting Ray Lawler’s Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.

The production sold out in Adelaide immediately, making a tidy profit. It had full houses in Melbourne too, where John Sumner directed it for the Union Theatre Repertory (which would subsequently become the Melbourne Theatre Company). When the play opened in Sydney in 1963, it received negative reviews, largely on moralistic grounds – continuing the tradition of Sydney audiences being less receptive to their native son than the other states.

Season was chosen for the Mermaid Theatre in Blackfriars, London, for the 1964 season, which would have been PW’s first production overseas in more than 15 years. It was cancelled close to the start of rehearsals, reportedly due to concerns over the “indecency” of the text.

Between 1967 and 1975 there were no major productions of PW’s plays. In 1976, Season broke the drought. PW had vetoed any revivals of his plays (not that there had been much interest!), so when Season was proposed at the Old Tote Theatre Company, Sydney, director Jim Sharman had to call PW personally and convince him that he was the man for the job. With a cast including PW favourites Robyn Nevin and Kate Fitzpatrick, the revival cemented the critical fortunes of this play, which is now considered his most iconic theatrical work, and has remained in fashion.

Also premièred in 1962: Edward Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; Albert Camus, Requiem for a Nun; Eugene Ionesco, Exit the King; Stephen Sondheim, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

Major productions:

University of Adelaide Theatre Guild – Adelaide: Union Hall – 14-22 Sep 1962

Dir: John Tasker, design: Desmond Digby, costumes: Pamela Prior and Antonio Grebneff

With Zoe Caldwell (Nola), Leslie Dayman (Rowley), Hedley Cullen (Mr Erbage), Wayne Anthoney (Harry), Morna Jones (Mavis), Terry Stapleton (Roy), John Haynes (Clive), Carmel Millhouse (Girlie Pogson), Barbara West (Judy), Cliff Neate (Ernie), Don Barker (Ron Suddards), Bronwen Courtenay (Deedree), Barbara Dennis (Julia Sheen), with Elizabeth Steel, Ron Dix, Albert Havard

Max Harris wrote notes on the author for the Adelaide program.

Reviewed:

  • Pat Griffith, “Patrick White play a classic”, Adelaide Advertiser, 15/9/1962
  • John Healey, Sunday Mail, 15/9/1962
  • Roger Covell, “Patrick White Breaks Through”, SMH, 16/9/1962:
    • “…[T]he clearest and most naturalistic dialogue that White has ever written… More direct in its storytelling [than The Ham Funeral], wider in its range, and hugely enjoyable… it is a major addition to Australian theatre.”
  • C.B. De Boehme, “Play Best of Kind”, Adelaide News, 17/9/1962
  • Times, 22/9/1962
  • Sydney Nation, 22/9/1962
  • Peter Ward, “A Hot Suburban Wind”, Bulletin, 22/9/1962:
    • “In total, the play is a very funny comedy of suburban manners. But given this kind of satirical concentration, it has none of the inward poetry of The Ham Funeral, nor the largeness, the vibrancy of character… John Tasker’s production was firm and assured, but he had a tendency to draw forth a glib clowning from his actors and one often wished the lines were allowed to stand by themselves.. Although it is not a perfect play… it has remained for Mr. White’s unique talent to contribute the first devastating comedy of Australian suburban life to our dramatic literature.”

Union Theatre Repertory : Melbourne – 16 October – 10 November 1962

Dir: John Sumner, Set: Anne Fraser, Costumes: Anne Fraser

With Zoe Caldwell (Nola), Stewart Weller (Rowley), Charles Haggith (Harry), Marion Edwards (Mavis), Reg Livermore (Roy), Michael Duffield (Clive), Bunney Brooke (Girlie), John Gray (Ernie), Dennis Miller (Ron Suddards), Gina Curtis (Julia Sheen)

Reviewed:

  • Geoffrey Hutton, “Patrick White is a born playwright”, The Age 17/10/1962
  • H.A. Standish, Melbourne Herald 17/10/1962
  • James Murphy, “Who’s for Charades?”, Bulletin 27/10/1962:
    • “The play is well worth seeing… [but] the trouble with this play arises from the weakness of its underlying idea. The consequence of a weak idea is a confused structure. Given a good idea, Mr. White will undoubtedly write a fine play – he may already have done so in The Ham Funeral, for all Melbourne knows.
  • Howard Palmer, “Zoe returns in triumph”, NSW Sun (Sun NSW)
  • James Merralls, Sydney Nation 3/11/1962
  • David Bradley, Meanjin 21.4, Dec 1962
  • A.A. Phillips, Overland 25, Dec 1962

Australian Elizabethan Trust: Theatre Royal, Sydney – 22 May – 6 July 1963

With JC Williamson Theatres.

Dir: John Tasker, designer: Desmond Digby

With Doreen Warburton (Nola), Leslie Dayman (Rowley), Keith Buckley (Harry), Rita Rider (Mavis), Kerry Francis (Roy), Vaughan Tracey (Clive), Carmel Millhouse (Girlie), Lorraine Bayly (Judy)

Reviewed:

  • Denis O’Brien, Daily Telegraph 23/5/1963
  • Ron Saw, “A play that stinks!”, Daily Mirror 23/5/1963
  • Roger Covell, SMH 23/5/1963
  • Sydney Nation 1/6/1963

Old Tote Theatre Company: Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House – 3 November – 18 December 1976

Dir: Jim Sharman, designer: Wendy Dickson

With Elizabeth Alexander (Julia), Max Cullen (Ernie), Kate Fitzpatrick (Nola), John Frawley (Mr Erbage), Bill Hunter (Rowley), John Jarratt (Ron), Robyn Nevin (Girlie), Andrew Sharp (Roy)

Reviews:

  • Jim Tasker, Theatre Australia Nov-Dec 1976
  • Margaret Jones, “An exhilarating Old Tote revival”, SMH 8/11/1976:
    • “Surprisingly, after two decades, the dialogue stands up well. The clothes may be dated, but the mores of Sarsaparilla remain eternal.”

State Theatre Company of South Australia, The Playhouse, Adelaide – 24 November – ?? December 1984

Dir: Neil Armfield, designer: Stephen Curtis and Amanda Lovejoy, cast included Madeleine Blackwell, Paul Blackwell, Simon Burke, John Clayton, and Lyn Pierse

State Theatre Company of WA, Subiaco Theatre Centre, Perth – 20 July – 15 August 1992

Doir: Leith Taylor, designer: Phillipa O’Brien, cast included Geoffrey Atkins, Mandy McElhinney, Polly Low and Elizabeth Spencer

Rawcus Productions – Street Theatre, Canberra – 9 May 1994

The 5th in a two-year project to stage readings of all of White’s plays. The project was conceived by Ralph Wilson, and this one-night only production directed by Cathie Clelland.

New Theatre Sydney, 18 Jul-1 Aug 1997

Dir: Mary-Anne Gifford, set: Simon Shaw, Costumes: Sylvia Jagtman, cast included Mark Butler, Lyn Collingwood and Denise Young

Sydney Theatre Company – Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House – 3– 31 March 2012

Dir: Benedict Andrews, set: Robert Cousins, Costumes: Alice Babidge, composer: Alan John, with cast including Peter Carroll (Girlie), Eden Falk (Roy), John Gaden, (Clive) Colin Moody, Pamela Rabe (Nola), Dan Spielman, Helen Thomson, Brandon Burke (Ernie)

Melbourne Theatre Company – Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne – 15 January – 16 February 2013

The above production on tour. With the above cast and Luke Mullins.

 

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