The Ham Funeral

THE HAM FUNERAL

(1947, produced 1961)

Albert Tucker, Self Portrait (1945)

“For you, death in two syllables.”

Plot: When a cantankerous landlord dies, his wife throws a funeral for his uppity relatives. The Young Man upstairs – sitting on the edge of an uncertain future – finds himself drawn in to the strange, lonely world below. The young man is an artist, torn between the world of ideas and philosophical melancholy (represented by the strange figure of the young woman lodging in the next room) and the world of the real (represented by the naturalist, earthy landlady, Alma Lusty).

Editions: First published in the collection Four Plays, aka Collected Plays, Vol. 1 (E&S, Viking, Sun Books, Currency).

First published as a standalone play by Currency Press (2012). E-copy available for sale at AustralianPlays.org. Translated by Curt and Maria Prerauer into Germany but never published, as it was ultimately not performed in that language.

History: PW wrote the play in late 1947 while in England, having seen Dobell’s painting The Dead Landlord, reflecting on his youthful period in Ebury Street and London. A Curtis Brown report at the time wrote: “The whole play suffers from an intolerable attitudinising on the part of the author, and its lack of body and substance is frustrating… this type of impressionistic morality play is extremely tedious, dated, and boring even when well done, and certainly this script is not. Absolutely no possibilities.”

David Marr called the play his “farewell to London”. Now based in Australia, PW shopped the script around during the late 1940s without success. In 1958, the actor Keith Michell enquired about PW’s interest in writing a play. PW tracked down the only copy he could find – indeed, the last surviving copy – which had been kept by the Independent Theatre in North Sydney ever since they rejected it in 1949! The script ultimately didn’t impress Michell, but PW started sharing it on both sides of the Atlantic. There was even some talk of a Broadway run (SMH, 10/11/1959) but to no avail.

In 1960, PW’s friend Geoffrey Dutton submitted the play for consideration at the second annual Adelaide Festival of the Arts. Some of the board members were interested but the majority were not. The year prior, Alan Seymour’s One Day of the Year had been shocking enough with its implications that Australia’s military history was not purely heroic. At least that play had been linear and traditional in its form. The Ham Funeral was modernist, perceived to be un-Australian, obscene (note the scene where the characters find an aborted foetus in a dustbin), and not what tasteful theatregoers would want. Furore followed, and ultimately Dutton – assisted by Max Harris – installed the play at the University Guild at Adelaide University, where it was designed to première at a kind of “anti-Festival”. PW made some edits to the text, turning two prostitutes in two older scavenging women, and more directly addressing the heavily censorious culture of 1960s Australia, in which films and books were still routinely banned from import due to perceived inappropriate content. In his program note to the first production, PW notes that it was John Tasker’s idea to set the play further back than PW’s own adulthood, in 1918, “for visual reasons”.

The first production (1961) attracted great controversy over its content, regularly reported on in the newspapers, but also was acknowledged by the country’s avant-garde as a major landmark in Australian theatre. John Tasker took his production to Sydney and Brisbane the following year, where it again confounded some critics but found keen audiences in people bored by the staid, conservative theatre of the time.

The show was ultimately staged in the UK in 1969 for a short run at the Crewe Lyceum Theatre directed by Ted Craig, the first time a full-length White play had been performed overseas since the forgotten Return to Abyssinia in 1947.

The first major revival was in Sydney in November 1989, directed by Neil Armfield, with PW involved in the casting and several of his longtime allies among the performers. The production aired on television and radio, and PW’s triumphant smile at the Opening Night was his last public appearance before his death ten months later. The play has since become an icon of Australian theatre. 

William Dobell, The dead landlord, 1936

Notes: PW felt that his main challenge was to “project a highly introspective character on the stage without impeding dramatic progress”. The Young Man is a symbolic character, and the play’s use of symbolism and expressionism prefigures worldwide movements in theatre at the time. Ultimately, the Young Man will never truly “live” until he starts writing, another example of the contrast between the “living” and the “dead”, which PW had examined in his novels. The Young Man on his own is a cultured figure, but he becomes more deliberately colloquial in the presence of his working-class landlady. It is a journey for him to learn how to achieve his own awakening, torn between the angels and devils who show him other paths to take. It is also worth noting that the Young Man is a potential artist rather than an accomplished one, a figure PW would explore with greater depth in Riders in the Chariot and The Vivisector.

In the relatives’ remembrances of the dead landlord in the second act, PW also examines how little we know about those close to us, how complex and unknowable individuals are: a common theme in his work. (R.F. Brissenden calls the relatives “the embodiment of suburban morality”.) The “ham” of the title is an attempt by Mrs Lusty to make the funeral seem more middle-class (bear in mind the play was written in post-war London, when meat rationing was still in effect), and perhaps to make it a more memorable occasion.

The play veers between styles with comedy and tragedy, naturalism and expressionism, heightened dialogue and music hall style comedy, the latter exemplified by the two scavenging women. Even though it had been written 14 years before first performance, the play’s style felt – for years afterward – innovative. Yet while the play’s stylistic excesses have influenced many, the methodology remains even now outside of the theatrical mainstream in the country. In 2005, Michael Kantor, then Artistic Director of the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne, said that Australian theatre in 1960 could have gone in two directions. One path was The Ham Funeral. The other was One Day of the Year. Australia chose to go with the latter path, and that choice defined Australian theatre for the remainder of the 20th century.

Quotes

Young Man: Probably quite a number of you are wondering by now whether this is your kind of play. I’m sorry to have to announce the management won’t refund any money. You must simply sit it out, and see whether you can’t recognise some of the forms that will squirm before you in this mad, muddy mess of eels. (Prologue)

Young Man: Tell me, Mrs Lusty, do you expect much of life?
Landlady: Expect? I don’t expect. I take wot turns up.
Young Man: I hope I still expect.
Landlady: You’re barmy. Or clever. (Act I, Scene iii)

Young Man: Is this a tragedy? Or is it two fat people in a basement, turning on each other? (Act I, Scene iv)

Second Lady: What was you doin’ in the circus, dear?
First Lady: ‘Andin up the ‘swords to my old man.
Second Lady: What became of yer old man?
First Lady: ‘E swallowed too ‘ard (Act I, scene vii)

Young Man: I could cry… if it was the Anglo-Saxon thing to do. (Act I, scene vii)

Young Man: Once I almost wrote a play, in which the situations were too subtle to express.
Girl But the attitudes were your own, and would have given you endless pleasure. (Act II, scene ii)

Girl: Those who live also create. (Act II, scene viii)

New plays in 1947: Arthur Miller, All My Sons; Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon for the Misbegotten; Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire; Lerner & Loewe’s Brigadoon.

Also premièred in 1961: Samuel Beckett, Happy Days; Tennessee Williams, The Night of the Iguana; Arlen, Thompson and Brown, The Sentimental Bloke.

Major productions:

University of Adelaide Theatre Guild – Union Hall, Adelaide – 15-25 November 1961 (10 performances) Première Performance

Dir: John Tasker, composer: Jeremy Wesley-Smith, designer: Stan Ostoja-Kotkowski

Cast: John Adams (Young Man), Joan Bruce (Mrs Lusty), Hedley Cullen (Landlord), Anne Dibden (Girl), Pat Griffith and Kathleen Steele-Scott (Ladies), Dennis Olsen, Don Porter, Tony Georgeson and Brian Bergin (Relatives)

Bill Dobell wrote a piece “About the Dead Landlord” in the first program, while Geoffrey Dutton wrote an “about the author” essay.

Reviewed:

  • H. Tidemann, Adelaide Advertiser, 16/11/1961
  • “Play can hold the audience”, Adelaide News 16/11/1961
  • “Drama has force”, Adelaide Sunday Mail, 18/11/1961
  • Roger Covell, “Ham Funeral has vitality, humour”, SMH 18/11/1961:
    • “It generates emotion and compels attention. It is moving, tender, ruthlessly funny, exhilarating, and sometimes all these things together. … Sometimes there is a danger that White’s relish for the formal perfection of a phrase will disrupt the mood of his play, but with certain striking exceptions, which are obviously meant to be taken as a kind of credo of disgust, his virtuosity fulfills a soundly theatrical purpose.”
  • Alan Nicholls, Age, 21/11/1961
  • Letter to the Adelaide Advertiser, “Protest at play’s language” 24/11/1961
  • Geoffrey Dutton, Bulletin 25/11/1961:
    • “The first night of The Ham Funeral moved an excited audience (composed of everything from breath-suckers to cheerers) through the whole range of pity and laughter… What a relief to have an Australian play that is not only tough but also poetic, not only profoundly human but also free of the technical and linguistic weights of naturalism.”
  • Max Harris, “Young Man of the House”, Nation, 2/12/1961
  • Harry Kippax, Nation, 2/12/1961:
    • “Brilliantly suggests a way out of the impasse in which the Australian drama finds itself.”
  • J.J. Bray, Meanjin, March 1962

Various letters appeared in newspapers in the aftermath of the première, debating the play’s merits.

Photos of SO-K’s stage sets were shown in Meanjin 23.3 (Sep 1964)

Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust – Palace Theatre, Sydney – 11-28 July 1962

Revised production of above.

Dir: John Tasker, designer: Wendy Dickson

With John Adams (Young Man), Joan Bruce (Mrs Lusty), Hedley Cullen (Landlord), and Zoe Caldwell (Girl). Beryl Meekin and Nellie Lamport played the Ladies.

Reviewed:

  • Roger Covell, SMH, 12/7/1962
  • N. Kessell, Sydney Sun, 12/7/1962
  • David McNicoll, Sydney Telegraph, 12/7/1962
  • Tommy Thomas, “The Ham Funeral becomes a theatre salad”, Daily Mirror 12/7/1962
  • Kevon Kemp, Bulletin 21/7/1962:
    • “A brilliant, overwhelming witness for Patrick White’s humanity and warmth…. Somehow most of the underlying fury of human living has been compressed and selected into a universal play whose dominant feeling is true lyricism, a lyricism that gentles one into profound pity and knowledge, that finally shepherds one into a preserve that is, simply, Life.”
  • Geoffrey Dutton, Landfall 16, 1962
  • Harry Kippax, Sydney Nation, 28/7/1962
  • Mrs. Marcel (Nola) Dekyvere, Sydney Sunday Telegraph, 29/7/1962:
    • A very negative review by society type Mrs. Dekyvere, who had a column in the paper.
  • A.K. Stout, Australian Quarterly, Sep 1962

John Tasker conducted an interview: Author on the set, SMH 5/7/1962

Twelfth Night Theatre Company – Her Majesty’s Theatre, Brisbane – 23-26 Oct 1962

Dir: Joan Whalley. With Ron Finney (Young Man) and Betty Ross (Mrs Lusty)

AusStage notes that the Methodist Church owned the original venue, and cancelled the booking when they finally read the script. The resulting scandal saw the company receive press and be invited to a more prestigious venue.

Sydney Theatre Company –  The Wharf Sydney, STC – 14 Nov – ?? 1989

Dir: Neil Armfield, composer: Carl Vine, dramaturg: May-Brit Akerholt, Set Design: Brian Thomson

With Tyler Coppin (Young Man), Kerry Walker (Mrs Lusty), Pamela Rabe (Girl), Max Cullen (Landlord), Robyn Nevin and Maggie Kirkpatrick (Ladies) and Paul Blackwell, Bob Hornery, Arky Michael, Keith Robinson

Broadcast live on ABC FM radio on 28 November. Filmed for TV broadcast and aired 22/1/1990 on the ABC, hosted by veteran commentator Peter Ross. Many reviews found Coppin to be too cold for the character; PW defended him and felt he was perfect in the role.

Articles:

“Looking back at White’s mad, muddy mess of eels”, SMH 29/10/1988

Jane Fraser, “White brings out the ham in Kerry Walker”, The Australian 14/11/1989

Reviews:

Maria Prerauer, Weekend Australian, 11-12/11/1989
A. Bennie, SMH, 11/11/1989

Bob Evans, “Timely production of an extraordinary play”, SMH 16/11/1989: Expressed some reservations about Coppin and Walker but, these aside, “it is an extraordinary play and a timely, comprehensive production that completes the enormous circle of Patrick White’s contribution to literature and theatre in our language.”

Rosemary Neill, “Drama falters in house of words”, The Australian 16/11/1989
Frank Fauntlett, Daily Mirror 16/11/1989
Paul LePetit, Sunday Telegraph 19/11/1989
John Cardmoy, SMH 19/11/1989:

               “In Neil Armfield’s hands the play bristles with life and oozes with death, the interchanging motifs of the piece… This production is so finely crafted I now realise that this play provides the epigrammatic key to the closing sentence of White’s seminal work The Tree of Man: “So that in the end there was no end”.

Paul McGillick, Financial Review 24/11/1989
Brian Hoad, Bulletin, 28/11/1989
Barry Oakley, Independent Monthly 1/12/1989

Rawcus Productions – Street Theatre, Canberra: 16 May 1994

The 6th 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 Mandy Brown.

Belvoir Street Theatre – Sydney – 2 Aug-17 Sep 2000

Dir: Michael Kantor, designer: Genevieve Blanchett

With Aaron Blabey, Ralph Cotterill, Don Cousins, Russell Dykstra, Julie Forsyth, Claire Jones, and Ben Rogan

Reviews:

Bryce Halley, SMH 4/8/00

John McCallum, “Contemporary Ham not for White purists”, The Australian 4/8/2000

Malthouse Theatre – Melbourne – 16 Apr-7 May 2005

Dir: Michael Kantor, designer, costumes: Fiona Crombie, set design: Anna Tregolan

With Marta Dusseldorp, Julie Forsyth, Rober Menzies, Dan Spielman, Lucy Taylor, Matthew Whittet, and Ross Williams

Reviewed: Thuy On, The Australian 19/4/2005

State Theatre of South Australia, Adelaide Festival, 1 to 18 March 2012

Dir: Adam Cook, Composer: Stuart Day Producers: Christopher Williams and Anne McInerney

The Young Poet: Luke Clayson, Mrs Lusty: Amanda Muggleton, Will Lusty: Jonathan Mill, the Girl: Lizzy Falkland, Jacqy Phillips (Lady / Relative), Geoff Revell (Lady / Relative), Jonathon Mill (Relative) and Jonathan Elsom (Relative).

Dennis Olsen, who appeared in the original cast, was due to reprise his role as one of the Relatives almost sixty years on, but had to bow out shortly before rehearsals began.

Griffin Theatre – Sydney – 17 May – 10 June 2017

Dir: Kate Gaul, design: Jasmine Christie, composer: Nate Edmonson

With Andy Dexterity, Eliza Logan, Carmen Lysiak, Johnny Nasser, Jane Phegan, Sebastian Robinson, and Jenny Wu

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