A play's significance on the other hand, is often revealed by looking back to the period when it was first written and performed on stage. The Shifting Heart, arguably Richard Beynon's most distinguished play premiered at the Newtown Theatre in Sydney, 1957, under the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust's sponsorship and production (Elizabethan Theatre Trust, n.d). Resultant successful national tours, a West End production, multiple awards, critical acclaims and current place in the NSW school syllabus are perhaps the hallmarks of such a play. The characteristics of a canonical work? Check, check and check. It would be folly or otherwise amateurish, to reduce a theatrical canon down to mere checklists to be simply ticked off. I propose a thorough consideration of the context and period of its birth and debut production which I believe would offer us a much greater insight to the significance of this play.
Australian theatre history can separated into two notable periods, first from the 1950s to 70s and, mid 80s and beyond. The 1950s was an auspicious period within Australian theatre history, where we saw the appointment of Ray Lawler as the director of the Union Theatre Repertory Company, presently The Melbourne Theatre Company, and the establishment of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust. Various theatre companies began to appear on a national scale in the following years (Bollen, Kiernander, & Parr, 2008). State and federal grants flooded through the trust which aimed to promote writers and playwrights culminating with the production of Lawler's Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, widely accepted as the canonical and quintessential Australian play. Other plays would follow its footsteps …show more content…
The Shifting Heart should be just as, if not more successful than the Doll". ("Rich field of drama",
Australian theatre history can separated into two notable periods, first from the 1950s to 70s and, mid 80s and beyond. The 1950s was an auspicious period within Australian theatre history, where we saw the appointment of Ray Lawler as the director of the Union Theatre Repertory Company, presently The Melbourne Theatre Company, and the establishment of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust. Various theatre companies began to appear on a national scale in the following years (Bollen, Kiernander, & Parr, 2008). State and federal grants flooded through the trust which aimed to promote writers and playwrights culminating with the production of Lawler's Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, widely accepted as the canonical and quintessential Australian play. Other plays would follow its footsteps …show more content…
The Shifting Heart should be just as, if not more successful than the Doll". ("Rich field of drama",