Shipwreck (play)

Shipwreck is a 1949 Australian verse drama by Douglas Stewart about the Batavian Mutiny.[1]

Shipwreck
Written byDouglas Stewart
Based onBatavian Mutiny
Date premieredSeptember 1949 (1949-09)
Place premieredMetropolitan Theatre, Sydney
Original languageEnglish
Genreverse drama

Plot

A ship is wrecked on the West Australian coast. The play starts after the shipwreck, with over 300 people on an island. They include Lucretia, her husband Van Mylen, the captain Pelsart, a pastor, Sebastian, his daughter Judith and Pelsart's butler, Henyrock. The men are restless. Pelsart decides to return to Batavia, against advice, and also sends some men led by Hays to find water.

In the absence of Pelsart and Hays, some of the men, led by Cornelius, lead a revolt. They steal gold, massacre men, and keep women as sex slaves. Cornelius takes Lucretia after her husband is murdered, although he waits for a time. A mutineer Huyssen taunts Sebastian and the pastor kills him and his killed in turn.

Hays returns and defeats the mutineers. Pelsart returns and executes Cornelius and other mutineers. He falls dead of a heart attack before Cornelius is taken away. Hay returns to Batavia with the survivors including Lucretia.

Book

The play was published in 1947.[2]

Theatre productions

The play was produced at the Metropolitan Theatre at St Laurence Hall, Sydney in September 1949. [3][4]

It was done at the Little Theatre, Melbourne, 1951. The Age called it "the most successful and ambitious essay in drama by an Australian".[5]

The play was shown at the Union Theatre in Sydney in 1962 as part of a series of three new Australian plays under the auspices of the Elizabethan Theatre Trust. The others were Naked Island by Russell Braddon and The Break by Philip Albright. [6] Critical reception was poor.[7]

References
  1. "SOMETHING PERSONAL Massacre At Midnight". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 34, 170. New South Wales, Australia. 28 June 1947. p. 10. Retrieved 18 July 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  2. "Dickens And His Women". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 34, 182. New South Wales, Australia. 12 July 1947. p. 10. Retrieved 18 July 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. "Vivid And Violent New Play". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 34, 857. New South Wales, Australia. 9 September 1949. p. 5. Retrieved 18 July 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. "THEATER". Catholic Weekly. Vol. VIII, no. 394. New South Wales, Australia. 15 September 1949. p. 5 (Magazine Section). Retrieved 18 July 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  5. "AUSTRALIAN PLAY". The Age. No. 29, 854. Victoria, Australia. 3 January 1951. p. 4. Retrieved 18 July 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. "Australian plays at the Union Theatre". The Sydney Morning Herald. 10 January 1962. p. 6.
  7. "Musicals outshone the plays". The Sydney Morning Herald. 16 July 1962. p. 77.
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