Monday, November 19, 2012

Play review - "The Squatter's Daughter" (1907) by Bert Bailey and Edmund Duggan

This was one of the most popular Australian plays of the 1900s and helped popularise many archetypes which are popular even now - in particular the feisty, horse riding, property running squatter's daughter. I  this play she's actually not that active, spending most of her time mooning about handsome Tom, the overseer of the neighbouring property, and being lusted after by Dudley, the heir to said neighbouring property.

There are some comic relief aboriginals whom Tom stops from being beaten up and says "this was their land to start off with" (or words to that effect); hero duties are split between Tom and Scottish new chum Archie McPherson (I think this was done so Bert Bailey could write himself a role). The device of a villainous bushranger Ben Hall and his men works well as does the incriminating receipt. (I'm surprised this was removed in the 1933 film.)

There's some repetition (e.g. captured then rescued, captured then rescued) and more could have been done with the squatter's daughter but the structure holds. There is plenty of action, romance and humour, and it doesn't take too much effort to imagine all the spectacle that they used in productions (e.g. real sheep, corroborees).

I did find it annoying that Tom turned out to be the neighbour's long lost son - this felt like a sop to inherited classes and not very democratic, although I know it was a convention of the time.

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