Burst of Summer is a 1959 play by Oriel Gray. It won the 1959 J.C. Williamson's Little Theatre Guild Award, and was later adapted for radio and TV. It was Gray's last produced play.
Plot
In 1955, racial tensions erupt in a small town after a young Aboriginal girl Peggy gains brief notability as a film actress. White townsfolk decide to build houses and move the Aboriginal residents of "The Flats" into them.
Background
Burst of Summer was written by Gray in 1959. The story is based on the story of Ngarla Kunoth, who was cast in the lead of Charles Chauvel's film Jedda and was inspired by Gray's experiences living in Lismore in the 1940s. It won £500 in the Little Theatre Competition. The prize included a try out at the Melburne Little Theatre.
Original production
The play was first produced in 1960 at the Little Theatre in Melbourne. The cast included Morris Brown, Max Bruch and Marcella Burgoyne. The Bulletin said the production "received the usual treatment accorded Australian art. No mention from TV, or commercial radio, a review from the A.8.C., and the usual back-page notice in the dailies." Reviewing the production, the theatre critic from The Bulletin said "it is a thousand pities that she Grey chose such stereotyped characters and situations as vehicles for her often stimulating thoughts on the problem of [racial intolerance. Despite the rather fashionable seriousness of its theme, the play is probably more notable for its absence of dull moments, its perky good humor and wit and the author’s efficient handling of dialogue." The play was submitted for production by the Melbourne Theatre Company but they rejected it.
The play was adapted for television in 1961 and broadcast by ABC TV.
Plot
Peggy returns home, where she used to work at a milk bar run by Joe, who employs an aboriginal man, Eddie. Peggy is loved by both an aboriginal law clerk, Don, and a white journalist, Clinton. A white man, Merv, is unhappy at the idea of aboriginals moving into town. He is encouraged to cause trouble by Sally Blake. It results in Merv cutting Eddie's eyes. Merv is arrested and Peggy leaves town with Clinton.
Filming took place at the ABC's Melbourne Studios in South Bank. Robert Tudawali was flown from Darwin to make his first appearance in a live television drama. He was one of three aboriginal actors in the production, the others being jazz singer Georgia Lee and rock singer Candy Williams. This was in contrast to the radio version of Burst of Summer which had been performed with an all-white cast. Gray said "I want to write about a sophisticated aborigine - the kind of person that aboriginies must look to in the future." Williams and Tudawali were both paid £160 each. However, because Tudawali was a ward of the Northern Territor government he was only allowed to keep part of his fee.
Reception
The TV critic from the Sunday Sydney Morning Herald called the production a "half-hearted stab" at writing a story on the problems of the aboriginal in a white society, despite some good acting from Georgia Lee and Edward Howell. She added, "One couldn't escape the feeling that the author had dashed it off after seeing too many American movies, rather than making a serious attempt to put the Australian colour problem into its own perspective. It's a pity this missed out, because there is a goldmine of material on the aboriginal waiting for a skilled, sensitive writer to tap it." Another critic from the daily Sydney Morning Herald said the show "argued an imepccable principle clumsily" which had "unreal or stereotyped characters and dialogue that was sometimes more stagey than convincingly laconic." The Bulletin called it "a depressingly incompetent technical exercise, and the characterisation was appalling."
