Occasion Of Mystical Significance

Because it has been regarded by many critics as the best Australian play since the Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Alan Seymour’s The One Day of the Year has come in for a lot of controversial comment in the last few years.

IT has been produced by the Eliza bethan Theatre Trust in Sydney and Melbourne and has also had a short run in London, but now those who have not been able to see it in the flesh can read it. It has been published by Angus and Robertson Ltd. with the assistance of the Com monwealth Literary Fund.

Apart from its basic theme of father-son conflict, some of the con troversy it has stirred up is that the “one day” is Anzac Day, the holiday on which Australian men mourn their war dead in their own peculiar way.

Alf, the father, who has never be come more than a lift-driver, sees it

as an occasion of mystical signific ance; Hughie his son, as an occa sion when his father and all his no hoper intimates feel they have a licence to drink themselves uncon scious.

Like the Doll, the action takes place entirely within an old terrace house and the language is what is called typical Australian. None of the characters are “nice” people, with the exception of Hughie’s literary girl-friend, but this is neither expected nor required of a naturalistic drama, which seems to be the forte of most up-and-coming Australian play- Wrights. (Price, 15/-.)