Alan Seymour
Oxford Companion to Australian Literature:
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Alan Seymour
(1927- ) was born in Perth, and was brought up by his eldest sister after the death of his parents. Educated at state schools in Perth, he spent some time as a freelance film and theatre critic in Sydney, worked for the ABC in the late 1940s and 1950s and directed operas for the Sydney Opera Group 1953-57. Since 1961 he has lived overseas, mostly in London, where he was theatre critic for London Magazine 1962-65. More recently he has lived in Turkey, which has led to a play dealing with modern Turkish politics and an adaptation for the stage of The Wind from the Plain by the Turkish novelist Yashar Kemal. A cosmopolitan and experimental playwright in the main, he has written 'Swamp Creatures' (1957), The One Day of the Year (q.v., 1960, published 1962), 'The Gaiety of Nations' (1965), 'A Break in the Music' (1966), 'The Pope and the Pill' (1968), 'The Shattering' (1973) and 'The Float' (1980). He has also written a novel, The Coming Self-Destruction of the United States of America (1969), and a novel-adaptation of his play The One Day of the Year (1967); two radio plays, 'A Winter Passion' (1960) and 'Donny Johnson' (1965); and from the 1960s to the 1980s numerous television plays of which 'The Runner' (1960) is the most significant.
'Swamp Creatures' has a macabre, compelling atmosphere, reminiscent of Tennessee Williams; ostensibly about two middle-aged sisters, one of whom is engaged in unnatural monster-producing experiments, the play expresses common fears of a future nuclear disaster. The play for which Seymour is best known in Australia, The One Day of the Year, is the least typical of his work because of its simple naturalism; rejected by the Adelaide Festival's board of governors in 1959 on the grounds that its treatment of Anzac Day, the servicemen's national day of commemoration, might give offence to such groups as the RSL, it was first staged by an amateur organisation, the Adelaide Theatre Group, in 1960. In 1961 it was given a professional production in Sydney, supported by the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust. Performed in London the same year and subsequently widely staged in Australia, the play has become almost as well known as Ray Lawler's Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1957) and is popular as a school and university text. The subject of the play is not so much Anzac Day as the familiar antagonisms between generations, exacerbated in this instance by rapid social change and disparity in education. Seymour explores the opposing points of view of digger-father and university-educated son with sensitivity and insight, developing especially the pathos of the father's situation and breaking new ground in his energetic exploitation of the Australian vernacular and the inadequacies of the ocker/digger stereotype.
Of Seymour's other plays, 'Swamp Creatures', 'Donny Johnson' and 'A Break in the Music' are ostensibly set in Australia, although the first two could be set anywhere. 'Donny Johnson', winner of the 1960 Sydney Journalists' Club competition, is a modern Australian rock version of the Don Juan legend; 'A Break in the Music' draws on Seymour's family memories of Australian life in the 1930s and 1940s. Much of his work has a political dimension: 'The Gaiety of Nations' has the Vietnam War as its subject, and The Coming Self-Destruction of the United States of America deals with American race relations. His other stage and television plays range over a wide number of countries and situations.
'Swamp Creatures' has a macabre, compelling atmosphere, reminiscent of Tennessee Williams; ostensibly about two middle-aged sisters, one of whom is engaged in unnatural monster-producing experiments, the play expresses common fears of a future nuclear disaster. The play for which Seymour is best known in Australia, The One Day of the Year, is the least typical of his work because of its simple naturalism; rejected by the Adelaide Festival's board of governors in 1959 on the grounds that its treatment of Anzac Day, the servicemen's national day of commemoration, might give offence to such groups as the RSL, it was first staged by an amateur organisation, the Adelaide Theatre Group, in 1960. In 1961 it was given a professional production in Sydney, supported by the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust. Performed in London the same year and subsequently widely staged in Australia, the play has become almost as well known as Ray Lawler's Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1957) and is popular as a school and university text. The subject of the play is not so much Anzac Day as the familiar antagonisms between generations, exacerbated in this instance by rapid social change and disparity in education. Seymour explores the opposing points of view of digger-father and university-educated son with sensitivity and insight, developing especially the pathos of the father's situation and breaking new ground in his energetic exploitation of the Australian vernacular and the inadequacies of the ocker/digger stereotype.
Of Seymour's other plays, 'Swamp Creatures', 'Donny Johnson' and 'A Break in the Music' are ostensibly set in Australia, although the first two could be set anywhere. 'Donny Johnson', winner of the 1960 Sydney Journalists' Club competition, is a modern Australian rock version of the Don Juan legend; 'A Break in the Music' draws on Seymour's family memories of Australian life in the 1930s and 1940s. Much of his work has a political dimension: 'The Gaiety of Nations' has the Vietnam War as its subject, and The Coming Self-Destruction of the United States of America deals with American race relations. His other stage and television plays range over a wide number of countries and situations.
| A.G. Stephens, 'The Silkworms', 'The Sick Stockrider' | |
| Alex Skovron, Alexander Gordon Steven, Alexander Sutherland |
Oxford Companion to Australian History:
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Alan Seymour
(1927–) wrote The One Day of the Year, a controversial play about generational conflict between a father and his son, who challenges the celebration of Anzac Day. After being banned by the Adelaide Festival Board for fear of offending the Returned and Services League, it was premiered by the Adelaide Theatre Group on 20 July 1960 and has become one of Australia's most successful plays. Seymour was born in Perth, WA. As a young man he moved to Sydney, where he worked as a film and theatre critic. He was also a director for the Sydney Opera Group 1953–57. In 1961 Seymour left for London, swearing he would never return. Contrary to popular belief, the catalyst was not so much Australia's reaction to The One Day of the Year, but a dispute over his play Lean Liberty (1962), which the Australian Broadcasting Corporation commissioned, then rejected when Seymour refused to modify the lead character's sympathy with communism. Seymour was theatre critic for London Magazine 1963–65, and then lived in Turkey 1966–71. Political themes permeate his best writing, which includes his play against the Vietnam War, The Gaiety of Nations (1965), and The Coming Self-Destruction of the United States of America (1969), a novel portraying America's disintegration due to racial violence. After returning to London in the 1970s, Seymour worked as a BBC script editor and television writer and producer. In 1978 he adapted (David Ireland's novel The Unknown Industrial Prisoner (1971)) for Film Australia, but in an echo of earlier controversies the project was vetoed as ‘uncommercial’ by Home Affairs Minister Robert Ellicott. In recent years Seymour has specialised in writing radio and television dramas, and he has produced several critically acclaimed adaptations for British television.
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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Alan Seymour
Alan Seymour (born 6 June 1927 in Fremantle, Western Australia),[1] is an Australian playwright and author. His father was killed in a wharf accident when Alan was nine, and after that he was brought up by his sister May and her husband, Alfred Chester Cruthers. He was educated at Perth Modern School, leaving at 15 after failing to complete the Junior Certificate. He found work as a radio announcer in a commercial radio station 6PM. During his two years there he wrote a number of short radio plays that were broadcast live. In 1945 he moved to Sydney where he worked as an advertising copy-writer with 2UE.[2]
In 1945 Seymour moved to Sydney where he worked as an advertising copy-writer with 2UE. He returned to Perth after the war where he worked as a free-lance writer for ABC Radio. Seymour became ABC Radio’s film critic. He joined a commercial radio station 6KY as an announcer and copy-writer and after six months was offered an announcing post at the ABC. In November 1949, Seymour returned to Sydney where he became an educational and freelance drama writer for ABC Radio and later television. From 1953 to 1957 he was theatrical director for the Sydney Opera Group. His first play, Swamp Creatures, premiered by the Canberra Repertory Society, was a finalist in the London Observer play competition in 1957.[2]
Seymour left Australia in 1961 and worked in London as a television writer, producer and commissioning editor with the BBC, and as a theatre critic for The London Magazine.[2] From 1966-1971 he lived in Turkey and wrote novels, stage plays and magazine articles. From 1974-81 Seymour was a script editor and occasional producer with BBC Television, after which he returned to free-lance writing.[2] He returned to live in Sydney in 1995.[1]
His best-known play, The One Day of the Year was written in 1958 for an amateur playwriting competition, inspired by an article in the University of Sydney newspaper Honi Soit lambasting Anzac Day.[1]
The play met with huge controversy on its release. Initially it was rejected by the Adelaide Festival of Arts Board of Governors in 1960,[1] but was first performed on 20 July 1960 as an amateur production by the Adelaide Theatre Group.[3] In April 1961, at the first professional season at the Palace Theatre in Sydney, a bomb scare during a dress rehearsal forced police to clear the theatre.[1] Later that year the production was staged at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, in London. Since then it has been staged regularly throughout Australia and internationally. It is also studied in various school curricula.
The One Day of the Year dramatised the growing social divide in Australia and the questioning of old values. In the play, Anzac Day is criticized by the central character, Hughie, as a day of drunken debauchery by returned soldiers and as a day when questions of what it means to be loyal to a Nation or Empire must be raised. The character of Alf in the play is based on Seymour's brother-in-law, Alfred Crothers.
Despite the criticisms of Anzac Day expressed in the play, the term has since been adopted as expressing the importance of Anzac Day.[citation needed]
Although Seymour is best known in Australia for The One Day of the Year, his international reputation relates not only to this early play, but also to his many screenplays, television scripts and adaptations of novels for film and television.[2]
References
- ^ a b c d e Jinman, Richard (2003-04-02). "Stirring struggle endures to this Day". Sydney Morning Herald. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/01/1048962752382.html. Retrieved 2011-08-31.
- ^ a b c d e Seymour, Alan (1996-09-09). "Papers of Alan Seymour (1927- )". National Library of Australia. http://nla.gov.au/nla.ms-ms9198. Retrieved 2011-08-31.
- ^ "the One Day of the Year" (pdf). Director's Notes. Wyong Drama Group Incorporated. April 2001. http://www.wyongdramagroup.com.au/OneDayFiles/OneDayDirectorsNotes.pdf. Retrieved 2011-08-31.
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Oxford Companion to Australian Literature
Oxford University Press. © 1994 All rights reserved.
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Oxford Companion to Australian History
The Oxford Companion to Australian History. © 1998
Oxford University Press.
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