AustLit

'It was 30 years ago, but you can still feel the anger rising off the page. Writer Peter Carey and theatre producer Mike Mullins were working together on a big-budget musical for the 1986 Adelaide Festival of the Arts, a “political, surrealistic rock pantomime”, in one critic’s description, called Illusion. The show would prove to be a famous flop. But Carey and Mullins’ collaboration was clearly unravelling, letter by typewritten letter, well before Illusion opened. “You accussed [sic] me of trying to blackmail you,” Carey protests, “… blackmail is so wide of the point as to be an insult.” “Now to the severity of your attack on my artistic integrity,” begins Mullins, in his fierce reply. Things only get worse when they start talking about each other’s wives.' (Introduction)