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Finding Joanna: Seeking the True Contemporaries of 'The First Joanna'
Bryan Bartlett
(Status : Public)
Coordinated by Bryan Bartlett
  • University of Queensland Student Work, 2016

    This exhibition is the result of undergraduate research for the Practices of Performance course (DRAM2210) at The University of Queensland.

  • Introduction

    Throughout history, cultural creations have been a reflection on the issues that existed at the time. As the years pass, these cultural pressures change, causing the cutural creations to adapt. The cultural pressures that exist in one time will be different to those that exist a decade later, so that in ten years, what is being written about, sung about, or performed about can change dramatically. Any study of the contemporaries of a certain piece, therefore, must also include a study of the time the piece was created. In many cases, the creation of a cultural piece is well documented, and its position in place and time universally accepted. However, some plays, such as The First Joanna by Dorothy Blewett, can have questions about what their contemporaries actually are.

  • Uncertain Time of Writing

    The First Joanna is a play about the life of the Deveron family, set in post WW2 South Australia. In the play, Dorothy Blewett accurately references subjects such as the Russian occupation of Eastern Europe, the ending of the war, and the American influence in the war itself. Combined with the play winning the 1947 Playwrights' Advisory Board Competition and being performed as a Sydney Radio Play in 1948, it would be reasonable to assume that the play was written sometime between 1945 and 1947. This play would have then been written alongside other plays written between 1945 and 1947 in Australia such as Six From Borneo : Documentary Drama of the Death Marches, Stormy Was the Weather, and Wicked Is the Vine.

    Some sources, such as The Campbell Howard Annotated Index of Australian Plays 1920-1955, mark the play as being written in 1941. This would be a full year before the Americans entered WW2 and before the bombing of Darwin. This would change the contemporaries of The First Joanna dramatically, making Australian plays such as The Starlit Valley and I Killed the Count as the ones performed at the time of writing. If The First Joanna was written in 1941, it would represent a future Australia at a time when most were either writing about the past before the war, or assuming everything will go back to normal after the war.

  • Example of Early 1940s Work

  • Examples of Late 1940s Work

  • Evidence for 1947-1948

    Most information about a 1947-1948 writing date is circumstantial, based on when the play appeared to the world at large. Certainly the play itself received fame from winning the 1947 Playwrights' Advisory Board Competition. According to the Sydney Morning Herald [Dec 11,1947], May Hollingworth picked up the play to perform at the Metropolitan Theatre, as well as the play being performed on the radio. In the same article, one of the Judges, Leslie Rees, spoke of how it 'was a play of professional competence that could be given on any stage.' The play went on to receive national attention, reaching radios in Adelaide, Brisbane,Newcastle, and Melbourne. The play would continue to be performed on radio and on stage until around the mid 1950's, where advertisements about the play appeared to diminish.

    For a play to be so well received, it is hard to believe it might have been written 6 years before, during the same year that Dorothy Blewett won the Western Australian Drama Festival Award for Quiet Night.

    However, The Campbell Howard Annotated Index of Australian Plays 1920-1955 does list a 1941 date for the play, with their source of their information as Australian Women Writers : A Bibliographic Guide. Though Australian Woman Writers does not cite a direct source for the date, Dr Adelaide does mention that she had done extensive research in The National Library, and in libraries across the nation, in many cases seeing original manuscripts or audio readings. A audio book version of this play does appear on Trove, recorded for Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind Tertiary Resource Service by Peggy Nunn Dunphy in 1941. However, the only copy, located in the ACT Library System, appears to no longer be in their catalogue. Peggy Nunn did work on 'The First Joanna', but it was as an actor in 1948. According to her obituary, she also did not start doing recordings for the Victorian Institute for the Blind until after she moved to Melbourne in 1949.

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  • A Surprise Find

  • Except from Sydney Morning Herald, 24 October 1943: Lectures
    Trove: National Library of Australia

    Though circumstantial, the evidence above could be used to argue that 'The First Joanna' simply did not exist as a play prior to 1947. However, Leslie Rees, in the Australian Quarterly, Vol 20 No 2 mentions that they play had been in script for some time. A commercial interest apparently had the rights to the play, but did not perform it. in 1947 the rights to the play reverted back to Dorothy Blewett, allowing her to enter it into the Playwrights' Advisory Board Competition. The real find, however, was that perhaps the first ever public reading of 'The First Joanna' occurred at 38 Clarence Street, Sydney on 24th October 1943. This means that 'The First Joanna' existed as a completed script before the end of WW2.

  • Supposition and Conclusion

    Though we probably will never know the true tale of the writing and discovery of 'The First Joanna', the story we can weave from the bits and pieces we do have tell us that the story about the play is as interesting as the play itself.

    Suppose then, that Dorothy Blewett began writing 'The First Joanna' within a year of completing 'Quiet Night'. On a spring evening in late 1943, Dorothy read this play as part of the "Fellowship of Writers" group she was a member of. Suppose then a theatre group heard the play that night, and bought the rights to produce and perform the play. However, they could not bring themselves to attempt an untested play. Four years later, the rights to the play went back to Dorothy Blewett, who entered it into the Playwrights' Advisory Board Competition. The play won, and became an almost instant hit on stages and radios across Australia. One of these performances included Peggy Nunn playing the role of the second Joanna in 1948. In 1949, Peggy moved to Melbourne, where she began to create audio books for the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind Tertiary Resource Service. One of these would have been 'The First Joanna', which she still had the script for. Suppose then, some time in the future, this audio tape made it into the ACT Library system, but was mistakenly dated as 1941, instead of a more probable 1949. Other writers would then reference this date, as it would be seen as a primary source.

    Though the above is simply a supposition and theory based on circumstantial and primary source information, it is a good lesson on how a single mistake can perpetuate through the system. Regardless of the true date of writing, the fact the script existed in 1943 shows that the play accurately portrayed a post WW2 era a year before the end of the war. Dorothy Blewett's ability to envision what families would have to deal with after the war, in a time where many was looking to the past, shows her talent and her understanding of family dynamics.

  • Works Cited

    Adelaide, Debra. Australian Women Writers: A Bibliographic Guide. London: Pandora, 1988. Print.

    'AustLit.' AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

    Bedson, Jack, and Julian Croft. The Campbell Howard Annotated Index of Australian Plays, 1920-1955. Armidale: Centre for Australian Language and Literature Studies, U of New England, 1993. Print.

    'Behind The Mike.' Truth [Sydney, New South Wales, Australia] 11 Jan. 1948: 29. Trove. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

    Blewett, Dorothy. 'The First Joanna: A Play in Two Acts'. MS, The Hanger Collection of Australian Plays. Fryer Library, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

    Bluitt, Dorothy. Perf. Peggy Dunphy. The First Joanna : A Play in Two Acts. Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind Tertiary Resource Service, 1941. Trove. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

    'Broadcasting Programmes.' The Adelaide Chronicle [Adelaide, South Australia, Australia] 22 Jan. 1948: 28. Trove. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

    Coppel, Alec. I Killed the Count: A Play in Three Acts. London: S. French, 1939. Print.

    Dunphy, Peggy, Kim Dunphy, Patti Chapin, and Nicci Chapin. 'Pioneer of Early Radio and TV Entertainment.' The Sydney Morning Herald. 10 Apr. 2014. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

    Elliott, Sumner Locke. Wicked Is the Vine. Lux Radio Theatre. 1947. Performance.

    'For Your Information.' Queensland Times [Ipswich, Queensland, Australia] 24 Jan. 1948: 4. Trove. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

    'Highlights in Radio.' The Newcastle Sun [Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia] 24 Jan. 1948: 4. Trove. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

    'Lectures.' Sydney Morning Herald [Sydney, New South Wales, Australia] 23 Oct. 1943: 13. Trove. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

    Libraries Australia. National Library of Australia. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

    Park, Ruth. Stormy Was the Weather: The Story of the Making of James Cook, Master-mariner. Print.

    Rees, Leslie. 'Review: The First Joanna.' The Australian Quarterly 20.2 (1948): 124-27. JSTOR. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

    'Repertory Club Success.' The West Australian [Perth, Western Australia, Australia] 2 Dec. 1948: 8. Trove. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

    Shepherd, Catherine. The Starlit Valley.. ABC Competition Plays. 2 June 1940. Performance.

    Simpson, Colin. Six from Borneo: Documentary Drama of the Death Marches. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Commission. Print.

    'Stage Play Competition.' Sydney Morning Herald [[Sydney, New South Wales, Australia] 11 Dec. 1947: 36. Trove. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

    'This Week in Wireless.' The Age [Melbourne, Victoria, Australia] 24 Jan. 1948: 7. Trove. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

    Trove. National Library of Australia. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

    'Western Australian Drama Festival Award.' AustLit. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

  • Addendum and Authors Notes

    The research essay above was written as part of our assessment at the University of Queensland Drama Production course in Semester 1, 2016, in which we performed Dorothy Blewett's The First Joanna. At the time of writing, there was no known date of writing for the play, only questions that was brought up during our attempt to understand the world in which this play was written. The discovery of the 1943 reading of the play was a surprise, as I had originally began to write the essay in an attempt to debunk the idea of the play being written before the end of World War II. Thanks to donations made by Dorothy Blewett's family, we were able to acquire even older versions of the play, that though undated, contain addresses where Dorothy Blewett lived, allowing us to surmise the play may have been written as early as the late 1930s. The content of these early plays, though remaining true to the core lessons that the more modern versions portray, were written based on the events that happened during that time. Dorothy Blewett constantly rewrote The First Joanna to relate to contemporary audiences, and it was her post-WW2 version that captured the hearts and minds of Australia. I believe this shows that the play itself can transcend cultural boundaries, and be written to have meaning for any time or society. These earlier versions of the play now are in the possession of Austlit for digitisation.

    Thank you to the family of Dorothy Blewett for allowing us to perform such a wonderful play, and an experience none of us will forget.


    Bryan Bartlett

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