AustLit

Svetloff was the name given to supposed Russian author of the play Judgement Day, during its five performances at Adelaides Ab-Intra Studio in 1933. Svetloff was in fact Frank Perkins (later Kester Berwick). As he notes in his introduction to the manuscript (held by the The University of Queensland's Fryer Library): 'Berwick's rationale for the pseudonym, he claims, was not an attempt to hoax the audience or the public in general but rather to get an unbiased opinion. His thinking was that 'personal friends would be disposed to be kind critics... Others, more objective, might find everything wrong with it' (p.1).