AustLit

'Of Katharine Susannah Prichard's seventeen plays, some remain unproduced, most are unpublished, and two or three appear to be lost. In recent years attention has been drawn to her dramatic writing by the Currency Methuen edition of Bid Me To Love (not previously published), and the revised version of Brumby Innes (originally published in 1940). Both plays were written in 1927. The percipience of their treatment of sexuality has been remarked upon by Margaret Williams, in her review of the Pram Factory's premiere production of Brumby Innes in 1972 and by Katharine Brisbane in her Introduction to the Currency Methuen edition of the plays. Both critics stress Katharine Prichard's forward-looking approach to sexuality, especially in Brumby Innes. Miss Brisbane observes that "Brumby Innes was half a century ahead of its time in the values it gives to romance and sexuality" (p. xxv).' (Publication abstract)