The Torrents is a 1955 Australian play by Oriel Gray, set in the late 19th century, about the arrival of a female journalist in an all-male newspaper office, and an attempt to develop irrigation-based agriculture in a former gold mining town.
In 1955 it was voted best play that year by the Playwrights' Advisory Board, alongside Ray Lawler's Summer of the Seventeenth Doll,[1][2][3][4] winning a prize of £100 for its author.[5] This has been called "one of the great “compare and contrast” moments in the history of female Australian playwriting."[6]
Theme
The play is set in the second half of the 19th century,[2][5][7][8] in the newspaper office of a country town[2][3][5] built around gold-mining.[2][7][8][9] The gold is running out,[2][8][9] and a young engineer suggests developing agriculture, supported by irrigation, as an alternative.[2][7][8][9] A new recruit to the newspaper, one J.G. Milthorpe, arrives – and turns out to be a woman named Jenny.[8][9] The play explores tensions between the all-male workforce of the newspaper and the new female reporter; between those who want to see mining continue and those who support agriculture; and the different stances of the newspaper editor and his son.[2][8][9]
Stage performances
The Torrents had its stage premiere in 1957 at the New Theatre, Stow Hall, Adelaide,[7][10] produced by Mary Miller, one of the founders of that theatre.[8] It was performed in Melbourne the following year, at the New Theatre,[2][11] and in Sydney in 1962 at Norman McVicker's Pocket Playhouse in Sydenham.[12][13] The cast included John Cooper, Beverley Harte and Lionel Mann, and it was produced by Robert Findlay.[13]
It was adapted into a one-hour radio play by Joy Hollyer[17] for the ABC in 1956.[3][4][18] Three performances were broadcast, one in March 1956, with Beverley Dunn as J.G. Milford,[17] another in November 1956, with Margo Lee as J.G. Milford, Kevin Brennan as the editor, Ben Gabriel as the son, and Keith Buckley as the young engineer.[19] and the third in December 1956, in which Gwen Clarke played Jenny Milford, and Donald McTaggart played the son; also in the cast was Rodney Hall.[20]
Another production aired in 1966, with Nonie Stewart and John Nash in major roles.[21]
1969 TV adaptation
The play was adapted for Australian TV in 1969.[9]Filmink said this adaptation "seemed forgotten in newspaper reports about the recent STC/Black Swan revival of that play."[6]
Musical adaptation
It was also adapted into the musical A Bit o' Petticoat.[22]
Publication
The Torrents was not published until 1988,[23] when Penguin released it as part of their Australian playhouse series, and it was also included in Dale Spender's The Penguin Anthology of Australian Women's Writing.[2][24] It was then re-issued by Currency Press in 1996 and 2016.
^ abcdefghijkArrow, Michelle (9 December 1995). "The play that time forgot". The Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. pp. 275, 277–278. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
^ abcd"Australian play for Adelaide". Tribune. No. 1009. New South Wales, Australia. 31 July 1957. p. 2. Retrieved 11 August 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
^ abcdefKelly, Frances (11 December 1969). "Television. A play at last!". The Canberra Times. Canberra, ACT, Australia. p. 33. Retrieved 11 August 2019.
^Lyons, Jill (6 November 1957). "The Doll and the Umbrella". The Bulletin. 78 (4056): 26, 49. Retrieved 11 August 2019.
^ abc"The Torrents". AusStage – The Australian Live Performance Database. Retrieved 11 August 2019.
^"Ensemble Theatre Plans New Career". The Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. 7 March 1962. p. 13. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
^ abR.C. (10 August 1962). ""Torrents" At The Pocket Playhouse". The Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. p. 9. Retrieved 12 August 2019.