''The Bushrangers; or Norwood Vale'' is a 1834 Australian stage play by Henry Melville. It was the first play with an Australian theme to be published and staged in Australia.
It is not to be confused with the 1829 play ''
The Bushrangers
''The Bushrangers; or Norwood Vale'' is a 1834 Australian stage play by Henry Melville. It was the first play with an Australian theme to be published and staged in Australia.
It is not to be confused with the 1829 play ''The Bushrangers (Burn pl ...
'' by David Burn. According to Margare Williams, the plays "belong to two very different studies of the bushranging subject, and the immigrant Melville’s is, surprisingly, the less specific of the two. It has about as simple a melodramatic plot as it would be possible to find and seems to confirm the author’s description of it in his foreword to the published text as ‘a theatrical piece, introducing a few Colonial characters’."
History
The play was printed in ''Hobart Town Magazine'' in April 1834. It was staged in Hobart the following month and in Launceston during November.
It marked the earliest appearance of
blackface
Blackface is the practice of performers using burned cork, shoe polish, or theatrical makeup to portray a caricature of black people on stage or in entertainment. Scholarship on the origins or definition of blackface vary with some taking a glo ...
in an Australian play.
Leslie Rees observed "the play was divided into three acts with thirteen scenes, but on paper it scarcely seemed longer than a one-act play, a series of tableaux with running comments." The play was written relatively quickly. Richard Fotheringham argues "much of this brief play is conventional in character and plot, but its colonial setting and staging lend even its trite and predictable elements an unexpected interest."
[Fortheringham p 6]
Premise
A party of bushrangers plot an attack on the bush home of a settler, Norwood, who has a daughter Marian. The settler is saved by his daughter’s lover, Frederick Seymour, previously turned down by the father, and by an Aboriginal, Murrahwa.
See also
*''
Life in Sydney; or, The Ran Dan Club''
*
''The House That Jack Built'' (1869 play)
*''
The Kelly Gang The Kelly Gang may refer to:
* Ned Kelly, Australian bushranger, outlaw, gang leader and convicted police-murderer
* The Kelly Gang (film)
''The Kelly Gang'' is an Australian feature-length film about the Australian bush ranger, Ned Kelly. The f ...
''
*''
For the Term of His Natural Life
''For the Term of His Natural Life'' is a story written by Marcus Clarke and published in ''The Australian Journal'' between 1870 and 1872 (as ''His Natural Life''). It was published as a novel in 1874 and is the best known novelisation of life ...
''
*''
For 60,000 pounds''
*''
Hazard; or, Pearce Dyceton's Crime''
*''
The South-Sea Sisters: A Lyric Masque''
*''
Arabin; or, The Adventures of a Settler''
References
External links
''The Bushrangers''at
AustLit
AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource (also known as AustLit: Australian Literature Gateway; and AustLit: The Resource for Australian Literature) is a national bio-bibliographical database of Australian literature. It is an internet-based, ...
Bibliography
*
*''The Bushranger'' Fortitude Valley, Queensland: Playlab, 2013.
1834 plays
1830s Australian plays
Plays about fictitious bushrangers
Plays set in Tasmania
Plays set in colonial Australia
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