Drama anthologies reflect the periods. (Drama).

Katharine Brisbane, editor.

Plays of the 60s. Volume 3.

Sydney: Currency Press, 1998.

x + 260 pages. Aus$24.95.

ISBN 0 86819 562 6.

Plays of the 70s. Volume 1.

Sydney: Currency Press, 1998.

ix + 214 pages. Aus$24.95.

ISBN 0 86819 548 0.

IF AN ANTHOLOGY CAN REFLECT the literary tastes of a period, show specific trends, or testify to the editor's predilections, volume 3 of Plays of the 60s seems to respond to all three selection criteria. The four plays collected here were first performed between 1966 and 1969, at a time when Australia saw the anti-Vietnam war campaign and was--in the realm of cultural politics--preoccupied with the issues of censorship and the formation of the Australian Council for the Arts. Against this background the younger playwrights could not yet expect large subsidies, let alone mainstage productions. These restrictions, however, added a more or less pragmatic impetus to experiment with new theatrical forms that paid tribute to the theoretical masterminds of the day. Thus, especially the work of Artaud, Brecht, and Kott marks the common ground on which the writers of this volume, Rodney Milgate, Bill Reed, Alexander Buzo, and John Romeril, arrange their ironic confrontation with diverse powers that are apparently beyo nd control.

Based on the structure of Euripides' The Bacchae, Rodney Milgate's A Refined Look at Existence (1966) evolves questions of disillusionment and disintegration, which in the absence of any meaningful reference might expose the twentieth century as a nasty hoax. It is the lack of understanding and accepting reality that leads …