Modernist drama decried: Patrick White, spoiled identity, and failure as a 'Logic of use'

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Title Modernist drama decried: Patrick White, spoiled identity, and failure as a 'Logic of use'
Creator Contributors
Abstract/Description This article discusses a hitherto unexamined letter exchange between the author Patrick White and the theatre director John Sumner. It concerns the production by the Union Theatre Repertory Company of two White plays in the 1960s: 'The Season at Sarsaparilla' (1962) and 'A Cheery Soul' (1963). The aperture of the correspondence also takes in productions of 'The Ham Funeral' (1961) and 'Night on Bald Mountain' (1964) by the Adelaide University Theatre Guild in the same period. Thus it provides a seminal example of 'failure' in White's five-year sojourn in Australian theatre from 1960 to 1965, a time when his four best-known plays were denounced by critics and rejected by audiences. By way of analysis, I deploy a range of interpre tive concepts drawn from Erving Goffman's Stigma (1963), most importantly the notions of 'spoiled identity' and 'role discrepancy'. I define the social fact of failure as a certain relation between actual social identity, virtual social identity, personal identity and ego-identity. The article examines the White- Sumner correspondence to show how failure was managed as a job of work by a 'logic of use' pursuant to its being a likely outcome of staging one of White's plays. In conclusion, it lists the features of a 'logic of use' and discusses the adaptive utility of failing in creative situations where the penalty to be paid - being designated 'a failure' - is both probable and heavy.
Related Events
  • Night on Bald Mountain, University of Adelaide, Union Hall, The University of Adelaide, SA, 9 March 1964
  • A Cheery Soul, University of Melbourne, Union Theatre, The University of Melbourne (Parkville), VIC, 19 November 1963
  • The Season at Sarsaparilla, University of Melbourne, Union Theatre, The University of Melbourne (Parkville), VIC, 16 October 1962
  • The Ham Funeral, University of Adelaide, Union Hall, The University of Adelaide, SA, 15 November 1961
Related Contributors
Source Australasian Drama Studies, ADSA, VIC
Issue 71
Page 42-67
Date Issued October 2017
Language English
ISSN 0810-4123
Citation Julian Meyrick, Modernist drama decried: Patrick White, spoiled identity, and failure as a 'Logic of use', Australasian Drama Studies, 71, October 2017, 42-67
Data Set AusStage
Resource Identifier 68767