Desire of the Moth
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| Desire of the Moth | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Written by | James Brazill |
| Directed by | Raymond Westwell |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | melodrama |
| Setting | outback station |
Desire of the Moth is a 1966 Australian play by James Brazill.[1]
On an outback station, a married woman yearns for her old lover. She later engineers his suicide and goes insane.
Production history
It received a professional production in 1966 starring Googie Withers and Ed Devereaux.[2] It was produced for J.C. Williamsons Ltd.[3]
Withers said "It is the first Australian play I feel I can tackle. "We have high hopes for it. It is a human relations play set on a lonely sheep station in Australia. Up until now Australian play writers have followed the same pattern of rollicking Australiana, kangaroos, the outback and all that sort of thing. They can't go on writing in that vein and we are hoping for more Australian-written plays."[4]
The play was Brazill's first produced play.[5] He was a librarian.[6]
The season lost money.[7]
According to Leslie Rees "Critics unequivocally condemned Desire of the Moth and aspects of its production, but the author later declared that sixty thousand people saw it in the two cities."[8][9]