In the 1960s Curnow, Baxter, and Sargeson had all written plays of literary interest but no great public success; the 1970s and ’80s, however, saw significant development in the writing and production of New Zealand plays. Bruce Mason, whose one-man show The End of the Golden Weather (published 1962) had been performed hundreds of times all over the country, continued to write and saw the best of his earlier plays with Maori themes—The Pohutukawa Tree (published 1960) and Awatea (published 1969)—given professional productions. Mervyn Thompson wrote expressionist plays mixing elements of autobiography with social and political comment (O! Temperance! and First Return [both published 1974]). Greg McGee probed the surface of New Zealand’s “national game,” rugby, in the hugely successful Foreskin’s Lament (published 1981). Roger Hall wrote clever comedies and satires of New Zealand middle-class life—Middle Age Spread (published 1978), which was produced in London’s West End, and Glide Time (published 1977). O’Sullivan’s Shuriken (published 1985) used a riot by Japanese soldiers in a New Zealand prison camp to illustrate how understanding and sympathy fail to cross cultural boundaries. Drama, the last of the major literary genres to get started in New Zealand, developed rapidly in the 1980s, and new playwrights (Stuart Hoar, Michael Lord, Hilary Beaton, Renée [original name Renée Taylor], and Stephen Sinclair, for example) were finding producers, casts, and audiences as never before.
Front-cover-of-the-Spiral-Press-first-edition-of-KeriFront cover of the Spiral Press first edition of Keri Hulme’s The Bone People (1983).[Credits : Between the Covers Rare Books, Inc., Merchantville, NJ]
Katherine-MansfieldKatherine Mansfield[Credits : BBC Hulton Picture Library]
Dust-jacket-of-Ian-Weddes-Made-OverDust jacket of Ian Wedde’s Made Over (1974).[Credits : Between the Covers Rare Books, Inc., Merchantville, NJ]
Dust-jacket-of-Janet-Frames-To-the-Is-LandDust jacket of Janet Frame’s To the Is-Land (1982).[Credits : Between the Covers Rare Books, Inc., Merchantville, NJ]
Dust-jacket-of-Frank-Sargesons-Joy-of-the-WormDust jacket of Frank Sargeson’s Joy of the Worm (1969).[Credits : Between the Covers Rare Books, Inc., Merchantville, NJ]
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