Place premiered Sydney First performance 11 March 1959 Original language English language | Date premiered 11 March 1959 Subject Catholicismfamilies | |
The Slaughter of St. Teresa's Day is a play by Australian author Peter Kenna.
Contents
Plot
Oola Maguire, a bookie, holds a party every St. Teresa's Day. The guests are the people she has quarrelled with in the past year, and there is only one rule – firearms must be parked in the hall. Her daughter Thelma is brought home from the convent she attends with two nuns.
Background
It won a National Playwrights Competition in 1958 and was produced in Sydney the following year by the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust.
Kenna revised the play in 1972.
1960 Australian TV Adaptation
It was filmed by the ABC on 23 March 1960 at a time when local drama production was rare. The spelling of the title was "Theresa's Day" not "Teresa's Day" like the play.
Neva Carr Glyn reprised the role which Kenna had written for her.
Cast
Reception
The Australian Woman's Weekly called it "excellent entertainment."
The critic for the Sydney Morning Herald thought the play "lost little of its waywardness and some of its liveliness in a television production" and had faults with the play ("Kenna seems unable to settle decisively on one theme and to develop it boldly enough to carry his admirable intentions and considerable ability") but felt it was a "very worthwhile production, organised with some tact and imagination by Alan Burke."
1962 British TV Adaptation
The play was filmed by the BBC in 1962.