The Golden Age was first performed by the Playbox Theatre Company at the Studio Theatre of the Victorian Arts Centre on 8 February 1985 with the following cast:

WILLIAM / MELORNE       Robin Cumming

ELIZABETH / ANGEL / DR SIMON      Marilynne Hanigan

STEF / CORRIS       Terry O’Brien

AYRE / MRS WITCOMBE       Maggie Blinco

MAC / ROSS / JAMES / GERMAN MAN       Mark Minchinton

PETER      Andrew Sharp

FRANCIS      Robert Morgan

BETSHEB       Melita Jurisic

Directed by Rex Cramphorn

Designed by Shaun Gurton

Lighting Designer, John Beckett

Original music by Sarah de Jong

CHARACTERS

WILLIAM ARCHER, a doctor
ELIZABETH ARCHER, William’s wife
FRANCIS MORRIS, a young engineer
PETER ARCHER, a young geologist
BETSHEB, a young woman
STEF, an ‘autistic’ child
AYRE, an old woman
MELORNE, an old man
ANGEL, a woman in her 20s
MAC, a young man
GEORGE ROSS, M.P., Federal Minister for Health
MRS WITCOMBE, a working-class woman in her 50s
DR SIMON, psychiatrist at the asylum
JAMES, a patient at the asylum
PRIVATE CORRIS, an Australian soldier
A GERMAN MAN, a man on the run
MARY, a maid
A SERVANT

SETTING

The play is set during the wartime years 1939-45, and the action moves from locations in Hobart and South-West Tasmania to Berlin in the last days of the War.

In memory of Marvin Gaye.

‘There are moments when speech is but a mouth pressed lightly and humbly against the angel’s hand.’

James Merrill

ACT ONE

SCENE ONE

Hobart, 1939. A garden. It is a hot Australian night full of the sounds of cicadas and crickets. ELIZABETH ARCHER, a middle-aged woman, stands in front of a small, crumbling Greek temple. She wears a copy of an ancient Greek dress. For a moment it seems we are in ancient Greece, but she is playing Iphigenia from Iphigenia in Tauris.

ELIZABETH: ‘I dreamed I had escaped from this island and lived at home in Argos. There I was asleep when suddenly the earth shook and tore apart. I ran outdoors and helplessly watched the whole house crumble into the earth. Out of this ruin, which was my father’s house, one column stood. Brown hair grew from its head and it spoke in a human voice. Weeping, I performed for it this murderous ritual for strangers, sprinkling water, as on one destined to die. I interpret this dream thus: it was my brother Orestes I prepared for death and he has died. For what are pillars of a house but its sons. And those whose heads I touch with purifying water die. So now I want to pour libations for my brother.’

WILLIAM, about the same age as his wife, enters as Orestes. He is handcuffed, wears glasses and a dinner jacket. He stands before Iphigenia.

‘Do you know where you are?’

WILLIAM: ‘Tauris, my High Priestess.’

ELIZABETH: ‘And what is it known for?’

WILLIAM: ‘Any Greek who lands on its shores is put to death.’

ELIZABETH: ‘And yet, mysterious stranger, you are Greek and you dare to step on our island. You should have left when you had the chance.’

WILLIAM: ‘I was shipwrecked.’