A Second Moses

September 28th, 1939 — September 29th, 1939


Venue

Princess Theatre, Woolloongabba

Producer

The Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society

Director

Barbara Sisley

Playwright

George Landen Dann

Cast

Clare Clarke
D.Kellett Cameron
Daphne Roemermann
Peter Buchanan
Muriel Burton
Robl.E.Kelly
Mary Gibson
Graham Webster
Jean Whitfield
Joyce Armstrong
William Williams
Ludovick Gordon
Betty Ross
Jack Bow
Mervyn Eadie
Barbara Bancroft
Leonore Francis
Jean Jarrott
Lorna Watt
Joan Harry
Ernest Busch
Jay Hawken
Ruth Peapell
Maibry Wragge
Betty Brown
Ley Outridge
Mavis Busch
Merle Dinning
Beryl Rickard
Rosemary Stevenson


In a letter to playwright George Landen Dann responding to a draft of his play A Second Moses (later renamed Caroline Chisholm), Barbara Sisley wrote: “I love the play! It is vitally interesting and the characters, especially the central one, are, to my mind, very well drawn. You have struck out on a fresh path, and shown what a woman has done for colonisation. Congratulations on a very fine piece of work”.(i)

Produced in 1939 under Sisley’s direction, it was greeted in The Telegraph as “by far the best play Mr. Dann has yet written”. Praise was heaped on Sisley for her excellent direction – “a triumph” and “one of her finest achievements” especially considering the “grave difficulties” of a large cast of 28 actors, period costumes and many scene changes. Daphne Roemermann – an "ideal Caroline” – was praised for the acting strength she brought to this leading role. [ii] Professor Stable wrote in his 1939 Annual Report that the production of Dann’s A Second Moses “provided easily the most outstanding event of the theatrical year in Brisbane”.[iii]


[i] Letter from Sisley to Dann, Jan. 8, 1938.

[ii] The Telegraph, 29 September 1939, page 12.

[iii] Annual Report 1939 (GLD Collection, Fryer Library).


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