Jack Hibberd: Selected plays

Hibberd has been called the most innovative Australian playwright of his generation. His early plays have endured the test of time and continue to be performed, studied and read for pleasure. White with Wire Wheels (1967) satirises a culture of masculinity expressed in cars, booze and work. Women are marginalised, trivialised and ultimately disposable. This provocative and unconventional comic play throws a spotlight on human and material values and a society that can tolerate the intolerable. Dimboola (1969) is expressively vulgar, bawdy and boisterous, it plays out the wedding reception from hell, with the audience active participants as guests. A Stretch of the Imagination (1972) introduces us to the painfully lonely world of Monk O'Neill, one of the great comic creations of Australian dramatic literature. Monk's colourful, rambling monologue cuts to the quick of what Australia one was and what one day it could become. The resilient ironies of the play will not be lost on today's generation.