Study Guide
25 Feb – 18 March 2012, Odeon Theatre
Table of Contents
Table of Contents............................................................................................................................ 2
The Ham Funeral ............................................................................................................................ 4
Cast/Creative Team .................................................................................................................... 4
Duration ...................................................................................................................................... 4
PLAYWRIGHT ................................................................................................................................ 5
Patrick White ............................................................................................................................... 5
Author’s Note on The Ham Funeral ............................................................................................. 6
DIRECTOR ..................................................................................................................................... 7
Adam Cook ................................................................................................................................. 7
Director’s Notes .......................................................................................................................... 7
Interview with Adam Cook ........................................................................................................... 9
ACTOR PROFILES....................................................................................................................... 11
Amanda Muggleton - Landlady.................................................................................................. 11
Interview with Amanda Muggleton ............................................................................................. 11
Luke Clayson – Young Man ...................................................................................................... 12
SYNOPSIS ................................................................................................................................... 14
CHARACTER PROFILES ............................................................................................................. 15
The Young Man ........................................................................................................................ 15
Mrs Lusty - Landlady ................................................................................................................. 15
Mr Lusty - Landlord ................................................................................................................... 15
Girl ............................................................................................................................................ 16
First Lady/Second Lady (Street Ladies) ................................................................................... 16
Four Relatives ........................................................................................................................... 16
PLOT ............................................................................................................................................ 17
ACT 1........................................................................................................................................ 17
ACT TWO ................................................................................................................................. 18
THEMES ....................................................................................................................................... 20
Maturing .................................................................................................................................... 20
Birth, Death ............................................................................................................................... 20
Fantasy ..................................................................................................................................... 20
Prologue ................................................................................................................................... 21
Jungian Symbolism ................................................................................................................... 21
Dual Personality ........................................................................................................................ 22
Language .................................................................................................................................. 22
Expressionist Devices ............................................................................................................... 23
DESIGNER ................................................................................................................................... 24
Ailsa Paterson ........................................................................................................................... 24
Original Stage Directions........................................................................................................... 24
SET DESIGN ................................................................................................................................ 25
COSTUME DESIGN ..................................................................................................................... 26
Interview with Ailsa Patterson ................................................................................................... 27
DESIGN INFLUENCES................................................................................................................. 30
Gilbert Garcin ............................................................................................................................ 30
Vintage Circus Images .............................................................................................................. 31
René François Ghislain Magritte (1898-1967) ........................................................................... 31
INTERESTING READING ............................................................................................................. 32
William Dobell's painting 'The Dead Landlord' ........................................................................... 32
Dobell, Sir William ..................................................................................................................... 32
Funeral Feasts .......................................................................................................................... 33
Absurdism ................................................................................................................................. 33
The Ham Funeral’s rejection ..................................................................................................... 35
Overview of Australian Theatre History ..................................................................................... 36
Patrick White – further information ............................................................................................ 36
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Study Guide: The Ham Funeral
Compiled by Robyn Brookes
© 2012
GLOSSARY .................................................................................................................................. 37
ESSAY QUESTIONS .................................................................................................................... 38
English Questions ..................................................................................................................... 38
Drama Questions ...................................................................................................................... 39
Immediate Reactions .................................................................................................................... 40
Design Roles ................................................................................................................................ 41
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 42
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Study Guide: The Ham Funeral
Compiled by Robyn Brookes
© 2012
State Theatre Company of South Australia presents
The Ham Funeral
By Patrick White
25 Feb – 18 March, Odeon Theatre
Cast/Creative Team
Young Man ........................................................................Luke Clayson
Landlady ............................................................................Amanda Muggleton
Landlord /Relative ..............................................................Jonathan Mill
Girl .....................................................................................Lizzy Falkland
First Lady/Relative .............................................................Geoff Revell
Second Lady/Relative ........................................................Jacqy Phillips
First Relative ......................................................................Jonathan Elsom
Adam Cook ........................................................................Director
Ailsa Patterson ...................................................................Designer
Gavan Swift .......................................................................Lighting Designer
Stuart Day ..........................................................................Composer/Sound Designer
Bridget Samuels ................................................................Stage Manager
Kat Braun...........................................................................Assistant Stage Manager
Alison Howard ...................................................................Associate Director
Jenelle Witty ......................................................................Design Secondment
Martine Micklem ................................................................Dresser
Lee Shiers ..........................................................................Head Mechanist
Sue Grey-Gardner..............................................................Head Electrician
David Gallasch ..................................................................Sound Operator
Duration
Approx:
TOTAL: 2 hrs 35 mins (including interval)
ACT 1:
Interval:
ACT 2:
1 hr 10 mins
20 minutes
55 mins
DWS performance followed by a 20 – 30 min Q&A session
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Study Guide: The Ham Funeral
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© 2012
PLAYWRIGHT
Patrick White
(1912 – 1990)
Patrick White was born in London in 1912 to Australian parents, moving
to Australia at six months of age. After school finished he returned to
England to study languages and literature at Cambridge University. In
1939 he published his first novel, Happy Valley, but his main ambition
was to write for the stage. Bread and Butter Women and The School for
Friends were produced in Sydney in 1935. In 1941 he wrote the novel
The Living and the Dead.
During the Second World War he served as an intelligence officer for the
RAF in the Middle East and Greece. The Ham Funeral was written in
London in 1947 and he completed the novel The Aunt’s Story on the sea
voyage to Australia.
White occasionally made public statements on national issues, such as the war in Vietnam,
environmental matters and Aboriginal affairs. In 1976 he withdrew from the Order of Australia in
protest against some of the government’s policies. He contributed generously to Aboriginal
schools, donated works by Australian painters to the Art Gallery of NSW and established the
Patrick White Literary Award.
Patrick White has produced 13 novels, eight plays and numerous essays, poems, short stories
and articles. He was awarded the Australian Literacy Society Gold Medal, the Miles Franklin
Award and in 1973 the Nobel Prize for Literature, the only Australian ever to have won this prize.
He described his writing as; 'a struggle to create completely fresh forms out of the rocks and
sticks of words.’
White’s plays represent a change in the history of Australian theatre, initiating a period of
experimental drama. The Ham Funeral uses expressionistic devices in which the set and the
characters become a representation of the central figure’s personality.
NOVELS
The Tree of Man (1955)
Voss (1957)
Riders in the Chariot (1961)
The Solid Mandala (1966)
The Vivisector (1970)
The Eye of the Storm (1973)
A Fringe of Leaves (1976)
The Twyborn Affair (1979)
Memoirs of Many in One
(1986)
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PLAYS
The Ham Funeral (1947)
The Season at Sarsaparilla
(1962)
A Cheery Soul (1963)
Night on Bald Mountain
(1964)
Big Toys (1978)
The Night the Prowler
(1978)
Netherwood (1983)
Signal Drive (1983)
Study Guide: The Ham Funeral
Compiled by Robyn Brookes
© 2012
SHORT STORIES
The Burnt Ones (1964)
The Cockatoos (1974)
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Flaws in the Glass (1981)
ESSAY
The Prodigal Son in
Australian Letters (1958)
Author’s Note on The Ham Funeral
(From the 1961 Adelaide University Guild program notes)
During a visit to my native country in 1946 I met William Dobell, who told me how he came to
paint The Dead Landlord, and suggested the incident might contain the theme for a play. Early the
following year I returned to London to gather up my goods and chattels after deciding finally to
settle in Australia. I was the only lodger in a house in Ebury Street, to which I had returned on and
off during the Nineteen-Thirties, and where I experienced the first months of the London blitz, in
the basement, and the coal cellar under the pavement. By 1947 there was a bomb-site next door.
Blast and the lean war years had stripped the house of most of its superfluities.
As I sat in my empty room I began to play with Dobell’s anecdotes of how his Landlord had died,
how the Landlady had taken down her hair, announcing there would be a ham funeral, and that he
must go to fetch the relatives.
Out of the original facts and my own self-searchings and experience as a young man in the house
in Ebury Street, the play of The Ham Funeral developed.
It is not a naturalistic play. The chief problem was how to project a highly introspective character
on the stage without impeding dramatic progress. I have tried to overcome this, partly through the
conflict between the Young Man and those human symbols Mr and Mrs Lusty, the figures in the
basement with whom he wrestles in his attempt to come to terms with life, partly through the
dialogue between the Young Man and his anima, the Girl in the room opposite. The Relatives
become an expression of the conscience, with its multiple forebodings.
As for the two scavengers, a lapse of time and a change of scene were necessary, so I gave way
to my weakness for music-hall. In any case, many actual interludes are a mixture of the hilarious
and the brutal. When the producer suggested setting the play further back in the 1918 period, I
agreed, as I felt it might increase the air of surrealism and timelessness which I had been aiming
at, and after all, the despair and confusion of today – the ‘foetus in the dustbin’ and the ‘stars
which may explode in one’s face’ – were already immanent in a poetic sense.
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Study Guide: The Ham Funeral
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DIRECTOR
Adam Cook
Adam is the Artistic Director of the State Theatre Company of
South Australia. His directing credits for the Company include
Three Sisters, November, The Complete Works of William
Shakespeare (Abridged), Entertaining Mr Sloane, The Price, King
Lear, Mnemonic, The Cripple of Inishmaan, Architektin,
Blue/Orange, LyreBird: Tales of Helpmann, Hamlet, Uncle Vanya,
Life x 3, Noises Off, The Government Inspector, Crow, The
Shifting Heart and The Daylight Atheist.
Graduating from the NIDA Directors Course in 1988, he has since
directed over 80 productions across Australia, London, Canada
and the United States for the Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne and
Brisbane Festivals, Melbourne Theatre Company, Company B
Belvoir, Sydney Theatre Company, Ensemble, Sydney Opera
House Trust, NIDA, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, La Boite,
Q Theatre, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, Opera Australia,
Griffin Theatre Company, Bell Shakespeare, OzOpera, Playbox, Festival of the Dreaming, Windmill
Performing Arts, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, City of London Festival and the Barbican International
Theatre Event (BITE).
Director’s Notes
“Adelaide, that home of second chances for plays of the first importance”
– Geoffrey Dutton, The Bulletin November 25, 1961
I collect first editions of Patrick White’s works. I’ve got quite a few. I also wrote my Masters thesis
on him, and some years ago I adapted his novel, The Aunt’s Story, to the stage, in a production
that played the festival circuit in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. I have a long and loving
association with his work, but this is the first time I’ve directed one of his own plays, so it’s
something of an event for me.
2012 marks the centenary of Patrick White’s birth, and it’s just past a half-century since The Ham
Funeral had its world premiere by the University Guild at Union Hall here in Adelaide.
Festivals should always be about taking risks, both for the artists and the audience, about moving
outside your comfort zone. Ironically, despite the Drama Committee of the Adelaide Festival being
what they described as “scone hot” for this play, it was passed up by the 1962 Adelaide Festival
Board of Governors, some of whom reacted to it with unyielding hostility. The play was in very
good company though, the Board having also previously knocked back Alan Seymour’s iconic
drama of generational conflict, The One Day of the Year.
Here’s an excerpt from a 1961 report on The Ham Funeral:
“It is an abstract type of play which the general public will find difficult, and impossible to
understand. Its complexity will limit its appeal to a few high intellectuals and even they would find
it difficult to interpret the so-called psychological aspects of the play.”
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Well, I for one have never thought of myself as a “high” intellectual, and this play appeals to me a
lot!
The Governors found its style difficult to categorise. They called the play “unappetising fare.
People do not go to see a play as a ‘penance’ and that is exactly how the play will react on [sic] an
audience.” Ultimately, when the Governors rejected the play, Harry Medlin, Chairman of the
University Union Hall Theatre, stepped up and offered Patrick White a production with the Theatre
Guild, of which Medlin was the President from 1960-1966. It was an outstanding success.
It’s no wonder the Festival governors struggled to pigeonhole the play: it doesn’t have a linear
story-line, it doesn’t develop with a narrative logic, most of the characters do not have sustained
psychological depth, and it doesn’t have a consistent style. Neil Armfield described the world of
White’s theatre as a kind of “vaudeville puppet stage… a magical circus”. The Young Man in The
Ham Funeral is not only our protagonist, but also a kind of stage manager/chorus/puppeteer,
even referring to the libidinous Alma Lusty as, “That poor Judy they’re bashing in the basement”.
It’s an ambitious and courageous play.
Like his novels, Patrick White’s plays offer a rich medley of styles - comedy and tragedy,
vaudeville and melodrama, poetic reverie and philosophical exploration. He’d always had what he
called a “weakness for the music hall” and that 'weakness' is amply celebrated in the antinaturalistic tragical farce that is The Ham Funeral. He once told the actress Kerry Walker he’d
always wanted to be an actor, and that he’d always craved success in the theatre. In one of his
letters he wrote; “Not many actresses have been able to resist juicy parts. If I had been an actress
I should have been a bitch, and an eater-up of juicy parts, and I should have become a star”.
In a letter to his cousin, Peggy Garland, he wrote: “I felt life was, on the surface, so dreary, ugly
and monotonous, there must be a poetry hidden in it to give it purpose, so I set out to discover
that secret core”. He was searching for what he called “an unopened door, through which I can
step and find myself rejuvenated”. The theatre, he realized, could combine symbolist intentions
with psychological depth and great visual imagination, offering him tremendous scope and
liberating him from the technical and linguistic weights of naturalism.
The subject of the play is not so much a funeral as a birth, the birth of a poet. We follow the
Young Man’s journey through crises of intimidation and self-doubt, from the “great, damp,
crumbling house” in which he hides, out into a world of compassion and responsibility, and its
tone ranges widely from disgust and pity, comedy and pathos, to brutality and tenderness. It’s
also an autobiographical allegory of Patrick White’s struggle to break free from the ties that bound
him to his mother, the country of his birth, his friends and lovers, possessions and obligations,
indeed any nets beyond which he, as an artist, was hoping to fly.
His plays will always be of great interest for their exuberance and imaginative daring, and their
search for a vernacular lyricism reaching beyond the prescriptively confining four walls of
Australian social realism. White’s importance as a playwright lies less in his direct influence on
others than in his having opened up the lexicon of theatrical possibility for all of us, and as such I
think that 2012, his centenary year, is the perfect time in which to explore and celebrate that
influence. Happy Birthday, Paddy!
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Interview with Adam Cook
1. Once you’ve chosen a script to direct, what is the first thing you do?
There really isn’t a linear sequence of events that follows on from that first decision. So much of
conceiving a production of a play you’ve chosen to direct comes from daydreaming about it,
rather than solving how to do it through line-by-line analysis. You imagine the characters living
and breathing and saying the playwright’s words, you dip in and out of the script [which of course
you’re carrying around in your backpack at all times, in case inspiration strikes and you need to
confirm your imaginative hunches by seeking textual warrant]; you look at particular moments of
narrative or lines of dialogue. So you imagine the world of the play.
If it’s set in another period, you decide whether or not it needs to be set in that period in your
production, and if not, why not? You also decide whether the play will be illuminated by a realistic,
literal set, or whether a more conceptual, metaphoric world can be created. The question in the
forefront of the director’s mind must always be: “Does this decision support and illuminate the
writer’s intentions?”
2. Do you have any requirements of the actors in terms of research before they start the
play?
My only requirement is that they’ve read the play [which of course they will have done, as no actor
signs a contract if they don’t know the role], and that they have started to form their own
impressions about the character and the world s/he inhabits. They will inevitably do their own
research and reading around the play – other works by the same writer, critical essays on the
play. They might find inspiration in music of the period too. Or in looking at visual references.
3. What happens on the first day of rehearsals?
Everybody’s always nervous. It feels like the first day of school. We kick it off with what we call
“Buns,” where whole company meets the cast. The director will make some introductory remarks
about their vision of the play, why they’re excited by it and what imaginative journey on which
they want to take their cast and the audience. We do what we call a design presentation, at which
the director and set/costume designer [usually a combined role when engaged by STCSA]
articulate their imaginative vision for the play. This includes a model box of the set [1:25 scale],
and coloured costume drawings. The function of this is to bring the actors into the world already
created by the director/design team and to excite everyone about the journey ahead.
Then there is the first read through which usually takes us through to lunch. After lunch we dissect
the play and the characters and chat about our thoughts and ideas of approaching the play
before getting up and moving some scenes.
4. How important is the lighting and sound design to the overall look and feel of the play?
Absolutely integral. They create mood, enhance the drama, shift time and space. They’re very
evocative, imaginative tools for us to use. As a director, you tend to approach lighting and sound
designers who you know will be in synch with your thoughts and feelings, perceptions and
insights into the play, because you’ve seen their work.
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Study Guide: The Ham Funeral
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5. Can you tell us your approach to these different design aspects? Are you prescriptive of
what you want, or do you give small ideas or do you let these designers figure it out first
before you add your ideas?
I tend not to be prescriptive at all when it comes to lighting and sound, but I usually have a very
strong concept or ‘hook’ in terms of the visual world I want to create. But I am open to anything. I
don’t want a designer simply to illustrate what’s in my head. I want them to take those ideas and
create something better, something more imaginative than I could ever have designed. I will bring
visual references to the meetings, talk about what ideas, feelings, atmospheres I want to highlight
in the production.
I’m a much more reactive person. I only tend to work with a couple of different lighting and sound
designers, so I know their taste, and they know mine. I let them run with their own ideas, we
discuss those i.e. I hear them in the case of the sound design, the lighting designer will talk
through areas of the stage that need to be considered, how to highlight certain key moment, what
the emotional temperature of the lighting will be, including what gels [colour filters] they intend to
use in the lights themselves.
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Study Guide: The Ham Funeral
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© 2012
ACTOR PROFILES
Amanda Muggleton - Landlady
One of Australia’s most enchanting, versatile and provocative
leading ladies, Amanda’s career spans theatre, screen, radio,
musical theatre and cabaret.
Her previous State Theatre Company appearances include The
Female of the Species, Blithe Spirit and Twelfth Night. Other
theatre credits include The Man from Mukinupin
(Belvoir/Melbourne Theatre Company), Nicholas Nickleby and
Soulmates (Sydney Theatre Company), Entertaining Mr Sloane,
The Seagull, The Matchmaker, Privates on Parade, Shirley
Valentine and Brehman Coffee (Melbourne Theatre Company),
Duet For One, The Winter’s Tale, We Were Dancing and Love
Child (Queensland Theatre Company), Educating Rita (Hole in
the Wall),The Threepenny Opera (Malthouse Theatre/Sydney
Theatre Company), Just the Ticket (Ensemble), Love, Loss And
What I Wore (RMI/Sydney Opera House), Madagascar (Black Swan Theatre Company) and Blood
Brothers (The Metcalfe Playhouse/IAJ International).
A two-time Helpmann Award winner for her portrayal of Maria Callas in Masterclass (Sydney
Theatre Company) and for musical Eureka! (EssGee), she also won awards for roles in Shirley
Valentine, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice and Annie.
Amanda’s appearances in commercial productions include Hello Dolly, The Lion,The Witch And
The Wardrobe, HMS Pinafore, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Measure for Measure and most
recently, Calendar Girls. On television she is best remembered for Chrissie Latham in Prisoner,
Connie Ryan in Richmond Hill and Kath Booth in City Homicide, the latter role earning her an AFI
nomination for Best Guest in a Television Drama. Her film credits include Mad Max, Street Hero,
Queen of the Road, Mr Reliable, Feeling Sexy, Idiot Box and most recently, Matching Jack.
Interview with Amanda Muggleton
1. What was your reaction to being offered the role of the Landlady?
It’s perfect timing! I’ve just this second finished reading the play again – and remembering why I
was so excited the first time I read it!
2. How do you describe the character of Mrs Lusty?
She would do anything to better herself – she has lost a child and now her husband and is just
yearning and longing for love. However, she didn’t lose her libido, like her husband did. She is just
willing to do anything, at any cost, to have that body next to her in bed.
She talks often about how much she loves the theatre and going out to see shows – I think at the
conclusion of the play that’s what she’d be likely to continue to do, and possibly even end up
working backstage alongside all the handsome young actors!
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3. You have played the older woman seducing a younger man many times before, what are
your favourites?
Mrs. Peachum in The Threepenny Opera, Buttercup in HMS Pinafore, Kath in Entertaining Mr
Sloane, Madame Arkadina in The Seagull and even Chrissy Latham in Prisoner…I’ve had plenty of
experience!
4. What do you think of the plans to record the performance at the ABC studios for their
radio drama program?
It’s wonderful when you can record and document a performance. The ones you do brilliantly you
never forget (and the audience doesn’t), however part of the magic of live theatre is that you can
never capture and re-live that exact moment again – the only record is your memory.
5. What do you enjoy about Adelaide?
I was last with the State Theatre Company in 2008 for The Female of the Species. I can’t wait to
perform in Adelaide once again and soak up the Central Market, and my 86 year old father is
hopefully flying over from England – he’s never been to the Barossa Valley so I can’t wait to show
him!
Luke Clayson – Young Man
Luke graduated as an actor from AC Arts in 2005 during which he
performed in Puberty Blues, The Trial and Hamlet. He has since
worked on Holding the Man, Maestro, The Cripple of Inishmaan and
The Real Thing, and with State Theatre Company and in The Wizard
of Oz with Windmill and Sydney Theatre Company. As a writer he is
currently developing two film scripts with producers interstate and
is working on an a mini-series adaptation of Estelle Blackburn’s
best selling novels Broken Lives and The End of Innocence.
1. Could you describe the character you play and the process
go through when understanding and developing your role(s)?
I'm playing the Young Man, a lodger in the Lusty's home. He's a
whimsical, budding poet suffering from an inability to express what
he believes to be his 'true self'.
As the play is semi-autobiographical, I've spent some time reading
Patrick White's published letters - to get an insight into the playwrights mind and thoughts. But
also have watched some films on other similar characters - troubled poets seem to come up in
many works by other greats - Orwell, Joyce - as well as Patrick White.
2. What challenges have you faced during the rehearsal process and how have you
overcome them?
The lyrical nature of the text has presented challenges - especially in deciphering what Patrick
White intended to portray with the unusual images he puts forward. Lots of discussion is the only
way thus far to get our heads around it - and being prepared to make some bold choices to see if
the meaning can't be unearthed.
Also I have to wear glasses! Which presents a new challenge in terms of feeling comfortable in
something so regular - that I never wear myself. So I've worn them from day one - to see if I can
not play with them like they're something new.
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3. How difficult is it to play a straight character, while the others are all vaudevillian in style?
It's not so much a challenge in that respect - but I am certainly different. But the situations in the
play are as other-worldly as the characters themselves - so whether I'm different by nature or not
- I'm in the middle of the other 'clowns' and battling to get through the dense text. I also have a
direct relationship with the Audience - I talk to them - which the others don't - so I can make my
connection that way.
4. What do you think audiences will enjoy about this production?
Patrick White say's it's a play that comes to life in the playing - and he's right. It can be quite a
hard read, and on the page it's tricky to make sense of it all. But when it's up and on the set and
in the costumes - it's a feast for the senses. The look of the play is beautiful - and despite it's
darker themes - it's also really funny.
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“White aimed for something universal and surreal, a mix of the hilarious and brutal.”
– David Marr
SYNOPSIS
A young introverted poet lodges in Mr and Mrs Lusty's boarding house. Mrs Lusty laments to her
husband about the boredom of her life and is punctuated only by her husband’s silence. She
convinces her husband that the Young Man needs to come down to the basement ‘to feed him up
a bit.’
When Mr Lusty suddenly drops dead, Mrs Lusty takes the opportunity to give a lavish feast, ‘an
'am funeral’, in his honour. She forces the Young Man to help her lay out her husband’s body and
to fetch the relatives.
The wake brings all of Mr Lusty’s relatives who haven’t come only to mourn, but to have a dig at
Mrs Lusty. The Young Man grapples with reality and his guilt before joining the group in mourning.
Mrs Lusty who sees a lover and a lost child in the Young Man attempts to seduce the young poet,
with comically tragic consequences.
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CHARACTER PROFILES
The Young Man
The Young Man is a tenant in the Lustys' house. He is an introverted poet and a dreamer, who
asks the question, “Who am I?” The play starts with him in front of the curtain as narrator, about
to present a play. He often breaks the fourth wall and speaks to the audience as a commentator
of the plot.
Although his true name is never revealed, the Young Man is called both “Jack” and “Fred” by the
Landlady, the former because he reminds her of the infant son she lost and the latter because he
brings to mind a lover she once had. The Young Man spends copious amounts of time either lying
on his bed staring at the ceiling or with his ear pressed against the door of the room across the
hall, waiting to commune with the Girl, who inhabits the room. This Girl isn’t real though, just a
figment of his imagination.
When the Landlord dies the Young Man comes face to face with reality and doesn’t know how to
deal with it. When moving the body he is overcome with uncontrollable hiccups and he talks to
several relatives only to find only one accompanies him to the house. The demonstrates to the
audience visually that the Young Man has a distorted mental state. He is nearly seduced by the
Landlady, but breaks free only to feel a sense of guilt. He grows out of adolescence into maturity
when the Girl tells him to put his dreams into words, bringing him into reality. He knows he must
free himself of the Landlady or become her captive, part-son, part-lover, so he leaves the house.
Mrs Lusty - Landlady
Mrs Lusty is a sexy and dowdy character who laments about the boredom of her life, randomly
talking away to her husband. Her husband’s silence, except for his breathing, is an affront to the
energy she is bursting to express. They had a passionate romance when they were younger, but it
is now a loveless marriage where they are both just going through the motions. Her monologue on
the stairs is a self-dramatisation showing her depression that life wasn’t what she expected.
She sees the Young Man in two different ways, firstly as an alternate lover and secondly her dead
child. In Scene 4 it seems that she had an affair with a man called Fred and that the dead child
was his,“I ‘ad a child. For a few days I held ‘im in my arms. ‘Oose child? ‘Oo cares!”
At her husband’s wake she is attacked by his relatives and she talks about how she’s often
thought of killing him. As such her conscience starts to prick at her. She tries to seduce the
Young Man as she is desperate to feel the passionate embrace of a man again.
Mr Lusty - Landlord
He is immobile sitting in his undergarments in the basement rarely making any conversation. Mrs
Lusty says of him, ‘all you get is words...good, bad or doubtful. Or else it’s silences. That’s worse.’
When pushed by his wife to talk he says,
"My life’s been that simple, it doesn’t bear telling about. I was a boy. I grew. I met a woman ‘oo
became my wife.”
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© 2012
“I sit ‘ere. I am content. Life, at last, is wherever a man ‘appens to be. This ‘ouse is life. I watch it
fill with light, an’ darken. These are my days and nights. The solid ‘ouse spreadin’ above my head.
Only once in a while I remember the naked bodies…knotting together…killing themselves…and
one another…Bloody deluded!”
The Young Man observes that the Landlord is ‘a sensitive beast, inside his underclothes.’ The
Landlord reveals his love, his life and the emotion about finding his wife with Fred and the
subsequent child from this affair, “I seen ‘im again… in the face of that dead kid.”
It is straight after this scene that the Landlord dies. At his wake the relatives talk about him being
a silent man, but deep, gentle, but strong, until he married and the “goodness in him turned to
pus.”
Girl
The Girl lives in the apartment across the hallway from the Young Man. He never sees her, but
has built a relationship with this Girl in his mind. The first we see of her is a gloved arm in a patch
of light, which appears on the other side of the door. The dreamlike quality of the Girl and her
imitation of his movements is a contrast of the naturalism of downstairs. It is a symbol of a
romantic young dream. She is described as the Young Man’s anima.*
ANIMA *Definition: (in the psychology of C. G. Jung)
a. the inner personality that is turned toward the unconscious of the individual
b. the feminine principle, especially as present in men
She helps the Young Man to sort out his feelings and mature into a poet. When he breaks into her
room she disappears and the real girl, Phyllis appears in the hallway. Phyllis in stark contrast is a
dowdy girl, a secretary with asthma and allergies, not at all like his fantasy.
First Lady/Second Lady (Street Ladies)
These ladies add a vaudevillian element to the play and are played in front of the curtain for the
scene change to occur behind. They have a very clowning type moment where they eat various
things from the bins, such as a fish and jewellery. They too lust after the Young Man. The scene
turns macabre when they find a dead baby in the bin.
Four Relatives
These are the Landlord’s relatives who are meant to be expressions of conscience. In this version
the Director Adam Cook believes that the Landlord was in the circus in his former life, or intended
to become a circus performer, so all of the relatives are actually other macabre versions of the
circus fraternity. They are also costumed as a ringmaster, a weight lifter, a lion tamer and a
fat/bearded lady.
They don't like Mrs Lusty and use the wake as a chance not only to fill themselves with the ham,
but to express their dislike and distrust of her.
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Study Guide: The Ham Funeral
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PLOT
ACT 1
Scene 1 establishes the atmosphere of the basement. Mrs Lusty talks to her husband indicating
her passionate response to the joys of bed and board. He punctuates her monologues with an
occasional grunt or breath. This constant chatter shows her husband’s disinterest and her
passion waiting to burst, but also the depths of her despair. Finally she convinces her husband
that the Young Man should be invited to the basement, ‘to feed him up a bit.’
When she visits the man in his room the dialogue is full of their unspoken desires. He is searching
for an identity and she laments about her ‘poor dead child’. There is also his need for him to know
the lodger in the room opposite, and the Landlady to use him as a substitute for a love or a child
who he can lavish her attention.
Scene Four has the Landlady and Landlord lamenting about the past, about the love that once
was and its loss. The Young Man is used as a prop for her and he plays the part of commentator.
Thrown into the mix is the affair she had and the baby (now dead) was the bastard offspring. This
scene climaxes with the Landlord hitting her across the side of her face bringing her out of the
morbid regret for the love ‘that dies in your arms.’
Leaving the couple the Young Man climbs the stairs back to his room, heavy with weariness and
disillusion. In the opposite room the Girl materialises to talk with him of his youth, living in
Australia, a place where “the valleys were rolling with white mist. The parrots flew screaming…the
wedge of black cockatoos.” But because of his sneezing he was sent to live in a climate where,
“the landscape had been drained of every possible excitement and interest.. dry…healthy
…interminable.” The action is broken by a scream from the basement.
Entering the basement the Young Man finds that the Landlord has died. In a comical scene, the
Young Man and the Landlady struggle to move the body to the bed. The Young Man begins to
hiccup uncontrollably, but the Landlady casually takes her hair down and brushes it before funeral
plans are made.
Scene Seven is macabre and purveys the shock that the Young Man undergoes as he comes face
to face with reality. The first lady finds a fish in the rubbish that she starts to eat. Then she finds
some pearls and starts to eat them. She and the other lady see the Young Man approach and
reminisce about fields of grass and the scent of flowers, before the woman finds a foetus in the
bin.
The Young Man seeing this laments, “You died too soon…or weren’t even born. No angel struck
you on the mouth, to silence what you already knew. Your love returned in love, without ever
feeling the thumb-screw and the rack. Tender, humorous foetus! Such a lone the Landlady might
have carried, and dropped without knowing, and tried bitterly to remember.”
The Young Man then visits the relatives to tell them of the wake. The business of mourning is
highlighted by the relatives that pop out of the four windows. They speak of the past and hint at
the future.
As they collect their funeral gear the Young Man utters an eulogy of sorts:
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“People living together in a house walk with their hands outstretched. Sometime they touch one
another. But only learn their shapes. That puffy object, the Landlord, should have been obvious
enough. He wasn’t. He remained as obscure as the chair on which he sat.. complete, but telling no
secrets. At times I hated him for his ugliness and squalor. I feared his strength. Once, very briefly, I
almost loved him. Damn you, can’t you see I’m obsessed by the Landlord?”
When he leaves with the relatives, only one comes out of the house, highlighting the Young Man's
confused mental state.
ACT TWO
Opens with the wake for the Landlord. The Four Relatives are dotted around the room and the
Landlady is in black with the ham and bottles of stout on the table. The Relatives have come not
just to mourn Will Lusty, “It was our intention to pay a tribute to our relative ‘oo ‘as just passed
on”, but to attack Alma who says, “or to ‘ave a dig at the livin’!”
They start to talk of Will’s life and how he was gentle and they don’t allow Alma to enter the
conversation. They finish with how his life changed after he was married, “the goodness in ‘im
turned to pus.” They blame Alma for his death:
First Relative:
Landlady:
Second Relative:
Third Relative:
Fourth Relative:
First Relative:
Landlady:
Fourth Relative:
“Whether you done it or not, it’s the thought that counts.”
“Will died natural.if that’s wot yer mean.”
“Will didn’t die by the knife…”
“or by a chemists’ bottle…”
“but ‘e might have done.”
“E did. Will Lusty died many a time. Time out of mind.”
“Oo ‘asn’t done a murder…once or twice… in their imagination?”
“But nobody’s done it so often… or so well”
Alma sits next to an empty chair. One relative says, “You keep an empty chair and a full glass
waitin’ for ‘im after ‘e’s dead!” To which Alma cries out, “That is for a Young Man wot lodges
‘ere….Only where ‘e’s got to now, I don’t just know.”
The Young Man is in his room listening to the goings on in the basement and talking to the anima,
“even at a distance you can hear the creaking of their black thighs, and their thin shoulders, green
at the seams. How their moustaches twitch and glisten to deliver twisted truths! They are letting
the Landlady have it, poor cow. She lashes her tail, and tosses her head, and lows. But she can’t
throw them off. Her conscience sticks to her.”
The Girl in the other room starts to talk to him before telling him that he needs to go downstairs,
back to reality. We get another flash of the torment the relatives are projecting onto the Landlady
before returning to the Young Man and the Girl, who once again insists that he go to the
basement.
The Young Man enters the basement to a barrage of comments from Alma and the relatives. The
relatives suspect the Young Man wants to take the Landlord’s place when he says, “You’ve had a
good laugh. You’ve buried the dead… Now, gentlemen, your hats on the bed", asking them to
leave.
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Left alone with the befuddled and tipsy Landlady the Young Man seeks his distance and attempts
to leave. However she says, “I got a face like a stewed rag. I know. But don’t go!” With cunning
and direct attack she leads the Young Man to the brass bed where it is difficult to tell whether he
is drawn down by the Landlady or whether he topples her backwards on the bed. The Young Man
then reacts by almost throttling her, “died….then. Die..!” “Lie there in your own sweat! I’d call you
‘whore’ if I hadn’t made you one.”
The extent of his guilt remains with him as he talks to the Girl in the other room. He matures in this
scene as a poet, and the Girl underlines passion and compassion and tells him to put his dream
into words. As a symbol of this new state the Girl disappears as he crashes into her room. The
arrival of the real girl, Phyllis Pither, brings him back to reality.
As the Young Man leaves the house, the back wall disappears to show the luminous night into
which the Young Man disappears and the rest fades from physical view.
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Study Guide: The Ham Funeral
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THEMES
Maturing
It is a play about a young man’s discovery of himself and life, the search for his soul and muse.
The problem Patrick White says was, “how to project a highly introspective character on the stage
without impeding dramatic progress.” In order to externalise the feelings of the Young Man he
uses the Girl, the voice of his ‘other self’, while the Landlord and Landlady are aspects of the
reality which the Young Man wrestles with.
Initially the young poet’s art is unfulfilled, but his talent is realised once he becomes involved with
downstairs. For the first time he has to deal with humans and their suffering and his own guilt.
Once he has come out of his dreamlike world into reality he finally has something to write about.
Birth, Death
A ‘ham funeral’ shows a celebration of the corpse of the Landlord and the ritual of the feast
projects this circle of life and death. It also brings about the birth of the Young Man's maturing.
The first woman rummages through the dust-bin and finds first a fish, then some pearls, both of
which she starts to eat before finding in the bin a foetus. The Young Man is shown the foetus. At
first he is transfixed watching the proceedings, but then stares into the bin showing anger,
revolution and then compassion.
The passing of the Landlord brings about an almost farcical reaction in the Young Man. When
helping the Landlady move the body he gets uncontrollable hiccups and then he nervously races
into action. The Landlord’s death brings him into reality. He tells the Young Girl, “I can’t face the
mourners.” She responds saying, “For the moment you’re disgusted by what you begin to
suspect may be life.”
Alma gives life and buries it. Through her seduction of the Young Man she projects the roles of
lover and son to him. Is the foetus in the rubbish bin a representation of Alma’s child that she
lost?
Fantasy
1) ANIMA
The Young Man constructs an unexciting reality of another lodger, Phyllis Pither, an idealised
young woman, his alter ego or ‘anima’. He knows of her comings and goings, but he has never
met the real young woman. The first we see of her is a gloved arm in a patch of light, which
appears on the other side of the door. The dreamlike quality of the Girl and her imitation of his
movements is in contrast to the naturalism of downstairs and a symbol of a romantic young
dream.
Without the Girl, the Young Man’s personality is incomplete, fragmented and partially developed.
As the Young Man’s subconscious self, the Girl often persuades the Young Man to go down to
the basement and act in the play (life) instead of just witnessing it.
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“All my life the present moment has just failed to materialize. Completeness is something I sense,
but never yet experiences. There is always the separating wall. Often I hear your voice. But the
words remain indistinct. I could swear to the touch of your fingers, without actual pressure. If I
could feel certain, this door might vanish. Or am I just an imposter…trying to draw a bouquet out
of the air, without having learnt the trick? Or is there? Or is there a bouquet?”
In Act Two the Girl asks, “Am I your other self?” to which the Young Man responds, “My head’s
reeling with probabilities.”
As the Young Man discovers reality he breaks down the Girl’s door to find that his fantasy has
disappeared and replaced by the reality of Phyllis Pither. “She was right. We never meet…for
more than a moment. Foolish of me to have expected more….”
2) TWO WORLDS
There is a fine balance between scenes in the basement and those on the upper level. The upper
level takes us into the realm of fantasy and abstractions, and the lower level shows the crude
realities of life and death. The domesticity and sensual undercurrents in the basement are also in
opposition to the Young Man's stark bedroom.
In order for the Young Man to develop he must embrace the notion of the two worlds or the world
outside of himself. In other words, the actual world, or the world of imagination. The set also
shows this division between the two levels having the basement drained of colour, bogged down
with dreariness. Upstairs is stark and the imagination of the Young Man when talking to the anima
is highlighted with lights in a ghost-like quality. The characters are also very different in the two
worlds: the basement characters are fantasy-like, possibly portraying the Young Man's
perception/imagination. In contrast, the Young Man himself and Phyllis Pither, at the end, are
dressed in normal attire.
Prologue
The play starts with a prologue, spoken in front of the stage curtain by the Young Man. He speaks
for the play, but is not a narrator. He is the protagonist, an aspiring poet who can talk naturally in
metaphors, “made, muddy mess of eels”, of “the voices of the gas-fires.”
It is like he is putting on the play, aware that the audience may not like it, but having paid their
money, there is no recourse but to sit it out. He mentions that the time and the origins are not
important – this situation could be played out to anyone at any time. He then gives a summary of
the main themes and establishes his situation. He also points to his role as chorus, actor,
observer and participant.
There are other times during the play where he steps out of the role and speaks his thoughts
aloud which enables the playwright to convey the thought process of this introverted character.
Jungian Symbolism
The Girl is the Young Man’s anima, or his ‘other self’.
Anima *Definition: (in the psychology of C. G. Jung)
a. the inner personality that is turned toward the unconscious of the individual
b. the feminine principle, especially as present in men
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The relationship of the Young Man and the Anima is one of Jung’s concepts: the realization of the
individual on another. Jung hypothesizes a ‘collective’ unconscious, which in poets and other
artists, acts as a source of inspiration.
There are other Jungian symbols in the play, such as the house as the self and the carnal desires
in the basement. The spray of white lilac symbolises adolescence and the young man crushing
the lilac and throwing it away symbolises the artist’s transition from adolescence to adulthood.
The title suggests also suggests two conflicting ideas. A ‘funeral’ being a gloomy situation, but
the ‘ham’ in the title, implies happiness.
Dual Personality
Mrs Lusty has the neurotic and the non-neurotic sides to her personality. She begins in a dissatisfied mood, peeling potatoes, which projects a sad reflection of a maladjusted middle-aged
woman. But she always shows the joys of living, her delight in food, going to the theatre,
entertaining company and watching the people on the street. She is preoccupied with the past
and her courtship with Mr Lusty, her description of sleeping a life-time in his bed, showing us that
she still has passion for her husband, but is frustrated with his inattention. She also has an overinterest in the man upstairs as a potential lover to awake her passion inside, but also uses him in
references to her dead child.
The Anima is not the only character in the play that is non-naturalistic, although she has a basis in
reality as Phyllis Pither. The street ladies and the relatives are also distorted and unnatural,
making you wonder if the Young Man's perception of the characters is distorted, as really he is
the one telling the story.
Language
The Yong Man speaks as though he's writing his poetry. Many of his lines particularly in the
asides have a double meaning, others are in meathpors. Eg. ‘A Roman candle fizzing in the dark’ –
perhaps the part the Young Man plays as a guide to the play’s events and meaning, and his quest
for enlightenment.
The street ladies’ dialogue on the other hand is in a very stylised in a music hall fashion.
First Lady:
Second Lady:
First Lady:
Second Lady:
First Lady:
Murder! Murder! Murder!
It’s the bloater. There was never nothink like a bloater for makin’ a person
repeat (She goes and looks into the bin. She too lets out a scream, or series of
dry, gasping retches.) ‘Ere, it wasn’t me!
Tell that to the magistrate
It’s never so much the perlice…
Perlice is easy as cheese. Nao…it’s the conscience!
As compared with conversation between the Relatives and the Landlady which is more in the
popular idiom.
First Relative:
Landlady:
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Bless me if it ain’t the young lord!
Why, Fred! Com an’ sit alongside of me. (Patting the chair) Ain’t I been dustin’
yer chair down… all this time?
Study Guide: The Ham Funeral
Compiled by Robyn Brookes
© 2012
Expressionist Devices
Throughout the play there are various expressionist devices. Expressionism was a modernist
movement originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to
present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in
order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists sought to express meaning or emotional
experience rather than physical reality. Expressionist plays often dramatise the spiritual
awakening and sufferings of their protagonists
Various devices include: the way the set mirrors the characters’ natures over the two levels and
the fourth wall - where the mirror is an imaginary mirror placed against the fourth wall, so that
characters who use the mirror expose themselves fully to the audience. “Plays are imitations of
life, life is mirrored in plays and the audience becomes the mirrors in which the characters are
reflected.” (Patrick White by May-Brit Akerholt.)
The four relatives in the house are symbols of the one relative, taking a component from the
Landlord as their basis. When the Young Man talks to the four relatives and only one appears it
shows the distorted mental state of the Young Man and it expresses the idea that human
personality is a changing entity in a meaningless world.
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"I like the idea of the fourth wall torn out, leaving a frame in jagged wallpaper.”
Patrick White (“Patrick White Letters”)
DESIGNER
Ailsa Paterson
Ailsa completed the International Baccalaureate in Adelaide and
went on to study the Bachelor of Dramatic Art in Design (NIDA),
graduating in 2003. Design credits for theatre include The Price
and The Cripple of Inishmaan (State Theatre Company of SA),
Shining City (Griffin Theatre Company), Hansel and Gretel and
La Sonnambula (Pacific Opera), Faustus and Madame Melville
(BSharp), Vampirella, The Internationalist and Bone (Darlinghurst
Theatre), A Couple of Blaguards (Seymour Centre/Comedy
Theatre), Shifted (Sydney Dance Company), Debris (Old Fitzroy
Theatre/Melbourne Fringe), and Twelfth Night (ATYP). Ailsa
has worked in costume on Like A Virgin (ABC), Underbelly – A
Tale of Two Cities, Underbelly – The Golden Mile, Blue Water
High, The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce, Ten Empty, The
Boy from Oz Arena Spectacular, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The Musical, High School Musical, The Asian Games and styled
the Eskimo Joe film clip Life is Better with You.
Original Stage Directions
The stage directions outline a set that has to suggest rather than define a place for action. It is
naturalistic to a point, with its four areas of action; the basement, the hall and stairways, and the
two rooms on the ground floor. But the ‘fourth wall’ has ‘invisible furniture’ placed against it at
both levels, so that mimed action without properties is required.
FROM THE SCRIPT
CURTAIN rises on Scene 1. Basement of the lodging-house – that is, the lower half of the picture;
for the present the stair-well, BACK, and the hall and two ground-floor bedrooms ABOVE remain
in darkness. BACK CENTRE a door standing open on the darkened stair-well. R and L are the
area windows, through which the light palely filters. Against the wall, R is an enormous iron
bedstead with brass knows. A kitchen table, C At least six kitchen chairs, some at the table, some
dispersed. Against the wall, L, a gas-stove of an antique variety, and a dresser.
The action of the play will also reveal that there is an invisible dressing-table against the ‘fourth
wall’, so that anybody making use of the mirror must expose themselves fully to the audience. An
invisible sink against the same ‘wall’, to the LEFT, on the kitchen half of the basement. The whole
is lit by an isolated unshaded electric bulb.
The Landlord is seated on one of the deal chairs beside the kitchen table. He sits with his legs
apart, facing the audience. He is a vast man, swollen, dressed from neck to ankle in woollen
underclothes, of a greyish colour, and in carpet slippers. His face is pallid, flushing to strawberry
in the nose, and in a wen on one cheek. He wears a thick, drooping moustache, and is smoking a
short, black pipe. The Landlady is also seated at the kitchen table, with a saucepan, peeling
potatoes. She is a large woman in the dangerous forties, ripe and bursting. Her hair, still black, is
swept up untidily in a vaguely Edwardian coiffure. She is wearing a shabby white satin bloused,
dark skirt, and an old pair of pink mules.
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The Young Man is dressed informally, in a fashion which could be about 1919. He is rather pale.
His attitude throughout the play is a mixture of intent and the absent, aggressiveness and
diffidence.
SET DESIGN
The action starts in front of the curtain that looks like a crumpled sheet of paper. This represents
the unwritten poem by the Young Man. As the Young Man announces the play in a very theatrical
way there is a traditional theatre ghost light*.
*“Ghost light - is a light or lamp left onstage in a theatre when the rest of the lights are dark. The
presence of a light onstage at all times prevents people from falling into the orchestra pit, tripping
on set pieces, or stepping on props and allows you to find the light board.” Wikipedia.org
The curtain also has four rips for windows of the Relatives' home later in Act 1. The curtain will lift
revealing the set, which is a boarding house.
Many different factors go into the design. The characters of the rampantly sexual Landlady and
the Landlord, who is indifferent and silent. Their relationship is dead and passionless and so the
set is drained of colour. The two storey set is dark, depressed, with black and grey grease and
grime tricking down into the basement.
Adam Cook, the Director, feels that the Landlord was an ex circus performer, “I took up
wrestlin’…. I ‘eld ‘em to the ground till their ribs and thighs was crackin;. I could feel the whole
world give in me hands. The mob would let fly with their caps and their voices.” So the whole
design started to take on an old circus tent kind of feel.
There are two rooms on the upper level. The Young Man’s room which is coloured is in contrast
to the rest of the set which is de-saturated of colour. The Girl’s room has neon tubing to make the
room and the Girl glows white and ghostly. There are windows in front of and behind the two
rooms. The windows obscure and reveal the bedrooms as they travel sideways. These windows
are stylistically surreal, depicting anonymity and the suburban life, but also dreamlike portals.
They also make the house feel as though it’s breathing with its rib cage expanding and
contracting.
The stairs up to the bedrooms is the main exit and entry point – as the door outside is from the
top of the stairs. Many monologues are performed on the stairs so it is important that they are
easily accessible to the audience. The basement has all the elements from the stage directions
eg.the table that will house the ham.
In Act 2 when the Relatives arrive there are four chairs across the room, like some mad hatter’s
party.
As the play ends and the Young Man leaves a paper moon is the final image that we are left with.
It is deliberate that the strings attached to the moon are visible, as it brings it back to the idea of
theatricality – this is all a play.
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COSTUME DESIGN
Young Man/poet - has a distinctly 60s poet feel. He is
essentially Patrick White as the storyteller, so we added
glasses and a hat.
Landlord/Mr Lusty - is in his long johns with a white
face. References to his character come from ‘clowning’
from the circus angle, but also the ‘Dead Landlord'
painting by Dobell.
Landlady/Mrs Lusty - has two outfits. A day outfit
which is dowdy, but with a hint of sexiness. She
changes into a very sexy funeral outfit. Her outfit is
completed with pink fluffy slippers.
Girl – as the anima is in a white 30s fluid gown. When
we see her as Phyllis she is a dowdy girl, a plain jane.
Bag Ladies – are very much in the vaudevillian style,
very over the top, each taking a part of the Landlady’s
outfits into their costume eg. the apron, stockings and
the shoes.
The 4 Relatives – these are the sick macabre versions of the Landlord and take a part of his longjohns into their costume. Keeping on with the circus theme there is: a ringmaster, a weight lifter, a
lion tamer and a fat/bearded lady.
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Interview with Ailsa Patterson
1. What design elements did the Director, Adam Cook tell you he wanted for this piece?
While emphasising that a naturalistic setting was not required, Adam was keen to play with levels
in the design. Patrick White gives a very specific description of the setting, as well as detailed
blocking notes with lighting states also noted. We decided quite early on that the staircase was an
important element of the design, as it is an acting area for several scenes, and also the vital
connection between the bedrooms and the basement of fetid drudgery below. The stairs are
important in representing the descent into hell or the escape from that hell.
Adam also felt that we required a front curtain of some sort, in order to play the Young Man’s
introduction and also the scene with the bag ladies as ‘front of curtain’ scenes. There is an
acknowledged theatricality about the piece which is well supported by traditional elements like a
front curtain and a ghost light. The ghost light, pre-set in front of the crumpled paper curtain,
comes from the theatrical tradition of leaving a single light source burning in the theatre overnight
so that the ghosts can find their way.
We did not feel it necessary to stick with the specified era for the setting, and we have embraced
an eclectic vision for both the furniture and costumes.
2. What were your influences in designing this piece?
Some of the first visual references that Adam and I looked at were the black and white
photographs by Gilbert Garcin. We also looked at a number of Surrealist artists and vintage circus
images. The Magritte images of windows were something that I kept coming back to, and I felt
that the image of multiple, grey window frames could work as a symbol for both the dull
anonymity of downtrodden suburbia, but also as potential dream portals for a young artist on his
bed, dreaming of escaping that grey world.
Patrick White was a friend of the artist Francis Bacon, and we started to look at some of his work
as inspiration for the Young Man’s room. The visual references for the costumes were also varied
and extensive. We looked at historical figures like the Onassis relatives from the Grey Gardens
documentary as inspiration for the bag ladies, as well as images of vintage circus freaks,
homeless people, clowns through the ages, French prostitutes and society ladies of the 1920s
and 30s, fashion images by Valentino, Richard Avedon, Erwin Olaf and many others. Adam was
keen to have a Tim Burton-esque quirkiness to the design.
3. What were the challenges in designing this piece?
The venue (The Odeon Theatre, Norwood) provided us with some challenges. There is no fly
tower, and the sightlines of the auditorium mean that it is best to raise the playing area by at least
600mm to give everyone a view of the whole actor. There is also a very small access door for
loading the set into the theatre, which means that the build has to happen in a modular fashion.
Other challenges of the play itself included finding a visual language that allowed us to define the
necessary rooms of the house without locking into a naturalistic setting, facilitating quick changes
due to cast members playing multiple roles, creating dynamic changes of location and mood
between the Landlord’s house, and the exterior of the relatives’ house, and also providing an
unexpected ‘moment’ at the end of the piece when the Young Man exits the house. There is also
the challenge of how to represent the young woman, the ‘anima’, who needs to be both a
mysterious, ghost-like figure who disappears in an instant, but also is revealed as an ordinary, dull
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woman in an ordinary, dull room. Thus we needed the area designated as her room to be able to
transform between these two states.
4. I heard that there was an initial design concept and the director told you to be more ‘out
there’. What was the biggest shift in your thinking to be able to do this?
Initially the design started to move into a very grey, Dickensian world that was extremely simple
and unfussy, but perhaps too clean and unremarkable for this play. Adam and I realised that it
was lacking the quirk factor that was so essential to support the bizarre text and dreamlike
visions. The shift actually came from the development of the costume designs, as these allowed a
new perspective on the set.
When I started to embrace the characters as relics of the circus world, discarded, crumpled, filthy
and strange, I began to think of the set as an abstract circus tent, with all of the grime and gloop
and greasepaint of the world dribbling down into this basement of carnal desires. As I thought
more about the idea of a monotonic circus theme, with highlights of slate and silver and the
gamete of shades of grey, I realised that the Young Man’s room should be in basic colour, like a
Francis Bacon image, as he is our connection into the play, our ‘reality’ in a bizarre world of
strange, grey characters.
I also wanted to emphasise the overwhelming sensuality and bursting sexuality stemming from
the Landlady, by giving carefully chosen colour highlights – the Landlady’s titillating pink marabou
slippers, and the huge, pink ham.
5. The costumes of the bag ladies and the relatives take pieces from the Landlord and
Landlady. Can you explain the thought process behind that?
In order to emphasise the peculiar, dream-like quality of the piece, I wanted the strange
characters to bear relation to the initial figures, so that we see how they could possibly be
figments of the Young Man’s imagination or actually vestiges of a washed up circus. The highly
charged sensuality of the Landlady, with her bosom that no blouse could contain, is therefore
encapsulated, magnified and cheapened in the appearance of the bag ladies.
The first lady has a hugely inflated bottom, impossibly curvy and grotesque, and the second lady
has a mountainous bust. The fabrics and shapes from the Landlady’s two costumes are repeated
in these costumes, but given a vaudeville, circus twist. They both wear the same slippers as Alma.
We see them as the ‘ladies of the night’ versions of Alma.
The hints we are given about the Landlord’s past life as a wrestler and strongman are then
reflected in the costumes of the relatives. This is especially effective because Jonathan Mill is
playing both Mr Lusty and a relative. Each of the relatives represents a possible ‘circus’ version of
the Landlord. We see Jonathan Elsom as the ringmaster, as he is the first relative, seemingly in
charge of the others, and the one who the Young Man must consult with first. Jonathan is an
amalgamation of the idea of the bearded lady and the fat lady circus freak. This also continues the
gender swapping trend we have already witnessed with Jonathan Elsom as a bag lady. Each
relative has a stylised moustache, in a tribute to the Salvador Dali motif. Jacqy Phillips reappears
after her turn as a bag lady as the strongman relative, and Geoff is the lion tamer. (This is a
reference to the Landlord having tamed the wild, feral beast that was Alma before her marriage.)
Once again the elements of the Landlord’s initial costume are repeated and distorted in those of
the relatives. They each wear a clown-like party hat of newspaper.
When we open Act 2 at the wake, there is a sense that they are at a macabre child’s birthday
party, with black helium balloons and party hats.
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6. The white face is interesting in the Landlord and Landlady, what is your idea/influence
behind that?
The first character we see is the Young Man and he is relatively familiar to us, in colour, with a
kind of affected young artist vibe to his attire. He is someone we might see in Surry Hills in
Sydney with his ankle-grazing pants and pointy toed shoes. As soon as we descend into the
basement and meet the Landlord and Landlady we wanted to make the audience aware that this
is not a normal world. We are emphasising the obvious ‘performance’ nature of the play and
introducing the stylised circus clown idea with the white face makeup for these two characters.
We see that they are monotonic, they are fading into the grey of the basement and their dull lives,
a kind of calcification born of tedium and inertia.
7. You’ve now designed quite a number of shows with State Theatre Company. How have
you grown as a designer through this time?
Every show that I design contributes to my growth as a theatre practitioner. I am highly self
critical, and constantly analysing the success of every element of the design, thinking about what
I might change or how my approach either helped or hindered the outcome. The discipline of
realising a design, from first meeting to opening night is a process that, while different for every
show, can only improve as I mature as an artist and hone my design skills. It is also quite
wonderful to work with the same production team in the set and costume workshop several
times, as we have developed a strong rapport and I feel my visions are beautifully interpreted and
supported. I can also design with their particular strengths and capabilities in mind.
An analysis of how successful a design has been both in terms of suiting the venue and serving
the play will always contribute to my growth as a designer. I think that I have grown in confidence
over my time with State Theatre Company.
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DESIGN INFLUENCES
Gilbert Garcin
French photography Gilbert Garcin has been widely exhibited and collected around the world.
Retiring from managing his lamp factory at 65, he took up photography, winning a competition
where he spent a week under the direction of Pascal Dolemieux.
Since then Garcin has been creating his unique works. Armed with bits of meccano, string, small
building blocks and props he uses glue, scissors and his camera to create miniscule models
which he illuminates with artificial light and stages different acts in his small indoor theatre.
Always using his small cut out self portrait dressed in a non-descript tan overcoat, he poses “as
an ordinary Mr. Everybody”, in his surreal and humorous scenarios which invite us to ponder such
philosophical quandaries as time, solitude and the weight of existence.
www.gilbert-garcin.com
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Vintage Circus Images
Tias.com
vintagecircustumblr.com
Another influence was the style of the vintage circus. Above are a few visual references.
René François Ghislain Magritte
(1898-1967) Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and
thought-provoking images. His work challenges observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality. Windows
in the set design were influenced by Magritte's images of windows, examples below.
http://caoshub.hubpages.com/hub/Shadows-in-Surrealism
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INTERESTING READING
William Dobell's painting 'The Dead Landlord'
The painter, William Dobell lived in a boarding house in London in 1936. One day the owner
dropped dead, leaving his wife in mourning and Dobell to help put the corpse on the bed. What
stayed with him was the wife, brushing her hair in grief unable to confront her husband’s cadaver.
The idea of the painting is the aftermath of death, where one tidies up the traces of death,
plumping the pillows, straightening the sheets and getting tidied up.
This painting was the inspiration for Patrick White’s The Ham Funeral, after hearing Dobell talk of,
“How his Landlord had died, how the Landlady had taken down her hair, announcing there would
be a ham funeral and that he must go to fetch the relatives.”
The silence and subsequent death of the Landlord dominates the play, as he dominates the
painting. White’s description of the Landlord in his play is that of the body in Dobell’s image: “He
is a vast man, swollen, dressed from neck to ankle in woollen underclothes of greyish colour.” The
setting in the painting of a mantelpiece, a figure on an iron bed, a clock, a mirror, a jug a bowl are
symbolic of a typical London cramped bedroom. Patrick White writes a similar setting in his play.
Dobell, Sir William
(1899 – 1970) Dobell was born in Newcastle, New South Wales in 1899. He was encouraged to
start drawing at school and in 1924 enrolled at a Sydney art school. In 1929 he won the Society of
Artists' travelling scholarship and headed for London. He studied painters such as Rembrandt,
Renoir, Goya, Turner, Constable, Van Gogh, Soutine, Tintoretto and Ingres, whose work he saw in
museums in London and throughout Europe.
In 1933 'Boy at the Basin' was one of two works by Dobell exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts
and was favourably reviewed. To earn a living he drew posters and advertisements and
illustrations for magazines. In 1936 he was present at the laying-out of his dead Landlord, which
was the inspiration for ‘The Dead Landlord’.
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His father sent him the fare to come back to Sydney in 1939 where he lived in Kings Cross and
continued to paint. He also started teaching before becoming an official war artist (1942-44).
He won the 1943 Archibald prize with a portrait of Joshua Smith in January 1944. Two
unsuccessful artists brought an action to overturn the award, claiming that 'Joshua Smith' was
'not a portrait but a caricature'. Dobell argued in the Supreme Court that he was an artist of sound
training and the suit was dismissed.
After the court case Dobell had a nervous breakdown, refusing to leave the house or to paint. He
moved to a holiday house with his sister where he eventually started to paint again. Lord
Wakehurst was the first portrait after the court case. Some of his later works include, Mathias and
Frandam and the portrait Margaret Olley for which he was again awarded the Archibald prize for a
portrait.
Other portraits include;
Dame Mary Gilmore
Prime Minister Menzies
Ngo Dinh Diem (president of South Vietnam)
Frederick G Donner (Chairman of General Motors)
Tanku Abdul Rahman (Prime Minister of Malaysia)
Helena Rubinstein
and surgeon E.G. MacMahon for which he won his third Archibald prize in 1960
In 1965 he was appointed O.B.E. and was knighted in 1966. He died of heart disease in 1970 with
his estate used to establish the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation.
Funeral Feasts
In 1800 it was customary to have a meal, or a ‘funeral feast’, after the funeral. Usually this was a
cold meal for mourners returning to the house of the deceased. In 1900 such a meal was still
customary, even among the wealthy, and considered highly important among the working class.
Stock phrases are used to describe these events, which indicate both the key ingredient, ‘we
buried him with ham’ and the nature of the occasion; ‘a real spread’, ‘the best feed we'd ‘ad for
ages’.
Today the gathering is still common among the traditionally minded, although cold ham is no
longer seen as crucial. The old idea of the feast is having a comeback as more people recognize
the value of such events for family and social cohesion, and as under-standing develops of the
dangers of incomplete mourning.
Absurdism
The Ham Funeral predates the absurdist plays of Beckett and Ionesco, but Patrick White isn’t
talked about as the pioneer of absurdism. Perhaps by the time the play was finally produced
Beckett’s Waiting for Godot was almost a decade old.
Patrick White plays around with theatrical convention. His young narrator talks directly to the
audience about the theatre they are witnessing, comments on himself, on the writing and on the
stage business. He also participates in the story.
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YOUNG MAN: It could be that I was born in Birmingham … or Brooklyn … or Murwillumbah. What
is important is that, thanks to a succession of meat pies (the gristle-and-gravy, cardboard kind)
and many cups of pink tea, I am alive! Therefore … and this is the rather painful point … I must go
in soon and take part in the play, which, as usual, is a piece about eels. As I am also a poet …
though, to be perfectly honest, I have not yet found out for sure … my dilemma in the play is how
to take part in the conflict of eels, and survive at the same time … becoming a kind of Roman
candle … fizzing for ever in the dark. (Somewhat stern) Probably quite a number of you are
wondering by now whether this is your kind of play. I’m sorry to have to announce the
management won’t refund any money. You must simply sit it out, and see whether you can’t
recognize some of the forms that will squirm before you in this mad, muddy mess of eels.
Most of the play is a strange dance between the Landlady and the Young Man, a dance that
becomes horribly sexual and damaging before it finishes. But there are also other strange
characters, like the four relatives who all speak a chorus of remembering or the two street ladies,
rummaging through the bins outside. The bag ladies offer several chuckles and then one whispers
to the Young Man that they are “the knockabout girls of the piece”.
In this way, White keeps letting the audience know that he’s aware of the various characters as he
plays with them. He turned theatrical devices on their heads and created something quite new
and extraordinary.
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The Ham Funeral’s rejection
In 1962 the Adelaide Festival Board rejected the play The Ham Funeral for its program.
THE BOARD'S RESPONSE
“It is an abstract type of play which the general public will find difficult and impossible to
understand. Its complexity will limit its appeal to a few high intellectuals and even they would find
it difficult to interpret the so-called psychological aspects of the play.
Two versions of the aims and motives underlying the play have been voiced. It has been called
comedy, and again drama. How confusing it will be for the public. Frankly, no-one could say into
what category the play falls…
All in all, every effort should be made to avoid the ‘kitchen sink’ type of play, and aim for a play of
merit with strong appeal to the many thousands seeking entertainment that they can understand
and appreciate. The play is ‘unappetising far’. People do not go to se a play as a ‘penance’ and
that is exactly how the play will react on an audience.”
“Ceremony of Naturalism: Patrick White: Still Fighting at 75” by James Waites, New Theatre:
Australia
The Adelaide University Theatre Guild were the first to stage The Ham Funeral. Included in the
book ‘Patrick White Letters’ edited by David Marr is some correspondence about putting the play
on in Adelaide. (pg189- 201)
“The latest is that an Adelaide group called the Adelaide University Theatre Guild is going to put it
on in November to spite the Festival Board. The Guild has the use of what is supposed to be the
most up-to-date theatre in Australia, and they are bringing the producer and leading lady of my
choice. I am looking forward to none of it, as you can imagine and having to go all the way to
Adelaide, sit in at rehearsals, and alter lines….
I will be driven mad by The Ham Funeral before it comes off in November. The theatre and the
body of the cast are in Adelaide, the leading lady is in Perth, the producer and the author are in
Sydney. So you can see there are some difficulties. This week I have to face the ordeal of a
reading of the play by students of the Drama School at the University of New South Wales.
The reading was quite interesting, if also an ordeal. I shall be relieved when the whole business is
over and done with. At least quite a lot of it is effective, as the reading, or near acting on a
rudimentary set, helped to show. The bits that came off best are the music-hall acts, such as the
scene with the two scavengers, and the parts where the relatives do their stuff…The Young Man
made a good attempt, but did not enunciate well enough or vary his facial expression, with the
result that he became stodgy at times. However, it is an impossible, irritating, congealed part. If
there is ever any self-pity in a character it shows up at once on the stage, and become a bore. I
must try to loosen some of the Young Man’s too literary speeches, and there are words and
phrases throughout which do not go. The whole effect is that here is an opera looking for music.
Well, Adelaide was a whirl of excitement. I shall probably never be able to remember it distinctly. It
was wonderful the way everything went right after fourteen years of waiting, and so many attempts
to prevent the play coming to life. The whole thing looked beautiful, the acting very good indeed,
the audience enthusiastic, the critics behind us.”
Patrick White
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Overview of Australian Theatre History
European settlers brought Western traditions of theatre to Australia in the 1780s where Australian
theatre built on these traditions and developed over time. This early theatre consisted mostly of
English-style musical theatre, comedies and pantomimes. The gold rushes of the 1850s saw a
growth in population and with it a demand for theatre entertainment. In the 1880s many theatres
were built including The Princess Theatre in Melbourne and Her Majesty’s Theatre in Sydney.
Australian Federation in 1901 brought a new sense of nationalism and people looked for ways to
express our unique Australian identity. Steele Rudd's landmark play, On Our Selection (1912),
which is still performed in Australia today, was one play that looked at the success, struggles and
the working lives of ordinary Australians.
The Great Depression hit Australian theatre hard with live shows being taxed and competing with
cinema and radio entertainment.
Another play, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll by Ray Lawler, quickly gained acclaim and
popularity for its uniquely Australian voice and universal themes.
In 1968, the Australian government established The Australian Council for the Arts which became
The Australia Council, who have helped support Australian theatre by establishing major state
theatre companies and providing arts funding. In 1973 the Sydney Opera House opened and The
Adelaide Festival Theatre opened in 1973/74.
By 2000, Australian theatre-goers could almost take for granted the array of dynamic performance
styles, theatre companies and venues available to entertain, delight and challenge them.
Patrick White – further information
"Why bother with Patrick White"
-timeline
- titles
-life
- excerpts
-opinions
www.abc.net.au/arts/white/default.htm
Nobel Prize – Patrick white autobiography
www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1973/white-autobio.html
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GLOSSARY
Whelks
Any of various large, mostly edible marine snails, having a pointed, spiral shell, which is
commonly eaten in Europe.
Eels
“This play, is a piece about eels.” “see whether you can’t recognise some of the forms that will
squirm before you in this mad, muddy mess of eels.” – Young Man
Eel
- a fish having a long snakelike body, a smooth slimy skin, and reduced fins
- or an evasive or untrustworthy person
Saint Swithin's Day
Observed as a Church festival commemorating Saint Swithin. It is popularly supposed that if it
rains on this day the rain will persist for the next 40 days
Bright's disease
Any of several diseases of the kidney.
Poste Res·tante
A notation written on a letter indicating that the letter should be held at the post office until
claimed by the addressee.
Faggot
(Cookery) a ball of chopped meat, usually pork liver, bound with herbs and bread and eaten fried
Cock·eyed
Askew; crooked or intoxicated; drunk.
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ESSAY QUESTIONS
English Questions
1. What do you think the significance of the title The Ham Funeral means?
2. The Young Girl in the other room is the ‘anima’ of the Young Man. What does this mean
and how is she depicted in the play?
3. Apart from the Young Man the characters in this production are ‘over-the-top’. Why do
you think Patrick White wrote the characters like this?
4. Why do you think only one relative comes out of the house after the Young Man has seen
four in the windows?
5. The Young Man changes from a brooding character to one that has awakened. What are
the main reasons for this?
6. The language between the Young Man and the Landlady is very typical old London. How
do you think this style represents the characters and the story? Is it difficult to
understand?
7. There are certain elements of fantasy particularly between the Young Man and the ‘anima’,
Discuss the devices used to create this.
8. There are various symbols throughout the play between life and death – literally and
metaphorically. Outline some of these symbols and discuss their meaning.
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Drama Questions
1. What devices has the Designer and Director used to show ‘the Girl’ as the anima of the
Young Man?
2. The Designer sees the set and costumes as being from a run-down circus. How is this
portrayed in the design and what do you think this represents?
3. Why does the Designer use various pieces of the Landlord and Landlady’s costumes in
the other characters? What is the significance of this?
4. What is the symbolism of the moon at the end? Why would the Designer show us the
workings of the moon? Eg. Strings attached
5. Describe the differences between the two levels of the set in terms of style, colour,
symbolism etc.
6. Study Dobell’s painting ‘The Dead Landlord’. What parts of this image are depicted in the
play?
7. The Ham Funeral was considered too controversial to be in the Adelaide Festival in 1962.
The scene in front of curtain where the street ladies and the young man are going through
the garbage is one of the main reasons why. Describe this scene and your observations.
8. These street ladies are representative of the vaudevillian style. Discuss.
9. How would you describe the performance style of this production? Is this a naturalistic or
non-naturalistic piece? Explain.
DESIGN
Using the stage directions in the design pages of the document create your own set for The Ham
Funeral. Think about the different spaces upstairs and downstairs and how to incorporate the
street ladies outside of the house and the scene at the relative’s house. What are the constraints
of your design? How does it differ from the staging you've seen in this production?
PERFORMANCE
We only ever see the real neighbour, Phyllis Pither, at the end of the play. Write a monologue for
her that reveals her personality and her dreary life. Is she wanting to break free from the confines
of her life too?
As he leaves the Young Man sees Phyllis for the first time. Create a dialogue between them.
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Immediate Reactions
After viewing the play set aside time for class discussion. Consider the following aspects of the
play, and record them into your journal.
Production Elements
Strengths
Impact on
Audience
Weaknesses
Impact on
Audience
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Performance Elements
Design Roles
For each of the following design roles, explain using three specific examples, how each role
added meaning to the action or your understanding of context, theme or other aesthetic
understandings of the drama event.
Design Role
Technique
What did this contribute to the performance?
One
Two
Lighting
Three
One
Two
Set Design
Three
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REFERENCES
Patrick White
Dyce, J.R “Patrick White as Playwright.” University of Queensland Press, Queensland 1974
Hewitt, Helen Verity, “Patrick White, Painter Manqué” Melbourne University Press, Victoria, 2002
Joyce, Clayton “Patrick White – A Tribute” Harper Collins Publishers, Australia, 1991
Marr, David “Patrick White – A Life” Random House, Sydney Australia 1991
Edited by G.A Wilkes “Ten Essays on Patrick White” Angus & Robertson, Sydney Australia 1970
‘Maenads and Goat-Song: The Plays of Patrick White’ by Thelma Herring
Edited by David Marr “Patrick White Letters” Random House, Sydney Australia 1994
www.answers.com/topic/patrick-white#ixzz1ZsOUT95w
Magazine feature article - “Ceremony of Naturalism: Patrick White: Still Fighting at 75” by James
Waites, New Theatre: Australia
Ham Funeral
theatrenotes.blogspot.com/2005/04/ham-funeraljournal-of-plague-year.html
http://365plays.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/77-the-ham-funeral/
Show programs
‘The Season at Sarsaparilla’ by Patick White by Sydney Theatre Company
‘The Ham Funeral’ by Patrick White by Adelaide University Theatre Guild
Further Reading
www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/atoday/stories/s157610.htm
adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dobell-sir-william-10025
www.answers.com/topic/funeral-practices-british-customs
www.douban.com/note/148572458/
www.thefreedictionary.com
wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressionism
wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_light_%28theatre%29
Gilbert Garcin
http://headon.com.au/event/australian-centre-photography-man-who-image
www.google.com.au/search?q=gilbert+garcin+photography
www.gilbert-garcin.com
Magritte
wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Magritte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Magritte - cite_note-1
http://caoshub.hubpages.com/hub/Shadows-in-Surrealism
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