When a child disappears tensions and vulnerabilities are exposed within a tenuous
community on the frontier of white settlement. Elizabeth, the devout wife of a
missionary is suspected of being involved in her own child’s demise. But the men who
sit in judgment can’t fathom the reason why a woman would take the life of her own
child. Linda, a local aboriginal woman knows what happened at the mission on the
night the child disappeared. But she maintains her silence. She refuses to recognise
the authority of European justice and by doing so she casts herself as a political
prisoner. Holy Day is about two defiant women who refuse to account for the
unaccountable. It depicts a white community locked in a moral crisis, unable to
liberate itself because it cannot face its dark truths.
Published Currency Press 2002
Available at www.australianplays.org
World Premiere August 2001 at StateTheatre Company of South Australia and
transfer to Playbox Theatre, Melbourne.
Winner 2002 Australian Writers’ Guild Award for Stage Writing
Winner 2002 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award