HOLY DAY

Original titleHOLY DAY
CategoryPlay
AgegroupAdults
Cast8 total (4 F and 4 M)
Variable cast sizeNo
RepresentationNordic representation
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