For Valour (play)

For Valour
Written by	Ric Throssell
Date premiered	September 1, 1960 (1960-09-01)[1]
Place premiered	Canberra Repertory Company
Original language	English

For Valour is a 1960 Australian stage play by Ric Throssell.

The play was based on the life of Throssell's father Hugo Throssell, who had won the Victoria Cross and later committed suicide.^[2][3]

The play debuted in Canberra in 1960 in a production sponsored by the Elizabethan Theatre Trust.^[4] Leslie Rees later wrote:

Such a play could hardly have hoped for wide use by theatres because of its remote scene and time, and down-beat moods of pessimism. But because of its alert, skilled dialogue, its sure sense of scene movement, its quick but accurate limning of characters (perhaps too many?) and even more so because of the degree of underlying compassion, For Valour must continue to earn the high respect of true students of Australian theatre—and life.^[5]

Th play was published in 1976 by Currency Press.^[6]

Premise

In a small Victorian country town, a war hero struggles to adjust to peace time. He winds up committing suicide.

References

1. "Manners Of A Small-Town". The Canberra Times. Vol. 34, no. 9, 696. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 2 September 1960. p. 2. Retrieved 14 July 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
2. Clark, Andrew (30 April 1999). "Ric Throssell obituary". The Sydney Morning Herald. p. 30.
3. Suzanne Welborn, 'Throssell, Hugo Vivian Hope (1884–1933)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/throssell-hugo-vivian-hope-8806/text15445, published first in hardcopy 1990, accessed online 14 July 2023.
4. "What People Are Doing". The Canberra Times. Vol. 34, no. 9, 687. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 23 August 1960. p. 5. Retrieved 14 July 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
5. Rees, Leslie (1987). Australian drama, 1970-1985 : a historical and critical survey. p. 376.
6. "the drama of social growth". The Sydney Morning Herald. 20 November 1976. p. 13.

External links

• Review of 1960 Canberra Production at Bulletin