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Ray Mathew

RAY MATHEW

  (1929 - 2002)
Nationality:    Australian
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    n/a

Ray Mathew (birth name: Raymond Frank Mathew) (a.k.a. R. Mathew) Born: 14 Apr 1929 Leichhardt, New South Wales ; Died: 27 May 2002 New York (City),New York (State), United States of America (USA). Departed from Australia: 1960 Ray Mathew was born in Sydney, the son of Frank Leslie James, a labourer, and Lily Mathew (nee Latta). They lived first in Leichhardt and then Bondi. Mathew was educated at Sydney Boys High School and Sydney Teachers College. From 1949 to 1951 he taught in New South Wales country schools where he was often the only teacher. During the 1950s he also worked in shops, moved furniture, gave school broadcasts and adult education lectures, wrote literary reviews for the Sydney Morning Herald as a freelance journalist, worked for the CSIRO as an accounts officer 1952-1954 and was a tutor and lecturer at the University of Sydney 1955-1960. In 1961 Mathew moved abroad, living in Italy and then London where he won the British Arts Council bursary for drama, the first Commonwealth writer to receive the award. For the next few years he engaged in editorial work, typed plays for the BBC and even worked as a barman while seeking the sustained literary success that eluded him. In 1968 he travelled to New York with hopes of a publishing project. Paul and Eva Kollsman became his patrons and friends. Mathew eventually became a permanent resident, pursuing a career as a freelance writer and art critic. Best-known in Australia as a playwright, Mathew wrote many plays in the 1950s that attempted to achieve a new type of realism with experimental verbal techniques and unorthodox plots. Mathew drew on his experience as a teacher in rural New South Wales for many of his better-known plays, but produced a diverse range of drama that included a comical musical satire on the Ned Kelly myth and a sophisticated comedy set in Sydney's Kings Cross. Mathew also published three volumes of verse. Mathew was a prolific writer of prose, publishing many reviews, articles and short stories. In addition, he published studies of Miles Franklin (1955)and Charles Blackman (1965), and the semi-autobiographical novel The Joys of Possession(1967). - http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A16713

Research:    http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/contributor/1053
National Library of Australia

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below is a list of Ray Mathew's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         Bones Of My Toe, The         Boomerang and the Bantam, The         Church Sunday         Life Of the Party, The         Lonely Without You         Love of Gautama, The         Medea of Euripides, The         Puppet Love         Sing For St Ned         Spring Song, A         We Find the Bunyip

Bones Of My Toe, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Pocket Playhouse, Sydenham, NSW    22 Aug 1957

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Australian One-Act Plays 1,ed Eunice Hanger, Rigby, Adelaide, 1962   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Comedy One Act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/31251

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Boomerang and the Bantam, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    1953

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Undated manuscripts of the play are held at the National Library of Australia MS 5634 and MS 5633. (from Unpublished Plays [bibliography], 'Ray Mathew : An Australian for Life' (2005) p.37.   -

Music:
-

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Genre:
drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Church Sunday

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Ballarat, Victoria    1950

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Script in the Hanger Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, Australia. http://www.Austlit.edu.au, http://www.Austlit.edu.au >>>,   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play One Act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Life Of the Party, The

Synopsis:
Draws a desperate portrait of post-war urban sophisticates trapped in the shadow of the Cold War.

Notes:
Bedson and Croft ('The Campbell Howard Annotated Index of Australian Plays 1920-1955') suggest this production (either 1958 or 1959) was the premiere of The Life of the Party but few details about it exist and Brisbane throws doubt on this theory ('Plays of the 50s') by commenting that there is insufficient evidence. The premiere may, instead, have taken place in London in 1960

1st Produced:
Independent Theatre, North Sydney, NSW    1958

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Script in the Hanger Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, Australia. http://www.Austlit.edu.au, http://www.Austlit.edu.au >>>,   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
3 acts Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  6            Other:  -

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/90983

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Lonely Without You

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Hobart    1957

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Script in the Hanger Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, Australia. http://www.Austlit.edu.au, http://www.Austlit.edu.au >>>,   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play One Act

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Love of Gautama, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    1952

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
radio play

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Medea of Euripides, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    1954

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
radio play

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Puppet Love

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    1950

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Sing For St Ned

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD    1960

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Script in the Hanger Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, Australia. http://www.Austlit.edu.au, http://www.Austlit.edu.au >>>,
Drama for High Schools Eunice Hanger (editor), Brisbane : University of Queensland Press , 1971   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
musical theatre satire

Parts:
Male:  7            Female:  6            Other:  -

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/106166

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Spring Song, A

Synopsis:
A Chekovian portrait of three sisters in an Australian country town in the 1950s. Peter, a poet and school teacher boards with the Dennisons, a farming family. He meets all three daughters and falls in love with Margaret, who is dying. When Dennison tries to prevent his youngest daughter, Kerry, from going out with the local squatter's son she tells him of Margaret's fatal illness and he collapses with a heart attack. Peter decides to resign from teaching and stay on in the house to write.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Pocket Playhouse, Sydenham, NSW    07 Aug 1958

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Script in the Hanger Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, Australia. http://www.Austlit.edu.au, http://www.Austlit.edu.au >>>,   0868191353

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Comedy One Act

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/26915

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We Find the Bunyip

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Independent Theatre, North Sydney, NSW    29 Aug 1955

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Khaki, Bush and Bigotry", University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1968   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
3 acts Comedy

Parts:
Male:  7            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/102573

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