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The Beast in View is a 1959 Australian stage play by John Hepworth.

The play won a competition to select an Australian play for the first Adelaide Festival of Arts, but was rejected for production. The University of Adelaide Theatre Guild then staged it in a censored version.

Reviewing a 1961 production, The Bulletin said "The play is in fact completely incoherent. I think the trouble is that Mr Hepworth was so busy trying to reproduce the surface of life, which' he does well, that he forgot about making an artistic whole." The Age called it an "uneven play" but said it "had a certain vigor, an eye for character and a feeling for the spoken idiom."

The Sydney Morning Herald, reviewing a 1962 Sydney production at the Pocket Playhouse, criticised the play's "numbing badness."

A copy of the play is at the Fryer Library at the University of Queensland.

References

1. Kippax, H. G. (1964). Australian Drama since “Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.” Meanjin Quarterly, 23(3), 229–242. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.971442310074885
2. "Men at Play: Masculinities in Australian Theatre since the 1950s". Jonathan Bollen.
3. "Any Man Might", The Bulletin, 82 (4262), 21 Oct 1961, ISSN 0007-4039, nla.obj-696000138, retrieved 8 January 2024 – via Trove
4. "Latest Australinplay has vigour". The Age. 12 October 1961. p. 5.
5. "Local theme at pocket". The Sydney Morning Herald. 11 May 1962. p. 7.
6. The Beast in View at Fryster Library

External links

• The Beast in View at Ausstage
• The Beast in View at AustLit

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