Jack Hibberd

The play grew out of a reading in London of Anton Chekhov's 1889 play The Wedding and Bertolt Brecht's farce A Respectable Wedding.

John Charles Hibberd (born 12 April 1940 in Warracknabeal, Victoria) is an Australian playwright and physician.

Hibberd pursued his medical studies at the University of Melbourne and was associated with Newman College during his time there.

He held the position of registrar at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, in the Department of Social Medicine from 1966 to 1967.

His first play, White With Wire Wheels, was staged in 1967 at the University of Melbourne, and is a proto-feminist revenge play, which satirizes male herd behaviour and the men's obsession with cars and alcohol-virility over women.

Hibberd's micro-play, Three Old Friends, opened the legendary La Mama theatre in Melbourne (29 July 1967).

This work was one of a number of very short works in which Hibberd reconnoitred the styles of Beckett, Pinter and Brecht.

These, plus a couple of longer plays (Who and One of Nature's Gentlemen) made up a season called Brain-Rot (1968).

There followed Hibberd's most popular play: Dimboola, a wedding breakfast farce with audience participation.

It premiered in 1969 at La Mama Theatre under the direction of Graeme Blundell.

In 1970, Hibberd played a pivotal role in establishing the Australian Performing Group (APG), where he remained an active member for a decade, including a two-year tenure as chairman.

In 1976 it was performed by Max Gillies of the APG, for which he reprised his role in the 1990 TV movie version.

It was the first Australian play to be staged in China (in Mandarin) with a famous Chinese actor, Wei Zongwan, as Monk.

This play has enjoyed productions in the United States, Germany and New Zealand.

A 1979 Australian independent film based on the play was directed by John Duigan.

His next play, a long monodrama, A Stretch of the Imagination, is regarded by most connoisseurs as his finest work, embodying a radical advance in the character of Australian theatre, embracing and remoulding as it does many of the strong strands in theatrical modernism.

In 1983, he took the initiative to establish the Melbourne Writers Theatre, an organization that continues to operate today.

His engagement with the arts industry extended to serving on the Theatre Board of The Australia Council on two occasions and more recently on its Literature Board.

Hibberd has written close to 40 plays, some of them not full length.

Following this, he practiced as a general practitioner until 1984, after which he specialized in clinical immunology.

In his personal life, he was married to actress Evelyn Krape, with whom he has two children, as well as two children from a previous marriage.

In 2010 it was performed in London by Mark Little, a winner of the prestigious Laurence Olivier Award.

Hibberd has completed some stage adaptations of short stories: Gogol's "The Overcoat" (with music), Maupassant's "Odyssey of a Girl", and Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich.

Hibberd's most challenging plays are his monodramas, in which he specializes.

Those for women include Female Rhapsodies (sub-titled 'curtain-raisers'), Lavender Bags and Mothballs.

The first entails a preparation for a wedding (a fantasy performance), the second explores the fine public face of grief and its ugly private underbelly.

Apart from Stretch, there is a gargantuan male on monodrama, From Apes to Apps, subtitled A History of the Western World in Ninety Minutes, which indeed it is.

Peggy Sue, a companion to White with Wire Wheels, dramatises the mistreatment and exploitation of three romantic young women during a severe economic depression when they are compelled to work as prostitutes.

Liquid Amber is a companion to Dimboola, and has audience participation at golden wedding celebration.

A Toast to Melba and The Les Darcy Show embraces the lives of the famous diva Nellie Melba and the champion boxer Les Darcy.

Repossession concentrates on the conflicts between two poor young women who live in a shack out in the bush and two domineering corporate captains who, stranded, turn up for the night.

Hibberd's recent plays are Commandments, in which five of the ten Commandments are inverted, or perverted, so that the breaking of a commandment becomes ethically justified.

And Guantanamo Bay, which is set in that institution and is visited by President George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz because it is "Open Day at Guantanamo Bay", and, to begin the celebrations, there is a performance of The History of American Violence... a play within a play.

The guests watch some examples of the artistry of contemporary torture.

Later they are joined by Tony Blair and John Howard, Australia's "Man of Steel."

Fidel Castro appears as an interlude.

A waiter called Malcolm X causes great distress among the American dignitaries.

Over the years Hibberd has also published short stories and essays on theatre.

Miss Finger

A nocturnal thriller set in Melbourne.