• Home
  • Map
  • Showcase
  • FAQ
  • About
  • Contact
  • App

No Incense Rising

Playwright: George Landen Dann
Year: 1937
Type: Play
Edition: Produced - Sydney Independent Theatre, 1937.
Published digitally by Playlab.

Synopsis

A life of one's own at the expense of one's family? Or a life of familial obligation? This is the choice faced by Ada Bergmann. Trapped on a remote island, accessible only by boat, the youthful Ada is burdened by the demands of her widowed mother, the expectations of her ever-patient fiancée Carl Nilssen, and haunted by the prospect of a different life.

Infused with a spirit of tragedy, No Incense Rising is brimming with melodrama and a sense of the gothic: the landscape dominates, wild weather shapes the action, and a sense of menace and looming catastrophe persist throughout. This early example of Dann's work sits strongly within the sizeable canon of gothic Australian, and particularly Queensland theatre and literature.

Source - Playlab.

Narrative Locations

Mrs. Bergman's House – In the Living Room, Whitsundays, Queensland  

Temporal setting: 1930s

Location notes:

The playwright has obfuscated the location, by coalescing a range of geographical fix-points from up and down the coast of Queensland onto one fictional Island. One of these, Dent's Reef, seems to refer to Dent Island near Hamilton, and the other references are either to the north, or the south. Hence, I have placed the setting on Hamilton Island.

Quotes

The house is built on a rise very near the sea. All the time during the Play the Sea can be heard... now ringing against the shore like a bell striking softly... now moaning like a homeless mind crying at the windows. At times it is almost silent – just a deep beat heard afar off – but when, as in the Third Act, the wind tugs at the trees and the waves, and lead-coloured clouds are pulling over, it surges to a loud, pounding, swishing roar.

(p. 5)





Content


Synopsis
Narrative Locations
Map

Related Texts



Print Page
Expand and Print All
Print Map

Contribute information to this Narrative
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Copyright Policy
  • Privacy Policy
     
Copyright © 2012 Cultural Atlas Australia. University of Queensland. All rights reserved.