Australian Stages

Australian Stages is a 1945 Australian radio play by Alexander Turner. It was a verse drama.

The play was published in 1945.

According to Leslie Rees in the original production "with its integration of simultaneous male voices on different levels, this radio play reached the heights. But of course the strength was only partly in the method, and the way Turner could make local names ring and glow; the rest flowed, once again, from the nostalgia and heart-sadness of the man’s reflections, given in monologue."

The Brisbane Telegraph said "The play's language is always expressive and often' beautiful, but it is not entirely in verse, as is claimed."

According to ABC Weekly the play was a prime example of the confusion existing in many minds as to the meaning of the words “art” and “artiness,” The tricks and. artifices employed were not even effective in their phoniness. The verses were undeniably put together in tradesmanlike style, and there were many really fine phrases employed. But Australian Stages was not a play, Radio or any other sort. "

Premise
A young soldier leaves his home to go to war. According to one description it "tells of a sensitive young man’s gradual conversion to the idea of joining up. Its use of train rhythm in chorus, alternating with the young man’s nostalgic thoughts as he passes various stations, is a novel touch, while the verse is full of vivid Westralian imagery."