Desire of the Moth

Desire of the Moth is a 1966 Australian play by James Brazill.

Premise
On an outback station, a married woman yearns for her old lover. She later engineers his suicide and goes insane.

Production history
It received a professional production in 1966 starring Googie Withers and Ed Devereaux. It was produced for J.C. Williamsons Ltd.

Withers said "It is the first Australian play I feel I can tackle. "We have high hopes for it. It is a human relations play set on a lonely sheep station in Australia. Up until now Australian play writers have followed the same pattern of rollicking Australiana, kangaroos, the outback and all that sort of thing. They can't go on writing in that vein and we are hoping for more Australian-written plays."

The play was Brazill's first produced play. He was a librarian.

The season lost money.

According to Leslie Rees "Critics unequivocally condemned Desire of the Moth and aspects of its production, but the author later declared that sixty thousand people saw it in the two cities."

Reception
The Australian Jewish Herald said "The best that can be said is that the play is straight theatre, easy to follow and a good vehicle for Googie Withers to display her ample talents."

The Canberra Times called it "a full bore melodrama".

The Age said "Mr Brazill has more to learn about writing dialogeue."

The Bulletin called it a "Strindbergian opus".