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The Papers of Louis Nowra

Louis Nowra speaking at a Library conference in 2001
Photo: Jim Nomarhas

The National Library is the privileged custodian of the papers of Louis Nowra (b.1950), held in the Manuscript Collection at MS 10042. The collection was purchased from Nowra in 1999, and in December 2007 it was arranged and described with the generous assistance of the Ray Mathew and Eva Kollsman Trust.

Louis Nowra is best known for his plays, which include Cosi, The Temple, The Jungle, Spellbound, Deceit, The Incorruptible, Radiance, The Watchtower, Byzantine Flowers and Miss Bosnia, to name but a few. Nowra’s attraction to the theatre apparently began early in his life, when he performed in a school concert in Dutch costume, singing a duet about dikes with a boy called Danny. According to an article by Nowra (‘How I Became Stagestruck’, Good Weekend, 12 January 1985), he made his entrance and commenced his solo first verse to the accompaniment of chortles from the audience, which momentarily puzzled and alarmed him. However at the end of his segment Nowra discovered that it was Danny, glued to the backdrop paralysed by stage fright and unable to sing the second verse, who was the object of amusement. Unabashed and under orders from the supervising nun in the wings, Nowra prised Danny from the backdrop and removed him from the stage, to ever more appreciative laughter. His anecdote continues: ‘Before the nun could stop me, I made a new entrance, hurried down to the front of the stage and bowed gravely. There was loud applause and more laughter. I took the opportunity to take another bow and then another. I was beginning to like this theatre business enormously.’ Only the heavy hand of the nun on his shoulder could remove Nowra from the stage, but the experience changed him forever: he ‘fell in love with the theatre’.

Nowra’s papers include notes, drafts, typescripts and copies relating to all the plays mentioned above, plus many of his other works written prior to 1999. Amongst these are works for film, radio and television, opera and other musical forms, non-fiction, autobiography and translations (such as Cyrano de Bergerac). Two of the better-known productions that are represented in Series 5 of the papers are Summer of the Aliens and Nowra’s adaptation of Xavier Herbert’s book, Capricornia, for a television mini-series. Other projects that have never been seen or heard by the public include Moon of the Exploding Trees, a radio play written for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation but not produced as it was considered obscene, and Fallen Angels, which was abandoned when the idea was overtaken by the Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh film on the same subject, Heavenly Creatures.

In addition to the literary works, there is a fairly extensive professional correspondence, documenting Nowra’s publishing, theatre and screen activities. Correspondents include Australian theatre personalities Jim Sharman and Richard Wherrett, filmmakers Nadia Tass and Vincent Ward, and academic Veronica Kelly. Also present are letters from Nowra’s uncle, Bob Herbert-Hay, who was stage manager at J.C. Williamson’s in Melbourne during Nowra’s childhood and another link to the world of theatre. A number of diaries document Nowra’s working relationships with Rex Cramphorn, Wherrett and Sharman between 1979 and 1982.

Nowra’s memoir, The Twelfth of Never, recounts an upbringing with more than an undercurrent of violence and instability, including a mother who had murdered her father. This may be a factor in Nowra’s partiality for black comedy and the gothic themes which underpin many of his works. For example, Nowra’s non-fiction publication, The Cheated, consists of a series of news items about bizarre incidents. The original photographs for this work are amongst Nowra’s papers (Series 5, Folders 9–10), along with 75 scrapbooks containing press cuttings, many depicting violent crimes and erotic images. Some of these Nowra drew on for inspiration in his writing, but he also considers his scrapbooks ‘a diary of each year: they include fashions, sport, politics … quite wonderful mementos and diaries of the past’ (Meanjin, December 1980).

Nowra is possibly the most prolific of Australian writers currently working across a range of genres, including theatre. His papers provide a glimpse into the creative processes that brought him to national prominence and are a significant addition to the Library’s archival collections of Australian literary figures. Readers can search the guide to the papers of Louis Nowra at http://nla.gov.au/nla.ms-ms10042.

Donna Vaughan
Kollsman Archivist, Manuscripts Branch