The enigma of Miles Franklin

A new Australian play by Alice Spigelman

30 October To 17 November 2024
Bondi Pavilion Theatre

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Playwright: Alice Spigelman Dramaturg: Timothy Daly Director: Moira Blumenthal
Actors: Beth Daly, Sarah Greenwood, Alice Livingstone
Lloyd Allison-Young and James Coetzee

Miles Franklin returns to Sydney in 1932 after years in Chicago and London. She is still trying to get her books published, with little success. Frustrated by living with her elderly mother, the lack of money and feelings of failure, she struggles to reignite her fame as a twenty-year old when she wrote My Brilliant Career that captured the nation’s imagination.
Hope glimmers when Miles meets the mercurial publisher Inky Stephenson. They become firm friends, and he invites her to join his Yabber club of writers and progressive thinkers, A relief from caring for her elderly, demanding mother, it gives Miles a chance to be part of an influential circle. She ignores the warning signs of Inky’s outrageous ideas. His passion for Australians to create their own culture and break with Britain is more important to Miles, and she is still part of Inky’s circle as he begins his drift into dangerous politics.

Read the full Media Release here