… Or, the Triumph of Happiness

Melodrama, long regarded as a debased and sensational dramatic form well and truly outdated, has recently begun to enjoy something of a revival. ‘Gaslight music halls’ have sprung up in several Australian capitals, turning out ‘Victorian’ style entertainment updated to the jaded tastes of the twentieth century, and using some of the elements of melodrama in their more recent role of vehicle for burlesque and innuendo. Victor Emeljanow’s production of Douglas Jerrold’s Black Eyed Susan* at the Bondi Pavilion Theatre in Sydney was a brave attempt to let melodrama stand on its own terms, to test whether the emotionalism that wrung the hearts of our great-grandparents in the theatre can still touch us today.