How did film and television influence theatre in post-WWII Australia?

The introduction of TV into Australia in 1956 had its good and bad points. One of its good points was that actors, producers and writers had a new avenue via which they could showcase their work. When something new and shiny comes to town, especially something like television, everyone wants to play with it. However, with so many theatre practitioners switching over to television, the stage industry almost went out of business.

Nearly every artist in Australia transferred to acting, directing, producing and writing for television shortly after it was introduced – if they didn’t transfer fully (i.e. only work in TV and not in theatre), their commitment to their TV work was much higher than that of their theatre work. It was clear that the television business would pay much better than stage.

The audiences as well as the artists were beginning to prefer TV to stage. Cinemas and drive-ins were much more popular with the youth and the modern culture. In the late 50s, this was more out of awe for this amazing innovative technology than anything else. In the 60s, however, theatre soon became a traditional and even “boring” element of entertainment and television skyrocketed to the top of the popularity ladder.

Luckily, this phase didn’t last long; within 20 years or so, people started attending stage productions again as well as enjoying the movies. One of the biggest movements of the 70s was Aboriginal theatre – as Australia’s blatant racism towards Indigenous people was still present at this time, it was clear that it would be harder for the Aborigines to get work in television. This, coupled with the fact that storytelling, singing and dancing live are a traditional part of Aboriginal culture, meant that Aboriginal people provided a form of live entertainment which wasn’t available on the television. This began to intrigue people and gradually, the love of theatre returned to Australia.

Not all aspects of television were so hindering as the aforementioned; television provided some very useful assets to Australia’s theatre business. With things like costumes, makeup and special effects being mass produced in high quality, theatre companies and groups were able to tag along and use some of them. Special effects in particular was one of the most significant factors in regaining the theatre’s once gigantic crowd of fans. The theatre-goers who had started to prefer television because of its higher quality and more convincing special effects were amazed and impressed at some of these techniques being adapted and modified to use in the theatre instead.