The Toorak Rules
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This play examines Melbourne society, nascent feminism, love and the fundamental divide between Catholics and non-Catholics, in the late Menzies era.
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South Yarra, VIC
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The Toorak Rules
During the late 1950s and into the early 1960s, Toorak was a stronghold of highly conservative values and ethos. It was a place where conventions ruled, prejudices were deeply established, and flexibility was very limited. Divorce was rare, and a very real social impediment. Frequently, the consequence for the wife was isolation, if not social oblivion. And the vast majority of Toorak’s residents were white Anglo Saxon Protestants, although some Catholics, predominantly of an Irish background, had found sufficient success to be able to afford to reside in the suburb.
In that era, Melbourne was heavily sectarian, and no more so than in Toorak. There was a strict, sometimes brutal, divide between the Catholics of Melbourne, then led by the legendary Archbishop Daniel Mannix and his lieutenant, Mr BA Santamaria, and the non-Catholics. That divide was ingrained in separate schools, clubs, institutions, and businesses, and otherwise in the society of the day.
So what happened when, against a background of that fundamental divide between Catholics and non-Catholics, two families, one Catholic and one not, clash over the most primal interactions? And, as a consequence, what ghosts return to haunt those who might have reasonably thought such spectres would stay in the past where they belonged?
Be sure to find out - ‘The Toorak Rules’ - St Martin’s Theatre, 44 St Martin’s Lane, South Yarra
