POSSUM PADDOCK by Kate Howarde (1919)

(10M, 6W)

POSSUM PADDOCK (1919) by the remarkable theatre polymath Kate Howarde (1864-1939). Born Katherine (Kate) Clarissa Jones on this day (28 July) in 1864 in Sussex, she immigrated to New Zealand with her mother Harriet, and two younger sisters (Jessica and Minnie) following her father’s death in 1873. Kate made her stage debut as an actress aged 18 with the Willmott combination in 1883 (a pants role in Boucicaut’s LONDON ASSURANCE). The following year she joined Professor Payne’s Unique Speciality Company (offering ‘musical gems and eccentricities’). It was here that Kate met Australian-born actor and musician William Henry de Saxe (working under the stage name William Henry Cowan). The couple married in April 1884, and their daughter Florence Adrienne was born the following December. The family moved to Sydney in 1886— Kate appeared to lose 5 years off her age crossing the Tasman!—and they quickly found stage work, both engaged by Hayman and Knight’s Dramatic Company (her breakout role was as Lizzie Stofel in STRUCK OIL, opposite Hayman). The author of 18 plays, Kate Howarde’s POSSUM PADDOCK—‘a comedy drama’ based on her own experience of character’—was her best known and most successful work. After a tryout in Armidale, it premiered at JC Williamson’s Theatre Royal (Sydney) on 6 September 1919. While an affectionate burlesque of ON OUR SELECTION (1912)—written by her friend and theatrical colleague Bert Bailey—POSSUM PADDOCK deserves its own merit for its intimate observation of 'bush life in transition' and as a vehicle for resourceful and inventive actors (Fred MacDonal, well know for his ‘Dave’ in ON OUR SELECTION, played the role of Billy MacQuade at the premiere; Kate scored a personal success as the city cousin, widow Nella Carsley). POSSUM PADDOCK ‘makes you laugh one minute, and cry the next,’ wrote Sir Harry Lauder. ‘What more is necessary for success?'

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