The Slaughter of St Teresa's Day

The Slaughter of St Teresa's Day
Written by	Peter Kenna
Date premiered	11 March 1959
Place premiered	Sydney
Original language	English
Subject	Catholicism families

The Slaughter of St Theresa's Day
Directed by	Alan Burke
Written by	Peter Kenna
Based on	play by Peter Kenna
Starring	Neva Carr Glynn
Distributed by	ABC
Release date	23 March 1960
Running time	75 mins
Country	Australia
Language	English

The Slaughter of St Teresa's Day
Produced by	John Jacobs
Written by	Peter Kenna
Starring	Susannah York
Release date	1962
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

The Slaughter of St. Teresa's Day is a play by Australian author Peter Kenna.

Oola Maguire, a bookie, holds a party every St. Teresa's Day. The guests are the people she has quarrelled with in the past year, and there is only one rule – firearms must be parked in the hall. Her daughter Thelma is brought home from the convent she attends with two nuns.

It won a National Playwrights Competition in 1958 and was produced in Sydney the following year by the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust.

Kenna revised the play in 1972.

It was filmed by the ABC on 23 March 1960 at a time when local drama production was rare. The spelling of the title was "Theresa's Day" not "Teresa's Day" like the play.

Neva Carr Glyn reprised the role which Kenna had written for her.

The Australian Woman's Weekly called it "excellent entertainment."

The critic for the Sydney Morning Herald thought the play "lost little of its waywardness and some of its liveliness in a television production" and had faults with the play ("Kenna seems unable to settle decisively on one theme and to develop it boldly enough to carry his admirable intentions and considerable ability") but felt it was a "very worthwhile production, organised with some tact and imagination by Alan Burke."

The play was filmed by the BBC in 1962.

...
Wikipedia