| Sons of the Morning | |
| Premiere: | April 1945[1] |
| Place: | New Theatre, Melbourne |
| Orig Lang: | English |
| Subject: | World War Two |
| Genre: | verse drama |
Sons of the Morning is a 1945 verse drama Australian play by Catherine Duncan.[2] It was originally written for radio.
It won first prize in the 1945 Playwrights' Advisory Board competition[3] and was performed in Melbourne, Sydney,[4] Brisbane and Perth.[5]
The play was published in 1946, at a time when that was rare for Australian plays.[4] [6]
According to Leslie Rees, "the literary and imaginative tone of the play is high. The problem of reconciling poetry with dramatic tension and the workaday sense of reality is well handled. The parts are all actable... At one remarkable period there were two productions of Sons of the Morning in Sydney, each with a different last scene, each ending didactic, neither entirely satisfying."[7]
It was adapted for ABC radio in 1957.
On Crete during World War Two, two Australian soldiers, Anson and David, seek refuge in a Cretan farmhouse occupied by a farmer and his daughter Christina. David and Christina fall in love. A German pilot crashes nearby and is captured but he is freed by Noulos, Christina's betrothed.[8]