Good news – you don’t need to know The One Day of the Year to see The First Night (of the One Day of the Year). Got it?

I had never seen or heard of Alan Seymour’s The One Day of the Year until a few weeks ago, but that didn’t stop me from having a great time at Stephen Vagg’s latest play, based on Seymour’s work, The First Night (of the One Day of the Year).

I was lucky to see a special performance of The First Night (of the One Day of the Year), followed by a Q&A session with some of the cast, creatives and crew.

Allow me to explain the original work, for those who were in the same boat as me. Written in 1958, The One Day of the Year unfolds through a father and son’s conversation about ANZAC Day. The play was very controversial for its time, and was considered by some to be an attack on the ANZAC legend. Regardless, it became a landmark Australian play.

The One Day of the Year was initially set to be performed at the 1960 Adelaide Festival of Arts, but it was banned due to its content. It was instead picked up by an amateur theatre company that performed it to much success, to the point where a Sydney production soon followed. But it was followed by more controversy when bomb threats kept the cast out of the theatre for 24 hours.

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The First Night is about the opening night of The One Day of the Year. A lot of the elements are heavily fictionalised, but as the play kindly puts it in the very first scene, “everyone involved in the original production is dead, so they can do whatever they want”.

So, The First Night (of the One Day of the Year) starts in the same way, with the show set in Adelaide and with The One Day of the Year due to premier in just over an hour.

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Backstage is director Joan, lovebirds (and I really mean lovebirds) Coral and Tony, and lovable dimwit Ogie. The colourful cast all must deal with obstacles such as a very annoying festival director, an ASIO detective hell-bent on finding any communists and homosexuals and, of course, a bomb threat.

The show is a blast from the past that will make you laugh, sucker punch you in the feelings and then make you laugh some more. Each character is layered, and the show all comes together due to some killer direction from Nathaniel Currie, perfect comedic timing and extraordinary monologues from the cast, some wicked lighting, and seriously funny writing from Stephen Vagg.

At the end of the show, some members of the cast (James Dyke, Janaki Gerard, Bronwyn Nayler, Gregory J. Wilken), the director (Currie) and the playwright (Vagg), answered questions from the crowd.

First, they were asked about what was important to them in this play and what attracted them to it.

Janaki Gerard answered first, saying: “That it’s farce. I haven’t seen a new script that is farce. I have a soft spot for the genre, I love it.”

“I also love how the female characters are written” she added.

Vagg continued: “Originally, Janaki’s role was a bit more limited, and then we realised, ‘oh, she’s a really good actress!’ So, we gave her more to do.”

Said Gregory J. Wilken: “When Stephen sent me the script, I was laughing all the way though it. I just thought maybe it was my mind. Then we did a table read, and we all killed ourselves laughing. Then I thought, maybe it’s just funny for people in the industry who are in the know? Then we did a moved reading, and the audience killed themselves laughing, and again at the preview!”

“I came on board with the moved reading,” said Bronwyn Nayler. “Stephen’s writing is witty and very, very funny. I did worry about the fact it was farce and if we could get away with that ending, but it works.”

They were then asked about the original play, and what impact it had on this one.

“It’s Inception-level sort of stuff,” Currie said. “It is interesting knowing the context for the play, you’ll further understand the interactions the characters have, the attitudes and the speeches they have, particularly the women.

“But it’s not important to know the play, that’s something that I had to be conscious and aware of when directing this. It was imperative that we created something that connected with everyone, even if people didn’t understand.”

As someone who didn’t know the context heading into seeing the play, I laughed and appreciated the farce of The First Night. It really is a play for everyone.

The First Night (of the One Day of the Year) plays Pluto space, Ad Astra, 210 Petrie Tce, Brisbane, until November 21.

adastracreativity.com/productions/the-first-night

This article was written as part of  The Critical Writing Program, run in partnership with Queensland Writers Centre and InReview Queensland, supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, part of the Department of Education.