Louis Nowra

SUMMER OF THE ALIENS: THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE WORLDS OF LOUIS NOWRA'S PLAYS

by Robert McCuaig

"AN ANGEL IS PASSING. HE'S STOPPING, AND HE IS LISTENING TO US
AND WE EXPLAIN THE BEAUTY AND SUFFERING OF OUR WORLD, BUT
WE CAN'T EXPLAIN IT PROPERLY"

Nowra's plays are infused with a concern for the inner world of his characters. More specifically, his focus is frequently on the difficulty of the individual to articulate a sense of personal identity and realisation in the context of the broader geographic, social and historical landscape. The relationship between the private and public worlds set up in his plays creates a dramatic conflict that forms the basis for the ensuing action of the play. This conflict is both internal and external in its manifestation, and so provides his plays with a psychological dynamic that encodes the action with a heightened dimension, so offering a more profound understanding of the human condition.
Nowra, himself, refers to coils of thematic concerns in his plays. 1 "In the earlier plays these confrontations are worked out in terms of struggles for power to assert the inner vision over the world" 2 This is clearly evident in Visions, where the failure of Lopez to bring to fruition his flawed vision for a greater Paraguay leads to his own demise and that of his country. Lopez' personal vision was in direct conflict with the reality of the political landscape of the play. His failure to see beyond his narrow, egotistical view of the world lead to inevitable failure and the manifestation of that failure in the broader public domain. Similarly, Madame Lynch's attempt to bring culture to Paraquay is doomed because of her inability to incorporate in her vision the cultural values of her new home. Poetically, by the conclusion of the play, her visions are more alien than when they were first asserted, now having even less meaning in the context of the dreadful reality that has beset Paraguay. Her visions are without voice, being retained by the mute visionary, Juana, who has no real understanding of their meaning. Madame Lynch's vision, like her husband's, is lost in the swampland of defeat.
Nowra's dramaturgy has always strived to detach the audience from the action upon the stage. This is, in part, to "shake up" the audience's "concept" and "viewpoint of the world." Nowra refers to the "metaphorical resonance" that is achieved through geographic and chronological detachment, and argues that such detachment provides an audience with a more coherent understanding of the problems of the drama upon the stage. 3 Whereas plays such as Visions and Precious Woman, set in exotic locations and pre-occupied by more overtly universal concerns, are more politically direct in their exploration of the private world of the characters and the public faces of society, there is a tendency toward a more allegorical and somewhat more oblique approach in a play such as Sunrise. 4 In the latter, the landscape of the play is closer to the collective Australian psyche, and though not derivative of Nowra's personal experience, it provides a drama that is culturally and geographically less detached for an Australian audience, resonating with questions that challenge modern Australia's sense of self and identity.
Set on the rural estate of the wealthy Shelton family, the action of Sunrise spans the time from dusk to dawn as family and friends come to celebrate the sixtieth birthday of the patriach, Clarrie Shelton. What Nowra provides us with is a convergence of personality and perception in which the "extended family with their friends, lovers and retainers represent a microcosm of a certain stratum of Australian society with its memories, desires, dreams and nightmares." 5 Nowra juxtaposes the inner lives of the characters against their outer representations as each attempts to grapple with their own sense of identity, extrapolated from the past, and their sense of direction toward the future. Ultimately, the play is apocalyptic in its vision for this privileged society. Hanging over each of their heads is the mushroom cloud of atomic discovery. On an allegorical level this is manifest in the play in the form of a fire that is raging perilously close to the homestead and offering a portent for the future.

Peg : It scares me. Next time the fire will devour us - everything. We can't be
lucky all the time. It will be an inferno. I can feel it in my bones

In Sunrise and The Golden Age, Nowra questions our sense of reality. In both plays, Nowra is keen to dramatise the confrontation between personal vision and reality. In Sunrise, Clarrie Shelton must reassess his role in the development of the nuclear bomb, and all of the characters, being representative of privileged white Australia, must question their sovereign right to hold purchase of Honey Ant Dreaming. This theme of cultural imperialism and settlement is further extended in The Golden Age where Nowra broadens the canvas of his play to bring together two very different cultures, each terrible in its own way, and each, seemingly, doomed from achieving true fulfilment. Specifically, however, Nowra is again criticising the superficiality and absurdity of our transplanted culture. In The Golden Age, Nowra "deals with problems of definition of culture and civilisation, and with the broad patterns of Australian, and more generally post-colonial history." 6 "In The Golden Age I wanted to show how Australians were caught up not only in their own culture but also in the destruction of other cultures." 7

William : In some ways their culture is more authentic than ours. We Australians
have assumed the garb of a hand-me-down culture but at our heart is
desert. For their appalling ignorance and pathetic beliefs they at least
have a real core, an essence. (Nowra P.40)

As already discussed, the historic landscape has always been an important dramatic structure in helping to achieve the dramaturgical goals of what is often termed Nowra's "Epic" theatre. Though, the more recent, Summer Of The Aliens is more inwardly drawn and introspective in its central concern, historical perspective is still an important thematic and structural element within the play. Nowra's understanding of the importance that history plays in our lives, on a personal and global level, and of how history can mould the nation and the person is clearly evident in Summer Of The Aliens where he explores his own past in a dramaturgy that is clearly historical in its action.
Though there is an obvious departure in Summer Of The Aliens toward a more personal and autobiographical theatre, the dramaturgy still holds, as one of its central tenets, a fascination with the inner and outer lives of the characters, and the opposing realities that arise from personal and public perceptions. Indeed, Nowra's pre-occupation with identity is closely affiliated with a profound understanding of the role that history plays in that equation. Nowra speaks of the difficulty his characters have in "being able to stabilise any permanent image of themselves in relation to the word and the world" 8
In Summer Of The Aliens, this realisation is manifest on a private level whereby the author shares with the audience a theatrical construct of his own past in an attempt to gain a greater understanding his own sense of identity.
"I think that as I grow older, I'm becoming more preoccupied with wanting to describe the emotional life of the person." 9 Nowra claims that in his earlier works he often "confused naturalism and psychology", and so overly restricted the emotional development of his characters. 10 His desire to probe the interior life of his characters and to trust emotion as a legitimate and revelatory element in his drama is developed in Summer Of The Aliens beyond that of any of his previous plays. Consequently, moreso than any previous play, there is far less concern to achieve an emotional detachment from the audience. Louis Nowra's plays have always been imbued with a strong sense of nostalgia, but no moreso than in Summer Of The Aliens where he explores adolescent loss of innocence, and the adult realisation of the loss of that experience to create a drama that calls for a more direct empathetic audience response.
The final scene achieves the enclosed tableaux of emotion that Nowra greatly admires in operatic theatre. Though the action of the scene is predicated in earlier scenes, the emotional expression is quite revelatory, achieving what Nowra refers to as "a much deeper, resonant emotional quality that sometimes can almost reach the level of what one could term the mystical". 11 This is attained in the play's final scene when Lewis remembers his first love and realises the emotional reality of that loss. The themes of regret and loss are poignantly explored when the Narrator speaks of seeing Dulcie's face in the face of his lovers and wishing that they were her. It is only as an older man that he can emotionally understand the events of that summer. The word that Lewis did not hear as a younger man is now understood by the adult Lewis, but this knowledge is now rendered impotent through the movement of time.
One of the play's strengths lies in its powerful evocation of that which we call memory; where we all seek, from time to time, that which we no longer have. At the heart of the play, is the desire to recapture, clarify and ascertain some meaning, for the present, in the events of the past. Louis Nowra's nostalgia, therefore, is not just one of yearning for the past as a retreat from the present, but one that recognises the past as integral to the present, and as an important agent in determining who we are now. Cognisant of the resonances that the past carries to the present, the play is about people and places that exist only in memory; but as the character of Grandma points out, We are nothing without memory.
As in previous plays, Summer Of The Aliens is no less concerned with the individual's attempt to create for themselves a viable reality and sense of identity. This particular play deals with a powerful need on the author's part to again meet with the person that he once was so as to better understand the person he is now. Pivotal to the play is this idea of seeing the world of the boy through the eyes of the man. The juxtaposition of the older Lewis, standing in his snakeskin shoes, reflective in the light that time and distance can only bring, and his younger self, confused by the world around him and searching for another world where things will make sense, is a powerful theatrical image. Nowra's narrator, however, is never too far from his younger self. The younger Lewis is encumbered with many questions. The older Lewis, though he wishes he could, is unable to answer everything, for in reality they are one and the same person :

Narrator : Eventually Lewis and I merged. To become me, because of him.
(Nowra P.84)

In each of Nowra's plays, a dichotomy is established between opposing worlds and the inner visions of the characters that construct them as part of the existentialist drive. In Sunrise, it is between the old world and the new world; between the established patriarchal view of Clarrie and the primitivist deracination of Venice. 12 In Visions, it is the clash between native and alien cultures; driven by the ill judged and extraneous visions of Lopez and Madame Lynch respectively. In The golden Age, it is between the lost and the displaced; between Betscheb and Francis who "can be read as separated halves of an entity who strive for union to heal a rift both psychic and cultural." 13 Similarly, a dichotomy of perspective lies at the heart of the drama in Summer Of The Aliens. The Narrator and Lewis, though the one person, are still separate characters within the drama, each removed by time and place from the other's reality. The impossibility of syncretism of their two worlds is manifest as in all of Nowra's characters. The Narrator, ultimately, for all his attempts to re-enter the reality of Lewis' world, is distanced by the limitations of memory and his acquired adult perspective.
According to Gerry Turcotte, Nowra's plays are 'replete with characters with communication difficulties; people who live within themselves because no language exists for them to express their "inner voices", or to allow for the communication of the inner landscape with the outer.' 14 Nevertheless, he also points out that his characters are not without "a personal language" with which they are able to attempt to voice their private world.

Dulcie : An angel is passing. He's stopping, and he is listening to us and we
explain the beauty and suffering of our world, but we can't explain it
properly. (Nowra P.83)

Dulcie attempts to make some sense of her world and establish an identity for herself that will help her survive the cruelty of her family life. The idea that their lives are temporarily miserable is a form of consolation for Dulcie.

Dulcie : That's what we are : caterpillars waiting to turn into angels.
(Nowra P.17)

She needs to escape a base world where stepfathers sexually abuse their stepdaughters. Dulcie's vision offers hope to counter the pain of her family life, and consoles her inability to make sense of her world. She takes flight in the imagination and the ethereal world of angels. Like Venice in Sunrise, Dulcie attempts to find a legitimate language of her own. Dulcie attempts to communicate to Lewis that which she cannot articulate in any conventional way, for to do so would only reveal, all too plainly, the awful reality of her world. Her inability to express her emotional pain and fears is symbolised by her angel persona.

Dulcie :Angels do not talk about their feelings. But their wings talk.
(Nowra P.81)

The language of angels, communicating her fear, confusion and need for love is lost on the younger Lewis. It is only as an adult that he realises the emotional lexicon that Dulcie was speaking. Sadly, her voice is lost in her final reverie, as she swings back and forth in the memory of the older Lewis.
"At its simplest level, I've always been intrigued by the process of learning and how we construct a picture of the world through the language and knowledge we are taught." 15 In the play, Sunrise, Nowra presents such a diversity of individual vision that it is as if each of the characters speak their own language for all that they are able to communicate with one another. "Like Handke and Ionesco, Nowra seems convinced that control of language gives a dramatic character a position of unimpeachable power." 16 Quite often, this tenet functions on a metaphorical level within his plays. In Visions, Juana's mute status and then her mouthing of Madame Lynches personal vision for Paraguay in the final scene is an imagistic comment about the state of the Paraguayan nation. In Summer Of The Aliens, Beatrice, another mute character, is equally disempowered. She is representative of all migrants who, throughout history, have found themselves culturally and linguistically displaced. She is unable to establish character, and assert herself within the world of the play because she is unable to articulate a persona through language and dialogue. As a consequence, her history and her inner world is rendered silent. Being able only to imitate that which she is told by others, she becomes a victim of ridicule.
The importance of language as a formative element in the construction of an individual's identity is, perhaps, no moreso established than in The Golden Age, where Ayre's forgotten people now face extinction and where language is seen as something akin to a life force.

Ayre : Nowt tongue, nowt goldy sow, now 'istory
(We have no language, no sperm, and therefore no history)
(Nowra P.26)

Similarly, in Summer Of The Aliens, Grandma speaks of her concern for the loss of her own identity.

Grandma : Memory is all we've got. Memory. Without memory we are nothing.
(Nowra P.60)

Grandma longs for a more refined life; a rarefied world where men are gentlemen and women, ladies: A world far removed from that which she perceives around her. It is from this perception that she, like Ayre in her attempt to pass on the thy word to Betsheb, attempts to pass on her knowledge to the younger generation. The correlation between history and personal identity is as real for Grandma as it is for Nowra's other matriach in The Golden Age. Grandma sees Australian history as dead history. She holds to the idea of passing on to Lewis a true history and identity in the hope that he will preserve the knowledge of her view of the world.
Grandma's interest in the world outside the estate is not restricted to her fascination with Scottish history. The value she places upon knowledge generally is shown in her attempts to keep abreast of the news about the world. The tragedy of Grandma, however, lies in the seeming futility of all such knowledge. Bonnie Prince Charlie is certainly irrelevant, but so too is the news of the world when you are losing your memory. She tells Lewis that memory is all that you have. For Grandma, the tragedy is that she is losing everything. Grandma is representative of her generation, and there is present within the play the idea that with the loss of Grandma's memory their is a passing away of that world.
One of the themes in The Golden Age, and an idea that appears time and again in Nowra's writing, is that of the transiency of all culture. The worlds depicted in Sunrise and Visions are equally short-lived in the broader sweep of history. Again, this theme is explored in Summer Of The Aliens through and the presence of the outside world and the threat of cultural change to the pre-dominant white Anglo Saxon culture. Nowra explores the very insular world of mainstream Australian culture by transplanting alien characters into the landscape. Post war migration is upon Australia and it reaches Lewis' world primarily in the form of the Dutch girl, Beatrice. Brian encapsulates some of the paranoia of the period when he warns Lewis of the dangers of fraternising with migrants.

Brian : Look, don't even talk to wogs. They lead you into unnatural things.
(Nowra P.15)

Lewis' intolerance is displayed when he attacks Beatrice for wearing a jumper in the middle of summer, and there is a chilling irony to his approach.

Lewis : Use your hand. You wogs can be really stupid. Look! [Using Nazi accent] You
are not a Nazi now. You are in Australia. You are free to take off your
jumper I command you to take it off. (Nowra P.15)

As a means of rebellion, Dulcie threatens to embrace the Muslim faith. Again, we are confronted with the exotic. Dulcie finds no solace in her mother and her faith and so attempts to shock Mrs Irvin by threatening to embrace something foreign. Apart from the migrants residing in the nearby hostel, another alien visitation comes in the form of Uncle Richard's Japanese girlfriend who enters their world like a vision.

Lewis : She was as exotic and foreign as an alien from outer space.
(Nowra P.26)

In Summer Of The Aliens, Nowra threatens the homogeneity and sanctuary of the established culture by juxtaposing the exotic against its landscape.
"My viewpoint is that there is no such thing as reality". 17 Nowra questions perceptions of reality in all of his plays. He achieves this very powerfully in The Golden Age when Francis, despite Peter's protestations, chooses the vision of Betsheb's world over that of his own, eschewing the cultural truths of so called civilised society for another reality. In Summer Of The Aliens, Nowra, again, raises questions about perceptions of what is real and what is sane. Lewis is very much alienated from the world that he is growing up in. His obsession with the notion of aliens visiting the Earth is part of his yearning for a world outside the world of suburban Melbourne. Similar to Dulcie, Lewis constructs a reality that helps him make sense of the world that he is growing up in.

Lewis : There is another world out there where everything makes sense. There was a
man who was taken to Mars. The canals were perfect, yet everything was a
mirror reflection of Earth. Left was right, right was left. People didn't
hurt one another. Everything that was bad or stupid in our world was perfect
on mars. Dreams were reality, reality was a dream. (Nowra P.65)

For most of the play, Lewis's mind seems elsewhere. Consequently, he doesn't appear to be fully involved in the action of the play which is initiated largely by the other characters.His search for aliens is a part of the search that we all, to some extent, undergo during adolescence when we try to assert ourself and our understanding of the way things are in a world that seems alien to our sensibilities.

Narrator : I liked being near the power station, listening to the hum of the
generator,looking at the sky, glad to be away from everyone : because
people didn't make any sense at all. (Nowra P.28)

Lewis is perplexed at the behaviour of people. Both Dulcie and Lewis talk about the possibility of aliens inhabiting the bodies of humans, but Lewis soon discovers that the answer to inexplicable human behaviour cannot be explained away by aliens and flying saucers. Why Brian's father killed himself will never be known. Lewis and Dulcie see a movie about a woman who married a man from outer space. Dulcie's mother, too, has married a monster. Lewis realises that Stan is not, possessed by aliens but is simply, a shit of a human being. Lewis concludes that unhuman behaviour exists amongst us, and in a sense we are all aliens to one another.

Lewis : I realised that there were no aliens or flying saucers. People are just
people. (Nowra P.83)

As in Visions and Sunrise, there is considerable focus on what is going on in the character's minds and the contradistinction between this and that which is passing for normality around them. It is into a bygone era that Grandma finds some comfort and escape from the frustration's and fears of old age. It is Norma, whose personal vision is aligned moreso with the actuality of the world that they live in, who provides the continual counterpoint to the visionaries and dreamers in the play.

Norma : There are no carriages here. In case you haven't noticed we have cars.
(Nowra P.7)

Grandma's introspective ramblings about Bonnie Prince Charlie and courtly etiquette are as alien to the world of this north Melbourne suburb as are the values of Uncle Richard who, essentially, is an alien, appearing but briefly and then vanishing. Unlike Uncle Richard, Eric's orbit is still centred on the estate. Nevertheless, Eric, is possessed by distance. He longs to wander with his imagination and fanciful schemes, rather than take on the responsibilities of parenthood. He has no intention of settling down to the reality that life on the estate dictates as normal and acceptable. For Eric, the idea is all important, and how you get there is merely a second thought. His attitude to the stealing of the Merri Creek soil from the neighbour's front yards exemplifies the irreconcilable chasm separating Eric and Norma's views of the world.
Outside of Lewis' family, further examples can be evidenced to show individuals constructing, in response to their own experiences and needs, a personal reality that is in direct opposition to the dictating elements in their lives. Often this is a contrast between reality and romance. This is no where more apparent than in Dulcie's belief that her father was a Basque freedom fighter who, died in a hail of bullets from the Spanish police. The reality of who her father is nowhere as romantic. Unable to find happiness in her marriage, Mrs Irvin eschews reality to acquire a vision that is supported by faith rather than any practical sign of hope. Mr Pisano symbolises the desire to create an orderly existence. Indeed, his routine job of delivering the mail is the very embodiment of order and routine. When his wife leaves him, his ordered life is dislocated and this is reflected in his unusual attire and bizarre behaviour. Like Juana in Visions and Venice in Sunrise, Mr Pisano finds a code of existence that is judged by other characters to be madness. Nevertheless, it equips him with a perspective that is far less restrictive, allowing him to act more freely on his desires, and ultimately to cope.
As in Sunrise, the need for love is stressed repeatedly in the action of Summer Of The Aliens, revealing much about the inner world of the characters and their inability to
satisfactorily bring into effect their emotional yearnings. Even on a structural level, the central action of the play may be seen as a vain attempt by the playwright to recapture the presence of his first love. Finding no love at home, Dulcie's fantasy about an ethereal love comes from her deep desire to love someone and feel love returned. Drawn by Lewis' innocence, she is seeking love as a means of erasing the smear of her ugly sexual encounters with her stepfather, Stan, who appears to represent the human condition void of love. What Stan seeks is a perversion and abuse of the love that has been entrusted to him. In futility, Mrs Irvin seeks to find love in her marriage to this man. She prays for God to give her a child, in the belief that this will rekindle Stan's love for her. The love that Grandma seeks is one associated with the romance of chivalry. Unable to find romance in the present, she finds romance in the past. Norma too finds little romance in the present. She holds her emotions to herself, having been hurt and embarrassed by her husband's disappearance. Consequently, she displays little faith in either Eric or in romance, but is, nevertheless, not incapable of hope. She is a woman who still loves her husband, and who would love for Eric to reform himself. Such reconciliation is, however, not likely. Eric believes in the romance of the free spirit. He seeks love but not commitment. Adult love, unfortunately for Eric, involves commitment and he, seemingly, has never really grown up. For Eric, love is something to romance and then run from, rather than hold to. Mr Pisano runs from the memory of love. Doing his rounds shirtless, at night or backwards is all in response to the emotional loss he has experienced since his wife left him.
One of the themes within Sunrise is the idea of "how whites have taken over this country but have not become a part of it." 18 This idea is continued, to some degree, in Summer Of The Aliens through an exploration of the cultural landscape.
"By placing figures in a landscape one provides not only a greater resonance, but also devises an emblem rich in suggestive possibilities." 19 The landscape in Summer Of The Aliens, as in most of Nowra's plays, provides a source of imagery rich in metaphor. The suburban world that Lewis grows up in is one where the soil is too impoverished to nourish vegetation, and where it is difficult to see beyond the flat plains that stretch to the north.

Narrator : In the long, hot Australian summer days there are signs of movement.
Nowra P.37)

Nowra juxtaposes a sedentary suburban community, that has virtually fossilised like the dry earth it is built upon, with the significant changes that are afoot in the outside world. These events exist only in the form of disconnected radio bulletins and, seemingly, have little effect upon the pattern of life of those who inhabit this housing estate. We get the sense of a community that responds to change, as it does to the oppressive heat that shrouds it each summer; with little exertion. Through this apparent inaction, there is created a sense of distance between the world of the play and any reality that may exist beyond the flat plains that stretch to the north.
In a very perceivable way, the landscape of Summer Of The Aliens can be seen as being reflective of the insular psyche of the nation and consequently intrinsic to the inner visions of the characters in the play. The reality of the outside world; operating as an external force in opposition to the interior vision is ever present in this play as in a number of Nowra's works. In Visions there is the Triple Alliance. In The Golden Age it is modern civilisation. In Summer Of The Aliens it is the Cuban Missile Crisis and the threat, not unlike that in Sunrise, of Global destruction. With Cuba and the United States on the brink of war, the opening scene with the children keeping low and away from the firing range is an apt image.
The inner world of the characters is inherently connected to the landscape of the play. The terrain is depicted as desolate, unable to sustain growth.

Narrator : It's just paddocks. Flat all the way to the horizon. There are no trees
or flowers, just dry grass and scotch thistles. (Nowra P.2)

Within the play, this notion is metaphorically extended to encompass the growth of any creativity or thought that may deviate from the norm. Uncle Richard is an emissary from the outside world. He represents freedom of spirit and adventure. In the short time he is with them, his presence alone helps resonate the themes of escape and freedom that are so important to the aspirations of many of the characters within the play. Juxtaposed against the mundanity of his sister's lifestyle, he appears larger than life, and certainly too big for life on the estate.



Uncle Richard : Lewis, in a place, a God forsaken suburb like this, it's easy to be
average. Don't be. Be different. (Nowra P.27)

It is certainly impressed upon us at the beginning of the play that there was not much creative input in the planning and development of the suburb.

The Narrator : The houses were built of concrete slabs and plonked down on
these paddocks that stretch all the way to Sydney. (Nowra P.1)

Norma says that the soil is like rock and that she doesn't know why she bothers trying to maintain a garden. Nothing seems to grow, and it is as if the land drains the life, hope and dreams of the characters. Eric is a dreamer who thought that he could make it paradise. But dreams can't be sustained in this environment and so Eric leaves. In the end he felt suffocated.
Repression of individual expression is reflected also in the sexual attitudes of many of the characters. Dulcie's adolescence, like a plant, is stifled and hindered in its growth. Mrs Irvin attempts to repress Dulcie's blossoming sexuality. The conflict between the conservative and puritanical posture of Mrs Irvin, and the instinctive adolescent stirrings of her daughter is exemplified best by the image of a young girl tying a rope around her waste whenever she has an impure thought. Though comical on one level, this image is strongly metaphoric. In contrast to her virile sexuality, the sexual relations of the adult characters appear moribund or tainted in some way. There is no sexual life in Dulcie's parent's marriage. Eric has long since left Norma, and Mr Pisano's wife is sleeping around.
It is an escape from the landscape of the play that many of the characters seek. It is through their inner world that they endeavour to achieve some modicum of respite from the oppressive mundanity of life on the estate. This is no better shown than in the motif of flight. Lewis' looks to the sky, buoyed by his obsession with flying saucers and alien abductions. Grandma finds vicarious liberation in the free flight of her budgie. Dulcie, too, wishes to fly away from this place. Early on in the play, we learn that Dulcie wants to be a trapeze artist. This, in itself, is symbolic of her desire to fly away. The significance of the flying motif is ultimately expressed in the last scene of Act 2 when Dulcie talks of growing wings like an angel. Dulcie has learnt that the only real escape is that of the imagination, and it is her imagination that takes full flight to escape the cruelty and drudgery of her Earthly life.

Dulcie : And then they open out like my wings. They begin to float testing new,
unnamed muscles. Then they are like a bird flying, free of the ground. I
begin to rise. Above you. Higher, higher... (Nowra PP.54-55)

When she and Lewis don angels wings, Dulcie is both purifying herself and seeking retribution on her father in law. She is well aware of the irony of angels pissing on the pool tables of the local R.S.L. The play's conclusion sees them both escape momentarily by making love to one another. For Dulcie it is a purification of self. It is an act of love through which she hopes to cleanse her body of the violations of her step father.

Summer Of The Aliens is Louis Nowra's most personal drama. It is a play of self discovery in which the playwright explores the landscape of his past in an attempt to construct a more complete understanding of self. There is certainly nostalgia in his vision. Nowra presents a world that no longer exists, a world that time has now placed in history, but one that still exerts a powerful hold over him. Memory becomes the bridge that spans the chasm between the present and the past, for Nowra has grown up and moved on beyond the flat plains and paddocks of childhood.
It is this landscape that infuses the lives of each of the characters. Lewis is drawn to the horizon, and it is as if the horizon dominates the psyche of most of the characters in the play. Beyond the horizon lies the outside world, looming in the distant future. Though the characters are a part of this landscape, there is also the idea that they are outcasts plonked down on its plain. For Nowra, it appears, nothing beyond the original landscape is permanent. 20 Nevertheless, for all that the characters in Summer Of The Aliens appear inward in their vision, there is a sense of optimism in the play's conclusion. There is an insularity and an innocence depicted in this play, but there is also a need for experience. Unlike the fear engendered by the raging bushfire in Sunrise, the characters in Summer Of The Aliens look upon the approaching fire with hope, seeing in it the regenerative process.

Narrator : The fire came closer and closer, burning so brightly that the flames were reflected on our windows and it was like our house was on fire. But,
as usual,no matter how much we wanted it to cross the street, it never
did.

THE END

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Inner Voices And The First Coil :- Louis Nowra
Veronica Kelly, Louis Nowra, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1987 P.47

2. The World Outside :- John McCallum
Veronica Kelly, Louis Nowra, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1987 P.121

3. Interview With Louis Nowra :- Jim Davidson
Veronica Kelly, Louis Nowra, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1987 P 80

4. McCallum, op. cit. P.122

5. Sunrise :- Veronica Kelly
Veronica Kelly, Louis Nowra, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1987 P.124

6. International Dictionary Of Theatre
Plays. - Chicago : St James Press, 1992 P. 916-918

7. Video Interview With Louis Nowra :- Veronica Kelly
Veronica Kelly, Louis Nowra, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1987 P.141

8. Nowra, op. cit P.54

9. Davidson, op. cit. P.85

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid. P.83

12.'The Circle Is Burst' : Eschatological Discourse In Louis Nowra's Sunrise And
The Golden Age :- Gerry Turcotte
Australasian Drama Studies - St. Lucia, Qld : University of Queensland. Oct. 1987
(Vol.11) P.67

13. International Dictionary Of Theatre, op. cit.

14. Turcotte, op. cit. P.65

15. Nowra, op. cit. P.48

16. A Mirror For Australia : Louis Nowra's Emblematic Theatre :- Veronica Kelly
Veronica Kelly, Louis Nowra, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1987 P.56

17. Davidson, op. cit. P.79

18. Veronica Kelly, Video Interview With Louis Nowra, op. cit. P.142

19. Nowra, op. cit. P.47

20. Turcotte, op. cit. P.73