Tether_a_Dragon
Tether a Dragon
1951 Australian play
Tether a Dragon is a 1951 Australian play by Kylie Tennant about Alfred Deakin and his battle with William Lyne.
It won first prize in the 1951 Commonwealth Jubilee Play Competition.[1][2]
The play was adapted for radio on the ABC in 1952.[3] The radio play version was repeated in 1953.[4] It was published in 1952.[5]
A reviewer from the Argus said "With the touch expected of a writer of her stature, Miss Tennant has not made her play a study of the one man and- left the other characters to wallow in obscurity... This play genuinely moved me as I read it. It would be better still to see it competently performed, as, it is to be hoped, it soon will be."[6]
Leslie Rees argued:
Perhaps by intention, the play was effective rather as a series of fresh, rather airy pastel sketches than as a fully-shaped portrait in mature colours. But it hardly avoided the pitfalls of submerging Deakin the man in a mass of complicated politics, even if these were not taken too solemnly. Adapted to radio form, the play made stimulating and pointed listening for those interested in the problem: Is it inevitable that political leadership shall destroy the leader by the very tumult and pressure of the task?[7]