Denise Varney is Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne, where she teaches Australian theatre and performance, and modern and contemporary drama. She is particularly interested in modernism, feminism and the role and representation of climate change, environment and ecology in the arts.

List of Illustrations; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. The Archive, Governance and Sovereignty; 2. 'Words Fail Me': The Ham Funeral and the 1962 Adelaide Festival; 3. Night on Bald Mountain and the 1964 Adelaide Festival; 4. The 'Clowns' Who 'Cling to the Past ': Sovereign Decision and the Practice of Exclusion; 5. The Sovereignty of the Plays and Opportunities for New Publics; Index.

'Australian Theatre, Modernism and Patrick White' details the rejection of two Patrick White plays - 'The Ham Funeral' and 'Night on Bald Mountain' - by the Adelaide Festival of Arts in Australia in the early 1960s.