Dame Doris Fitton OBE CBE DBE 1897-1985

Fitton’s stage appearances were events to be savoured. Among her most notable at the Independent were in Anouilh’s Antigone and Schiller’s Maria Stuart in 1947, The Mad Woman of Chaillot in 1951, Durrenmatt’s The Visit in 1963 and The Seagull in 1965. In 1945 she was magnificent in Robert Quentin’s production of O’Neill’s marathon Mourning Becomes Electra; it also played in Melbourne, as did The Little Foxes in 1951 and Black Chiffon in 1952. She toured as the Nurse to Judith Anderson’s Medea for the newly-established Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust in 1955, and in 1974 she took over the role of Madame Armfeldt in J.C. Williamson’s production of Sondheim’s A Little Night Music.

Sadly, Fitton made only two film appearances: she had a small role in Lee Robinson’s The Stowaway (1958) and played Lady Duddlestone in the screen version of Patrick White’s The Night the Prowler (1978), which Jim Sharman directed.

All through its five decades’ existence, Fitton’s brave enterprise was never really financially secure. Though it operated initially on an amateur basis, for most of its life it was a pro-am operation. An attempt to turn totally professional in 1967 was financially disastrous. At that time Fitton hoped that the Independent would become the state’s theatre company, but it was the better-funded Old Tote that won the day. Then the Australia Council failed to renew the theatre’s annual grant, and the National Institute of Dramatic Art started to draw potential students away from the Independent’s school. Despite the efforts of many devoted supporters, especially established actors and writers, Fitton, then 80, finally accepted that, after 47 years, her beloved theatre would have to close. Appropriately, she brought down the curtain in May 1977 with a new production of Our Town, the play that had been so successful for her in 1940. She was awarded the DBE in 1982 (she had received OBE in 1955, and the CBE in 1975). She published her autobiography in 1981.

Dame Doris Fitton did not long outlive her beloved theatre – she died in Sydney on 2 April 1985. North Sydney Council commissioned a plaque in her honour. It was placed in the pavement at the theatre’s entrance and unveiled by Gwen Plumb on 17 December 1986. A nearby park is named for her, and there is a Fitton Close in the Canberra suburb of Dunlop.

After the Independent ceased production, its theatre has had a chequered history. There were various short-term occupants, including Hayes Gordon, who conducted acting classes there. In 1988 it was acquired, first, by the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust, and later, on the initiative if Dr Rodney Seaborn AO CBE, by the SBW Foundation. Extensively refurbished, the SBW Independent lays claim to be Sydney’s oldest continuously operating live theatre.

Frank Van Straten, 2007