Gregan McMahon CBE 1874-1941

In 1911 McMahon set up the Melbourne Repertory Company, drawn from 300 hopeful amateur applicants. He directed and usually took a leading role in its productions. It debuted at the Turn Verein Hall in East Melbourne on 26 June with St John Hankin’s comedy The Two Mr Wetherbys, alternating with Ibsen’s dour John Gabriel Borkman. For the next seven years, McMahon’s company presented a wide range of modern British and European plays, plus 13 written by Australians, in a range of venues including St Patrick’s Hall in Bourke Street (later the home of the Victorian Ballet Guild), the Athenaeum Hall in Collins Street, and the Playhouse in South Melbourne. When McMahon opened there on 24 June 1916, Melba was in the audience to lend her support. There was also a trip to Hobart in 1912 and a production of Euripides’ The Trojan Woman at the Conservatorium, with music by Professor G.W. Marshall-Hall.

In 1918, when this enterprise faltered, McMahon moved back to Sydney. There he worked as a producer for the Tait brothers, who were establishing themselves as theatrical entrepreneurs in competition with Williamson’s. In 1920, when the Taits amalgamated with J.C. Williamson’s, McMahon remained on the payroll, but with a new project: The Sydney Repertory Theatre Society. His actors were both professionals and amateurs; indeed, under his guidance, several of his amateur players eventually attained professional careers. Because the company was so closely linked to its commercial benefactors, its repertoire inevitably tended to be more ‘commercial’; only four of the 70-odd plays he produced under this arrangement were Australian. His venues included the Sydney Playhouse, the Conservatorium and the Palace.

In 1926 McMahon, who was still working for the Taits, was enticed back to Melbourne to revitalise the Melbourne Repertory Theatre, which had struggled gamely on during his absence. He marked his return with a production of Shaw’s Androcles and the Lion at the King’s Theatre in February 1927.

In 1928 the Taits and McMahon proposed a full-time professional repertory company that would play in both Sydney and Melbourne and possibly other states, but the society’s members rejected the plan. The Sydney society imploded; Doris Fitton established her Independent Theatre out of its ruins; Fitton had been trained by McMahon and hoped to use him as a director. The Melbourne society struggled on, recruiting Frank Clewlow to replace McMahon.

Williamson’s promptly sponsored a new venture, the Gregan McMahon Play Company. This opened with Shaw’s Getting Married at the King’s Theatre in Melbourne in May 1928, and later transferred to Sydney, but it was a disaster, artistically and financially. Louis Esson described it as ‘a mixture of duds and derelicts… I can’t see any hope for it’.