Gregan McMahon CBE 1874-1941

After his Play Company folded, McMahon continued to work as a director for Williamson’s commercial productions until late 1929, when he joined the Fuller organisation in Melbourne. For them he directed A Message from Mars at the Bijou and again at the Palace. As the Depression ate away at theatre audiences, McMahon struggled on. He stayed with Fullers until mid-1931 and then returned Williamson’s to direct a very successful production of Galsworthy’s Loyalties.

Meanwhile, McMahon had founded a new semi-professional group, the Gregan McMahon Players. They played in Williamson theatres and, from 1933, at the Garrick (the former Playhouse) in South Melbourne. There McMahon directed Francis W. Thring’s Efftee Players in Christie Winsloe’s controversial Children in Uniform. Next, Thring and McMahon jointly established the New Comedy Company, which announced a three-month season from Boxing Day 1933. This was McMahon’s last fully professional repertory company. In April 1934 the Gregan McMahon Players were back at the Garrick.

In mid-1935 McMahon renewed his association with J.C. Williamson’s. They welcomed him back by presenting him and his company in a special three-night ‘testimonial season’ at the Comedy in Melbourne. The program explained: ‘These performances are tendered to Mr McMahon in recognition of his distinguished services in the cause of an important form of legitimate drama, and to recoup him for heavy losses.’

The Gregan McMahon Players went on to stage eight plays a year for Williamson’s at the Comedy or the King’s – where, on 7 March 1936, McMahon presented what was proclaimed to be the world premiere of Shaw’s The Millionairess (it wasn’t: the piece had already had a single performance in Vienna).

In 1938 McMahon’s services to theatre were recognised when he was made a Commander of the British Empire – but it didn’t help pay the bills. When he died suddenly on 30 August 1941 he had less than £400 in the bank. Only around 20 people saw him laid to rest. His company died with him, but his legacy was enormous: an inventory of hundreds of productions of important contemporary plays, many in their Australian premieres, plus a long roll call of theatre talent who, in whole or in part, owed their careers to his selfless nurturing: designers Loudon Sainthill and William Constable; players Coral Browne, Doris Fitton, Lloyd Lamble, Kathleen Goodall, Keith Johns, Thelma Scott, Meta Pelham, Hal Percy, Frank Neil, Olive Wilton, Irene Mitchell, O. P. Heggie and even double-jointed funnyman Clyde Cook.

Gregan McMahon’s papers are in the Mitchell Library in Sydney.

Frank Van Straten, 2007