Louis Esson
Thomas Louis Buvelot Esson was a Scottish-born Australian playwright and poet, born on August 10, 1878, in Leith, Scotland, and immigrating to Australia in 1881. Raised primarily in Melbourne by his extended family, Esson did not initially show the artistic talent expected of him, despite his connection to the colonial landscape painter John Ford Paterson. He attended the University of Melbourne but did not complete his degree, finding early success in poetry while leading a Bohemian lifestyle. His literary career was significantly influenced by his interactions with prominent Irish figures, including William Butler Yeats and John Synge, who encouraged him to explore Australian themes in his work.
Esson's dedication to authentic Australian narratives led to the founding of the Pioneer Players, a theater company focused on new Australian plays, where he and fellow playwrights Vance Palmer and Stewart Macky produced a notable body of work from 1922 to 1926. While he faced challenges such as writer's block and health issues throughout his career, Esson is recognized for his role in shaping Australian theater and his significant contributions to the cultural landscape of the time. His notable works include plays like "The Bride of Gospel Place" and poetry collections such as "Bells and Bees."
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Subject Terms
Louis Esson
Australian playwright and poet.
- Born: August 10, 1878
- Birthplace: Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland
- Died: November 27, 1943
- Place of death: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Biography
Thomas Louis Buvelot Esson was born August 10, 1878, in Leith, Scotland, near Edinburgh, but he and his mother immigrated to Australia in 1881 to join her eight brothers and sisters who resided primarily in the Melbourne area. His mother remarried and passed the responsibility of raising her son on to two aunts and two uncles, all of who were unmarried. Esson’s uncle John Ford Paterson was one of the finest landscape painters of the colonial period, but Esson showed no sign of emulating his uncle’s artistic talent. Esson’s family assumed that he would excel in one of the arts, but throughout his intermittent and undistinguished studies he gave no sign of having a talent in any of them. Although Esson attended the University of Melbourne, he never completed his degree. As a young man, he had some success writing poetry. He favored a somewhat Bohemian lifestyle, and in 1906 he became a founding member of the Victoria Socialist Party. In that same year, he married Madeleine Tracy, but they were divorced in 1911 because of her adultery. In 1912 he met a brilliant young medical graduate, Hilda Wager Bull, whom he married in 1913. Both of these marriages produced one son.
The principal influence upon Esson’s literary career was his acquaintance with the Irish poet and playwright William Butler Yeats and the Irish playwright John Synge; he met them on a trip to Paris. Yeats and Synge, both nationalists, advised Esson to return to Australia and to mine his native land for material. Accordingly, Esson began to focus on the real Australia and creating nationalist literature. He began to frequent the bush country and produced a sizable body of work that included his first plays. In 1912 Esson published a collection of three one-act plays that reflected Yeats’s advice.
Esson’s sense of purpose was rekindled by another meeting with Yeats in 1920, which produced a new vision for Australian theater modeled after Yeats’s Abbey Theater in Dublin. The theater Esson created was a playwright’s theater devoted exclusively to new Australian work performed by a small, dedicated band of talented amateurs, and its success inspired two other aspiring playwrights, Vance Palmer and the Melbourne doctor Stewart Macky. Together, the three formed the Pioneer Players, a theater company devoted to authentic Australian work. They produced eighteen new plays over four years, ending with Esson’s The Bride of Gospel Place in 1926. A lack of funding and interest caused the company to fold. In the years that followed, Esson was occasionally productive, but he never quite fulfilled his early promise. His career was intermittently plagued by writer’s block and ill health, including depression and alcohol abuse. His greatest achievement was his work in bringing Australian theater to life through the Pioneer Players.
Author Works
Drama:
The Woman Tamer, pr. 1910
Dead Timber, pr. 1911
The Sacred Place, pr. 1912
The Time Is Not Yet Ripe, pr. 1912
Three Short Plays, pb. 1912
Dead Timber and Other Plays, pb. 1920
The Drovers, pr. 1922
Mother and Son, pr. 1923
The Bride of Gospel Place, pr. 1926
The Southern Cross, and Other Plays, pb. 1946
Poetry:
Bells and Bees, 1910
Red Gums and Other Verses, 1912
Bibliography
Fitzpatrick, Peter. "Australian Drama, 1850–1950." The Cambridge History of Australian Literature, edited by Peter Pierce, Cambridge UP, 2009, pp. 180–98. Discusses the period of Australian drama during which Esson was a key figure.
Fitzpatrick, Peter. Pioneer Players: The Lives of Louis and Hilda Esson. Cambridge UP, 1995. Dual biography of Esson and his wife.
Palmer, Vance. Louis Esson and the Australian Theatre. Georgian House, 1948. A study of Esson's significance, written not long after his death.
Walker, D. R. "Esson, Thomas Louis Buvelot (1878–1943)." Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 1981, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/esson-thomas-louis-buvelot-6115/. Accessed 30 June 2017. Roughly 1,200-word overview of Esson's life and work.