The reappraisal of Australian plays from that great explosion of theatrical creativity in the 1970s and 1980s which has been in train for the last few years continues with the Sydney Theatre Company's production of Louis Nowra's mighty The Golden Age. The play was first performed in 1985, when Australians were still fairly new to the experience of seeing their world on stages which up until then had been showing predominantly British and American works. Most Australian plays were naturalistic presentations of local life. and Nowra's strange, exotic play received mixed reviews. In the years since, audiences around the world have discovered its resonance and power.