A Blue Freckle

This theatre program was the official program for the play in 1975, after the original cover had to be replaced (as it upset the police)

A Blue Freckle (1975)

Written and directed by Ray Mooney while serving an eight-year sentence in Pentridge Prison (1968–1975), A Blue Freckle was first performed by the Players Anonymous Theatre Group in July 1975 inside A Division, Pentridge, with a cast of twenty-three. 

The original cast included:

Peter Brennan, Geoff Gair, Robert Hatchin, Bill Hanson, Herv Olsen, Suzanne-Ellen Green, Helen Jackson, Ron Smith, Stan Taylor, Alan Williams, Peter Robertson, Alan Fairless, Chris Flannery, George Banner, Frank Rigby, John Rider, Peter Strefford, Wally Willgass, Mal McDuff, Max Enkhardt and Neville Orr.

Directed by: Ray Mooney

Stage Manager: Terry McInerny

Sound Effects: Leith Ratten

The play explored themes of justice, policing, and truth within the criminal justice system — bold and confronting themes for a production conceived and staged within prison walls.

The play was substantially re-written in 1981 for a cast of nine and later performed at La Mama Theatre in Carlton.

A Blue Freckle was Ray Mooney’s first play. He wrote and directed it in 1975 when he was the President of Player’s Anonymous, the drama group in A Division Pentridge.

This was the first play written and performed by an inmate within a Victorian prison. At the time all theatre productions had to be approved by the prison administration and because the play dealt with rape and police verbal Mooney knew his chances of it being approved were slight. So, he titled it A Blue Freckle, instead of The Verbal, which he wanted to call it. Mooney told authorities a blue freckle was a genesis of Antarctic penguin and gambled on the authorities being too lazy to read the script. By the time they realised the ruse it was too late to cancel the play*.

A Blue Freckle is Mooney’s terminology for the mark a bullet wound leaves on skin.

* via Ray Mooney's website

The play received a degree of critical acclaim and resulted in Mooney being invited by the Dean of the newly formed Drama School of The Victorian College of The Arts, Peter Oyston, to apply for the drama school on release. He applied in 1975 and was selected as one of two directors in 1976. Mooney was a graduate of that first intake, Company 78. During his time as a drama student, he established and ran Governors Pleasure, a theatre company consisting mainly of ex-prisoners.

Held in private collection.