Gregan McMahon

Australian actor and theatrical director and producer

Gregan McMahon, CBE (2 March 1874 – 30 August 1941) was an Australian actor and theatrical director and producer.

McMahon was born in Sydney, elder son of John Terence McMahon, a clerk, and his wife Elizabeth, née Gregan. McMahon was educated at Sydney Grammar School and Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview. McMahon played in the Riverview football team, and took first class honours in classics at his matriculation examination. McMahon graduated with a BA at the University of Sydney in 1896 Seasons followed in New Zealand and Australia, largely in companies under the J. C. Williamson's management. Early in 1911 McMahon, who had been playing in Melbourne, organised a repertory theatre movement. The first performances took place in June, the plays selected being St John Hankin's The Two Mr Wetherbys, the second act of Sheridan's The Critic, and Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman. Among the plays McMahon produced from 1911–1917 were Candida, Getting Married, Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, Fanny's First Play, You Never Can Tell, and Pygmalion, all by George Bernard Shaw; Rosmersholm and An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen; The Voysey Inheritance and The Madras House by Granville Barker; The Pigeon, Strife and The Fugitive by Galsworthy; The Seagull by Anton Chekhov; The Mate by Arthur Schnitzler, and many other plays by leading dramatists of the period, including several by Australian authors. McMahon is also seen as having brought the techniques and approaches of the Russian and Soviet theatre practitioners like Stanislavski and Meyerhold to Australian theatre. Another notable alumnus was Doris Fitton, who went on to found the Independent Theatre. In Melbourne in 1929 McMahon revived the repertory movement under the "Gregan McMahon Players" and in 11 years placed about 90 plays on the stage, including several of the later Shaw plays; Pirandello's Right You Are and Six Characters in Search of an Author; several plays by James Bridie; and others by Galsworthy, Drinkwater, W. Somerset Maugham, G. K. Chesterton, Eugene O'Neill, Seán O'Casey, Daviot and Casella, in the presentation of which a generally high standard was reached. In spite of difficulties caused by war breaking out again, McMahon was still keeping up his standard of production when he died suddenly on 30 August 1941.

McMahon was survived by his wife, Mary Hungerford McMahon, whom he had married in 1899, and a son (also named Gregan McMahon) and a daughter. He was created CBE in 1938.