Hibberd wrote close to 40 plays, some of them not full length. His first play,
White With Wire Wheels, was staged in 1967 at the
University of Melbourne, and is a proto-feminist revenge play, which satirizes male herd behaviour and the men's obsession with cars and alcohol-virility over women. Hibberd's micro-play,
Three Old Friends, opened the
La Mama Theatre in
Melbourne (29 July 1967). This work was one of a number of very short works in which Hibberd reconnoitred the styles of
Beckett,
Pinter and
Brecht. These, plus a couple of longer plays (
Who and ''One of Nature's Gentlemen
) made up a season called Brain-Rot'' (1968). There followed Hibberd's most popular play:
Dimboola, a wedding breakfast farce with audience participation. It premiered in 1969 at La Mama Theatre under the direction of
Graeme Blundell. The play grew out of a reading in London of
Anton Chekhov's 1889 play
The Wedding and
Bertolt Brecht's farce
A Respectable Wedding. A 1979 Australian
independent film based on the play was directed by
John Duigan. His next play, a long monodrama,
A Stretch of the Imagination, is regarded by most connoisseurs as his finest work, embodying a radical advance in the character of Australian theatre, embracing and remoulding as it does many of the strong strands in theatrical modernism. In 1976 it was performed by
Max Gillies of the
APG; he reprised his role in the 1990 TV movie version. It was the first Australian play to be staged in
China (in
Mandarin) with a famous Chinese actor,
Wei Zongwan, as Monk. This play has enjoyed productions in the United States, Germany and New Zealand. In 2010 it was performed in
London by
Mark Little, a winner of the prestigious
Laurence Olivier Award. Hibberd completed some stage adaptations of short stories:
Nikolai Gogol's "
The Overcoat" (with music),
Guy de Maupassant's "", and
Leo Tolstoy's
The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Hibberd's most challenging plays were his monodramas, in which he specialized. Those for women included
Female Rhapsodies (sub-titled 'curtain-raisers'),
Lavender Bags and
Mothballs. The first entails a preparation for a wedding (a fantasy performance), the second explores the fine public face of grief and its ugly private underbelly. Apart from
Stretch, there is a gargantuan male on monodrama, From Apes to Apps, subtitled
A History of the Western World in Ninety Minutes.
Peggy Sue, a companion to
White with Wire Wheels, dramatises the mistreatment and exploitation of three romantic young women during a severe economic depression when they are compelled to work as prostitutes.
Liquid Amber is a companion to
Dimboola, and has audience participation at a golden wedding celebration.
A Toast to Melba and
The Les Darcy Show embraces the lives of the famous diva Dame
Nellie Melba and the champion boxer
Les Darcy.
Repossession concentrates on the conflicts between two poor young women who live in a shack out in the bush and two domineering corporate captains who, stranded, turn up for the night. Hibberd's later plays were
Commandments, in which five of the
Ten Commandments are inverted, or perverted, so that the breaking of a commandment becomes ethically justified. And
Guantanamo Bay, which is set in that institution and is visited by President
George W. Bush,
Dick Cheney,
Donald Rumsfeld,
Douglas Feith and
Paul Wolfowitz because it is "Open Day at Guantanamo Bay", and, to begin the celebrations, there is a performance of
The History of American Violence... a play within a play. The guests watch some examples of the artistry of contemporary torture. Later they are joined by
Tony Blair and
John Howard, Australia's "Man of Steel."
Fidel Castro appears as an interlude. A waiter called
Malcolm X causes great distress among the American dignitaries. ==Selected works==