By Phil Jarratt
It’s almost three years since Noosa bade farewell (theatrically speaking) to Australia’s greatest (and tallest) living playwright David Williamson, retiring in his 80th year with a splendid Noosa Arts Theatre reprise of his 2001 play Up For Grabs, directed by son Rory and starring son Felix.
But you can’t keep a good satirist down, at least not in the crazy world we’re living in, and Williamson, who turns 82 next month, is rebounding in 2024 with his biggest creative spurt in decades, with three new plays scheduled for seasons in Sydney and Adelaide, and an “out of town” run for his psychological romp Aria at Noosa Arts Theatre from 18 April.
David told Noosa Today this week: “I thought I’d had enough. My health wasn’t great, and then I got onto new medication and started feeling a lot better, and suddenly, for no apparent reason, I was writing three plays. It was actually the stories that got me. They popped into my head and I just had to write them.”
The Great Divide, which will open at Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre later in the year, was born, like so much of his work, by David’s deep sense of fairness and social justice, a story that “I couldn’t not write”.
He says: “All my plays come from the things I see happening around me, and The Great Divide refers to the fact that Australia now has the highest per capita income of any country in the world, but we’re the second worst in terms of income inequality. While Gina and Twiggy doubled their net worth in the last two years, three million Australian families suffered food anxiety. What kind of country have we become! It’s a great place for the 20 to 30 per cent who are on the right side of the divide, but not so great for the rest.”
While the playwright says the play addresses the elephant in the room of what neo-liberalism has done to Australia, it is also, of course, a comedy.
“Australia’s richest woman comes into an unknown coastal town, Noosa and Byron having been loved to death, and sees it as the new place for wealthy retirees, so she secretly buys up everything. [Sound a bit familiar?] But the residents get wind of it and they don’t like the idea of their town becoming the prime coastal destination for people on the high side of the divide. Yes, there are parallels with Noosa, as in the situation where when the super-rich move in, there has to be an army to serve them, and they can’t afford the rent in town and have to live somewhere else.”
The Puzzle, described by one theatre writer as “White Lotus meets Don’s Party”, will have its world premiere at the State Theatre of South Australia’s Dunstan Theatre in October, 50 years since Williamson’s The Department opened it.
Says David: “So many people screw their lives up in the most ludicrous way, and as a satirist I’m attracted to that. People who have everything but convince themselves they need more. In this case it’s a father who was divorced early and feels that he’s lost contact with his daughter, so he takes this very spirited 27-year-old on a cruise to bond with each other again. Unfortunately he doesn’t do much research and he chooses what’s called a ‘lifestyle cruise’ which is a polite term for a swingers’ cruise. Things go very wrong. I did go on a cruise for my own research, but it wasn’t quite like that (laughs).”
Aria, based on a true psychological case study, will have a season at Sydney’s Ensemble in early 2025, but it’s out-of-town world premiere at Noosa Arts Theatre will boast a stellar cast and reunite Williamson with local director (and radio personality) Sam Coward after a seven-year absence from the theatre. Says David: “It’s quite common for plays in the UK and US to open away from the big cities so they can tinker with the production, but in Australia we rarely have that luxury. So, even though it was already scheduled for 2025, I suggested to Jo Hendrie (actor and Noosa Arts promotions manager) that we have an out of town trial season at Noosa Arts, whose productions of my plays have been as good as I’ve seen anywhere. I also suggested that we get Sam to direct because he’s done my work before and done it brilliantly. The idea was that we’d have a season in Noosa almost a year before it opens in Sydney I saw as a win/win. And the cast that Sam has put together is hugely encouraging.”
Sam has directed three previous Williamson plays for Noosa Arts, including Cruise Control and Influence, in both of which he employed techniques that surprised and impressed the writer. Says David: “The writer/director relationship in theatre can be fragile but he’s too big for me to pummel so it works out okay! (laughs) I missed one of his productions because I was overseas but the two I saw were wonderful. There’s an energy to Sam’s productions that I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else. They’re infused with life and vigour.”
Adds Sam: “I was a bit intimidated when I first met David, but I discovered he was a very open and generous collaborator. I can’t wait to do this one. It’s an absolute honour to be working with David again after such a long gap.”
David is at pains to point out that, while much of his work is in part autobiographical, the diabolical mother of three perfect sons at the centre of Aria is far from home: “When I told [wife] Kristen what the play was about, she was horrified. She said, ‘No, you can’t do this to us!’ But it has nothing to do with us, even though we have four perfect sons. (laughs)
“After I finished studying engineering, I started postgraduate work in psychology and since then I’ve always been fascinated by narcissistic personalities. I read a case study about a mother who thought her three sons were wonderful but no girl was good enough for them. So, in the play this woman, Monique, brings them all together once a year so she can celebrate her sons and put down her daughters-in-law, reminding them all that she was destined to be a wonderful diva, the next Joan Sutherland. Having her children has robbed her of that destiny but it’s been worth it because her boys are perfect. But the audience gets to see that they’re not quite as perfect as she thinks. The crowning moment of the day is that every year she picks an aria to perform with her pianist son accompanying her while she reminds them all of what she gave up for them.”
The unlovable Monique is played by Jo Hendrie. Says David: “I thought the role would perfectly suit Jo – and I don’t mean this to sound insulting, but the character is every daughter-in-law’s worst nightmare of a mother-in-law! And [singing the aria] is a very difficult task for Jo, because she has to be good enough for us to believe there was a possibility that Monique might have made it as a diva, but it’s got to be bad enough to be funny. It’s a delicate balance but I’m sure our director will cope with it brilliantly. This is the year when the daughters-in-law have had enough and they rebel, so it’s on for young and old while she murders Queen Of The Night from The Magic Flute.”
Also playing a lead role with delicate balance is mayoral candidate (possibly our mayor by the time the curtain goes up) Frank Wilkie as the perfect son who is also the somewhat dodgy minister for local government. Says David: “I have every confidence that Frank will be our mayor by then and that he will also be brilliant in the role.”
Aria will be at Noosa Arts Theatre 18 April to 12 May, tickets now available at noosaartstheatre.org.au
