David Williamson Plays
Forty years ago, a young playwright muscled his way onto the scene with a clutch of time-defining plays, including Don’s Party.
With this sequel, David Williamson celebrates four decades of telling the tribe their story.
It’s 21 August 2010, the night of yet another federal election and, of course, yet another election night party at Don’s place. Over the decades, as he and his friends watched governments come and go, they have also closely followed the incoming results from each other’s lives: the tallies of luck and misfortune, the unexpected swings for and against. And through it all, the lesson that this crowd of superannuated baby boomers never seemed to learn is that politics and strong personalities should never be mixed with alcohol.
Cast : 4M, 5F
Sharp-edged, staritical and accusatory, Emerald City lays into the materialism of the 1980s with a razor wit. Within four months of its premiere, five separate productions had opened around Australia.
Cast : 3M, 3F
A boisterous comedy for all ages. Flatfoot (aka Roman playwright Titus) pops up in the twenty-first century, enraged to find his ideas have been plundered through the ages by everyone from Shakespeare to modern-day sitcom writers.
To prove his point, he takes us back to Ancient Rome, where he must convince Dives that his new play will be a hit, neither offending the Roman Censor nor imbuing the servants with fanciful ideas. When he is forced to improvise, pandemonium lurks just around the corner.
Cast : 2M, 1F
The Great Man
A volatile group gathers to plan the funeral of a Labor Party icon. They all claim to know the truth about him, but their recollections are coloured by their own interests.
Cast : 4M, 3F
Sanctuary
An investigative journalist returns to Australia to retire. But the peace is broken by a visit from a student working on his biography.
Cast : 2M
Influence
Ziggy Blasco knows how to turn fear into hate. A talk-back host whose power rests in his influence over his audience, he fills Sydney’s airwaves with his appeals to a particular brand of ‘common-sense’, his hard stance on terrorists and his lashings at political correctness. But in the private sphere, Ziggi’s influence is fading away. A scathing and bitingly funny play about the media personalities that dominate our lives and the divisions that can shatter families.
Cast : 3M, 4F
Operator
Young, charming and a go-getter, Jake is the ideal candidate for an executive position with a thriving local company. He’s welcomed aboard by his hard-working boss (the company’s smug CEO) and co-worker Melissa, who has all the intelligence, industry and integrity Jake lacks.
For Jake has a secret weapon: his skills at exploiting, manipulating and manoeuvring would put Machiavelli in the shade. He’s the Operator.
Case: 3M, 3F
Face to Face
When Glen comes face to face with the employee who rammed his Mercedes, he must acknowledge some responsibility for a series of incidents which helped provoke the crime.
Cast : 4M, 4F
A Conversation
Focuses on community conferencing. It revolves around the confrontation between the family of a rapist and murderer and the family of his victim.
Cast: 2M, 6F
Charitable Intent
Focuses on the pressures and contradictions that erupt as workplace values change.
Cast: 2M, 6F
Peter, a mathematician who embodies niceness itself, is in financial trouble because of his brother’s bankruptcy. His neighbour Margaret decides to seek help from his friends who spend much of their time boasting about their wealth. But while his friends happily take advantage of Peter’s good nature in their own hour of need, how willing will they be to help him in his?
A revealing clash between materialism and ideals.
Cast: 5M, 4F
Williamson’s continuing examination of modern marriage follows a pair of academics from Denmark to Sydney as they blunder along the rival paths of career and parenthood. Introduced by Rodney Fisher.
Cast : 3M, 2F
A young policeman’s first day on duty becomes a violent and highly charged initiation into law enforcement. Remarkable for its blend of boisterous humour and horrifying violence, the play has acquired a reputation as a classic statement on Australian authoritarianism and is a key work in the study of Australian drama.
Cast : 4M, 2F
Scarlett O’Hara a the Crimson Parrot
Scarlett is a 36-year-old waitress who lives with her mother, has no boyfriend, and spends too much time watching old romantic movies. In her working hours she re-runs the scenes from the films with her co-worker Gordon, the gay kitchen hand in the restaurant. As Scarlett drifts deeper into her reveries of Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart, she takes her place as the heroine in each of their movies.
Cast : 4M, 3F
Let the Sunshine
What happens when people of widely different political views are forced to co-exist? Toby, a maker of hard-hitting documentaries, flees Sydney with his wife after a blow up with the press. He arrives at his old childhood haven only to find the simple town has been transformed into a playground for the wealthy and his old friend has become married to a wealthy property developer. Add the couple’s two incompatible offspring, a struggling musician and a ruthless corporate lawyer, and the scene is set for a vintage Williamson comedy.