DAVID WILLIAMSON David Keith Williamson: AO, BE, Honn. D Litt. DOB: 24 February 1942 (Or 19 th – certain confusion). Australia’s best-known playwright.
A Polymath? • • • After graduating from Monash he worked as a design engineer at General Motors Holden and in 1966 he began lecturing in thermodynamics and social psychology at Swinburne Technical College. Began writing and performing plays in 1968 with La Mama Theatre Company. Talents diverse – include theatre, screenplay, production design. Plus engineering!
The Philosophy: “To survive in the ‘ 90’s you’ve either got to be lucky, rich, or able to tell Brilliant lies. ” David Williamson
Achievement: His early plays The Removalists and Don's Party established his reputation on the stages of Europe and America. He wrote the screenplays to Don's Party (1976), The Club (1980) and Phar Lap (1982), also collaborated with Peter Weir to make Gallipoli (1980) and The Year of Living Dangerously (1982). (All highly regarded. )
Why Successful? Williamson gives great insight into what has happened in Australia over these four decades; an accurate social history – you can decide how accurate. ability to see and understand Australia’s current circumstances, our society’s circumstances right here right now, indeed to be ahead of what is current. At production time, the plays are absolutely timely. Note his ability to foresee what is likely to happen. His most popular plays are his satirical comedies but he has written a very broad spectrum: His trilogy of conferencing plays - The Jack Manning Trilogy, Face to Face, A conversation, Charitable Intent breaks every rule of what is commonly accepted as the art of good playwriting. They start off at the climactic point and build down into a resolve, breaking all the rules, but with powerful results.
The Basics: The basis, that connecting thread, is the need for tolerance in our society. Many characters are deeply flawed, but at the core of his work a desire for a better society, a more tolerant society, and even deeply flawed characters mostly struggle to lead a better life, a more tolerant life, usually from events that allow them to see the error of their ways. Almost every character goes on a journey, and most of them grow and make positive changes in their lives. Williamson is writing about us, so it’s hard not to identify with at least one of the characters. So many times have audience members said to me, ‘This is my life, how has David written so honestly about me, he doesn’t even know me? ’ Sandra Bates, 2012
The New Wave was a collection of Australian writers, actors and directors whose work was recognised and validated as aggressively and distinctly Australian in the early 1970 s. Included the work of writers such as David Williamson, Alex Buzo, Jack Hibberd and John Romeril. The New Wave work found a ready audience and reflected and was part of a time of social change, social change that was both nationalist and internationalist in its focus.
Characteristics: • Expressions of male ritual (eg social habits of males in bar rooms, at football clubs, the deification of mateship and cars and general misogyny) * Confrontation in social relations (many plays explore confrontational situations and relationships with friends, families, co-workers and strangers) * The use of the vernacular, including swearing and abusive language * Introduced or centred a new dominant stereotype. (the larrikin, hard drinking, tough talking ocker. ) • The New Wave was received from the beginning as distinctly Australian. • n the Australian in 1971 Katharine Brisbane stated that the early 1970 s witnessed discussions of the Australian environment that resulted in the production of theatre that represented ‘a new and more realistic look into our beginnings as a nation'.
Conflict ‘The source of conflict has always been an interest’: Williamson in “What I Wrote” Characters are developed and molded from people he knows. Williamson is a satirist who takes up a contemporary issue and lets us chew away at the issue, teasing out the arguments for and against it. The issues are varied and nothing is too sacred to escape his satirical pen: His plays focus on football, the police force, the workplace, the universities, sexual harassment, radio shock-jocks, perfectionists, post modernism, literary festivals, surrogate motherhood, the cities of Sydney and Melbourne, publishing, greed, corruption, the art world, male friendship and party politics.
The Law The Sex Discrimination Act 1984 gives effect to Australia's obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and certain aspects of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 156. Its major objectives are to promote equality between men and women eliminate discrimination on the basis of sex, marital status or pregnancy and, with respect to dismissals, family responsibilities, and eliminate sexual harassment at work, in educational institutions, in the provision of goods and services, in the provision of accommodation and the delivery of Commonwealth programs.
Harassment: Sexual harassment is defined in the Sex Discrimination Act as any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favours or conduct of a sexual nature in relation to the person harassed in circumstances where a reasonable person would have anticipated the possibility that the person harassed would be offended, humiliated or intimidated.
The Play: Context “The basis of Brilliant lies is the current male backlash against feminism, informing all discussion of the play, its characters and its subject: Sexual harassment at work. ” Williamson: “There’s a lot of heat in this area at the moment. ” Fear that some women will exploit the process. The play opens with Susy accusing her boss, Gary, of sexual harassment. Marion is their mediator. Gary wants the owner of the business Vince to back him, but Vince isn’t so sure about Gary’s behaviour. Sexuality in the workplace is changing and Gary hasn’t kept up-to-date.
Susy is no innocent. She is young and fed up with the way Gary treats her, but she is also scheming and wants to get what she can out of the situation. We know Susy lies. Susy’s father Brian, a drunk and one-time molester of his daughters, needs a heart operation and it will cost almost exactly the amount Susy will receive in compensation payout. Susy is torn in a love-hate relationship with her father. As the play moves through more and more revelations the truth turns out to be more ugly than the lies. When Susy does break down and tells her truth she still embellishes it because the reality is too sordid. We are constantly asking who is telling the truth? But like many situations in the real world it is all half truths and half lies. The play portrays layers of truth and concealment, fiction on fiction, bluff on counter bluff.
Discussion Questions: In a video interview Williamson said: ‘I’m a dramatist, I’m looking for flawed and interesting characters. ’ Discuss. “Susy doesn’t lie, she just embellishes the truth a little. ” What do you think? How might you depict the layering of truth and lies in Brilliant Lies using a graphic organiser to illustrate this? Williamson comments that the play is also about the complexities of family life and the resolutions of deep seated family conflicts. Discuss. Who has learnt more at the end of the play? A consistent stream of adverse criticism has been leveled at Williamson’s work on the basis of perceived superficiality and glibness. Discuss. Counterclaim: Williamson’s use of satire and farce renders his naturalism ironic, while at the same time providing deep and profound social commentary. His characters, although robustly Australian and located in the history of their times, have become iconic representations of universal verities that present audiences with deeper truths about their humanity. Discuss.
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