The perfectionist: David Williamson reviews his long and brilliant career
With more than 50 plays staged over 50 years, David Williamson is arguably Australia’s greatest playwright and at 83 – those retirement rumours quashed – he’s as busy as ever.
Back in the early ’70s when The Removalists and Don’s Party hit Australian stages and The Removalists opened at the Royal Court in London, I was suddenly sort of famous.
Not, of course, in the same league as a star footballer or cricketer, but definitely noticed. My ego swelled inordinately as glossy magazines had me on their covers looking broodingly intense, with long curly hair and wearing a black leather jacket.
Attractive women who’d previously never given me a glance suddenly seemed to want to chat. I had arrived as a permanent and important fixture on the Australian arts landscape. Surely?
“Well, no,” cautioned a wise old journalist, Columb Brennan, as he interviewed me for the Melbourne Age newspaper. “They all love you now,” he told me, “but the critics will turn. The arts are more about fashion than the fashion industry itself.”
“So what do I do?” I asked. “Keep writing,” he said. “Keep your connection with your audience and you’ll survive.”
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I followed his advice, writing plays that I hoped were first and foremost entertaining, but not trivial. Plays that I hoped explored the complexity of human social behaviour, as I had been about to do in academia as a social psychologist when my writing took off.
And I have had the massive advantage, not foreseen by Columb, of a keenly supportive but critical wife, Kristin, who reads all my first drafts and fires warning shots if they’re not up to scratch.
So here I am more than 54 years later, with five major productions in 2025, having one of the busiest years of my life, which I guess means that I’ve survived.
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Janine Watson’s superb production of Aria at the Ensemble in Sydney earlier this year broke their all-time box-office records and Anne-Louise Sarks’s startling impactful revival of The Removalists for Melbourne Theatre Company reminded audiences that male violence is still well and truly part of our ethos.
In July, the Noosa Alive arts festival is programming a new play of mine, Sleeping Dogs, a gentle but probing look at how past sins can occasionally be redeemed. It will be directed by Ian Mackellar, with Aftertaste and Packed to the Rafters star Erik Thomson in the lead.
In July, Emerald City, directed by Mark Kilmurry, is being revived by the Ensemble in Sydney.
Right now, however, I’m more than delighted that the wonderful duo of Georgie Parker and Glenn Hazeldine are about to reprise their original roles in one of my favourite chamber pieces, Rhinestone Rex and Miss Monica, for Queensland Theatre.
It’s a story based on a real one, about how a carpenter, Gary, who is refashioning Monica’s kitchen, jangles her nerve-ends by playing his favourite country and western tracks very loudly as he works. She tries to re-educate him to the joys of the classical repertoire – and therein lies the start of an unlikely romance.
In the recent revival, Glenn broke his ankle racing across the stage halfway through the Ensemble season, so had to be replaced. He was devastated as it’s one of his favourite roles and he thought he’d never get the opportunity to do it again. But we will see him again in Brisbane.
One of my enduring joys as a playwright is watching the new levels of creativity that a good director, in this case Mark Kilmurry, and top-of-the-range actors bring to my work.
I’m often accused, by people who spot me in the audience, of laughing at my own lines, but far more often I’m laughing in delight at what talents like Georgie and Glenn do with them. I was recently asked if I was jaded with theatre after all these years. The answer was an emphatic “no”.
The older I get the more precious it is to see good actors creating performance magic with my lines. I can’t wait until the 28th of this month to sit in the Bille Brown Theatre and delight in the skills of these two great artists again.
David Williamson’s Rhinestone Rex and Miss Monica plays the Bille Brown Theatre, South Brisbane, May 28 to June 21.