David Williamson - All the world’s a stage

David Williamson

All the world’s a stage

Words Tricia Welsh

David Williamson is the most produced playwright in the history of Australian theatre and in 1983, became an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for his remarkable contribution to theatre.

Born in Melbourne in 1942, David was brought up there, where his father worked in a bank, his mother in sales, in department stores; and, in Gippsland, where he went to Bairnsdale High School and later to University High in Melbourne. He has a Degree in Mechanical Engineering and an MA (prelim) in Psychology.

His initiation into the theatre in the 1960s was as an actor and writer of skits for the Engineers’ Revue at lunchtime performances in Melbourne University’s Union Theatre, and as a satirical sketch writer of student reviews for Monash University and the Emerald Hill Theatre Company.

His first full-time play, The Coming of Stork, premiered in 1970 at La Mama Theatre, Carlton, later becoming the film Stork, directed by Tim Burstall. Over the next 50 years, he went on to write some 56 plays, has written or co-written 26 films and television screenplays that became household names such as Don’s Party, The Club, Travelling North, The Perfectionist, Emerald City and Brilliant Lies. His five mini series include The Four Minute Mile for the BBC, and The Last Bastion about General McArthur’s arrival in Australia in WWII, which was sold all over the world.

As Australia’s most successful playwright, his plays have been performed throughout Australia and produced in Britain, the United States, Canada and many European and Asian countries.

It has been suggested that his work is so popular because he reads Australia’s social circumstances so accurately and timely - the connecting thread through most of his work being the need for tolerance in our society, his flawed characters struggling to lead a better and more tolerant life.

Awarded four honorary doctorates from various Australian universities, he has also been named a National Living Treasure by the National Trust in 1997, and was awarded the JC Williamson lifetime achievement award at the annual Helpmann awards in 2005. He was also nominated Senior Australian of the year in 2012. But the most recent event that has delighted him is that his highly acclaimed memoir, Home Truths, published by Harper Collins in 2021, has been short listed for the National Biography Awards.

Closer to home, David was instrumental in establishing the Noosa Long Weekend Festival which has evolved into Noosa alive! Festival! held annually in Noosa where he now lives with his writer wife, Kristin.

What did you want to be as a child?

A trumpet player or a writer.

Who inspired you?

Some very good teachers. One at Bairnsdale High called Alan McLeod, he was a brilliant English teacher who brought Shakespeare to life.

What led you to this life?

A desire to tell stories was there from a very early age.

Significant person, event or thing that had a great impact on your life?

Betty Burstall opened a tiny theatre in Carlton and started searching for new Australian plays, which at that time in the late sixties were very seldom being staged by our larger theatre companies. She read my early scripts and felt I had some talent and got some good actors to do them.

Was it hard work, good luck or fate that got you to this point?

Good luck certainly played a big role. To have Betty searching for new work at the time when I started writing plays was lucky indeed.

If you could tell your younger self something, what would it be?

Don’t be so sensitive to criticism. Not everyone is going to love what you write.

“Career success is a great plus, but family and friends are the greatest determinate of happiness.”

How life has changed you – a few perspectives on life:

The biggest changes were a result of my marriage to a wonderful partner, my having five children and 14 grandchildren has certainly made me realise how central family is to a sense of well-being. That made me realise life was not just about me.

What is the greatest lesson you’ve learnt in life to date?

Career success is a great plus, but family and friends are the greatest determinate of happiness.

If you had your time over, what, if anything, would you change?

Nothing much. I was born into one of the luckiest and stress-free generations that’s ever lived in a country that itself was very lucky.

If you could name just one thing, what would be the highlight of your life/ career?

The birth of my children.

And what now?

I’m 80 now and maybe have written my last play but with a writer sometimes a story thrusts itself on you either from a situation you’ve been part of or observed or even occasionally from a vivid dream. So, who knows. Although I’m happy to rest, read, socialise and enjoy the company of my wife, five children and fourteen grandchildren at the moment, a writer never really ever ceases to be a writer.

Three words to live by:

Life is short