MTC Scenes | Edition 1 - 2020

EDITION 1 — 2020

Joanna Murray-Smith Hidden histories

David Williamson Five decades on

Diana Lin Back onstage

Laura Wade Vintage-inspired

WELCOME

Our season for 2020 is bursting with incredible stories, so it’s fitting that this edition of Scenes is equally jam-packed with a raft of articles that take you closer to the people behind the plays, and those bringing them to life.

In 2020, our NEXT STAGE Writers’ Program shines brightly with four of our new commissions taking pride of place in the season. Two of them feature in this edition – Berlin and Torch the Place – as we hear from playwright Joanna Murray-Smith and actor Diana Lin. We also meet our three newest writers-in-residence and learn about their time with the Company so far.

NEXT STAGE is a key part of MTC’s commitment to supporting Australian writers and new Australian writing.

The unique program, made possible by the donors and philanthropic foundations of MTC’s Playwrights Giving Circle, has so far supported 25 writers through commissions and residencies since we launched the program in 2017. And following on from Golden Shield by Anchuli King, the inaugural NEXT STAGE production staged earlier this year, we’re thrilled that a third of the 2020 program consists of NEXT STAGE commissioned works.

Also in this edition, we hear from the legendary David Williamson as he reflects on his career and why he’s finally ready to retire after 50 years in the game. To mark David’s golden jubilee, our revival of his finest comedy, Emerald City, takes to the Sumner stage in March in a special co-production with Queensland Theatre.

And before the season kicks off with the West End hit Home, I’m Darling, playwright Laura Wade gives us an insight into her inspiration for the play and why going to the theatre is her favourite thing to do.

2020 is set to be another bumper year at MTC. Thank you for joining us as we embark on a new decade, and a season that will have us all seeing the world differently.

See you at the theatre.

Brett Sheehy Artistic Director & CEO

PROMPT CORNER MTC is pleased to welcome back Toby Truslove (The Speechmaker), playing Johnny, and Peter Paltos (Gloria), as Marcus, in Home, I’m Darling; while Marg Downey (Hayfever) joins us again, appearing as Elaine in Emerald City.

Susie Youssef (Rosehaven) joins the cast of Home, I’m Darling, playing Fran, her debut MTC role. Also debuting with MTC are Charles Wu (Secret City) and Max Brown (Glitch) in Torch the Place.

(Top row) Toby Truslove, Peter Paltos, Marg Downey; (bottom row) Susie Youseff, Charles Wu, Max Brown

Take a virtual tour of MTC HQ Have you tried our HQ virtual tour yet? You can explore the halls of MTC headquarters and all the spaces where our plays are rehearsed, sets are built, costumes are sewn and wigs are created, one strand of hair at a time.

MTC's Sturt Street headquarters in Southbank is the engine room of the Company, housing our Production departments including Wardrobe, Wigs, Millinery, Props, Scenic Art and Workshop. The MTC Education virtual tour allows you to step behind-the-scenes and explore Melbourne's home of theatre from the comfort of your own home.

Take the tour at mtc.com.au/virtualtour

Cover photography: Justin Ridler Photography throughout: Justin Ridler Scenes is a publication of Melbourne Theatre Company. All information was correct at the time of printing. Melbourne Theatre Company reserves the right to make changes.

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Retro chic?

Playwright Laura Wade delves back in time to discover some truths about the present.

Laura Wade; (right) Nikki Shiels in Home, I'm Darling

Laura Wade has long been fascinated by folk she dubs ‘vintage people’. A nostalgia for simpler times (notwithstanding the sexism that came with it) got her thinking about how housework is divided between the sexes in the present day. Whether we acknowledge it or not, domestic chores are often still gendered activities. Wade is not only interested in looking at how far, or not, we have come, but if the Vaseline-coated lens we apply to the Mad Men-era could inspire a complete lifestyle transformation; if a couple decided to live now, as it was then. Wade put pen to paper and created Home, I’m Darling.

She wrote the play in her shed, a small dwelling at the bottom of her garden with one heater and scarcely enough room for visitors to linger for more than a quick chat. As a writer, she is familiar with long hours spent dreaming in isolation. A little like Judy, her protagonist in Home, I’m Darling – a woman obsessed with 1950s fashion and interior décor who is as committed to her home as

‘There are different flavours of feminism.

And Judy genuinely believes she is a feminist.

So it felt like there was a space for discussing some of these questions inside that milieu.’ she is to her husband. To crawl inside Judy’s mind, Wade worked out exactly what she would have done each day, which extended to deep cleaning a minimum of two rooms on a never-ending rotation. ‘I can’t say I do an awful lot of housework myself,’ she admits. ‘But I do retreat inside my shed to write, so I understand the idea of wanting to stay at home. I also like cooking, so I get the desire to feed people.’ When you break it down, there is a simple endeavour at the heart of Judy’s plight, which is to create things for the people she loves, instead of being a nebulous cog in the wheel of a faceless organisation. ‘When you think about it like that, it does make sense.’ Yet many would consider eschewing employment to play house inherently anti-feminist. ‘In our society, it feels quite shocking,’ she says. Wade wanted to interrogate this thinking and flip it on its head a little.

‘It’s important not to judge her,’ she clarifies. ‘There are different flavours of feminism. And Judy genuinely believes she is a feminist. So it felt like there was a space for discussing some of these questions inside that milieu.’

At the start of 2013, when Wade began drafting this narrative, the sleazy subplot of the character Marcus was well ahead of the #metoo movement. ‘By the time the play premiered, it sort of felt like we were jumping on the band wagon,’ she remembers. But fortunately for Wade and her creative team, the microscopic dissection of current-day gender politics, both inside and outside the home, has never felt more laser-focused and topical.

‘People are mobilising a lot today. I think there was a real complacency earlier in the century where people thought, “Yes, equality has been achieved and everything is fine now,” before re-evaluating and saying, “Well, actually it hasn’t.” I think these things go in waves.’ Most generations have an element of being horribly ungrateful children, Wade believes. We’re always rebelling, in some sense, from what has come before us, which is very much the case with Judy. ‘But it felt like there needed to be someone in the play to say, firstly, “this is weird”, and secondly, “it’s pretty disrespectful to the history that has come before.” That person is [Judy’s mother] Sylvia.’

At 38, Judy’s lack of children required explaining early in the piece. ‘It’s one of those things you have to acknowledge so the audience can stop thinking about it,’ Wade says earnestly. People are obsessed with whether a woman has children or not, she explains. Men never get the same level of inquiry when it comes to family configuration. ‘People want to know, “Why doesn’t she have children? Does she want children? Was there a problem? Is all of this a way of taping over the cracks in their marriage because they haven’t been able to have children? Or has she lost children?”’ For the play to work, Wade says the purity of Judy’s choice to be a fulltime housewife meant she couldn’t be a mother as well.

Over the six-year evolution of Home, I’m Darling, Wade, her director Tamara Harvey and the play’s lead actor, Katherine Parkinson – for whom the part of Judy was originally written – individually took time away from their work to have two children each. It’s a bizarre coincidence, Wade acknowledges, but somehow this trio of prominent female artists managed to create an award-winning play in the process. ‘The work benefitted from that long gestation … there’s a clarity that comes with that.’

Collecting the 2019 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy came as a total surprise to Wade. ‘I was not expecting it at all,’ she says. ‘There’s nothing not nice about winning an Olivier Award … it’s one hundred per cent lovely.’ Soon after the play closed on the West End the production toured back to Flintshire in Wales, where it had premiered at Theatr Clwyd. ‘It felt like we brought the show home. And on our last night, the very last night of the show, I took the Award to pass it around, because it belonged to everyone. We all had ownership of the play’s success. It meant a huge amount to that theatre.’

Going to the theatre is still Wade’s favourite pastime. ‘It’s been my favourite thing to do my whole life.’ Being a part of a live audience and contributing to that live feedback loop – which the art form relies on – remains a fundamental part of theatre culture and one Wade is adamant we must hold onto tightly. ‘It’s such a privilege to be able to do this for my job. For me, there’s nothing like it.’

See Home, I’m Darling at Southbank Theatre, The Sumner from 20 January.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE PRODUCTION AT MTC.COM.AU/BACKSTAGE

Career encore Diana Lin has concluded her 20-year hiatus from stage and screen in dramatic style.

Diana Lin; (right) Michelle Lim Davidson, Diana Lin and Fiona Choi in Torch the Place

Diana Lin trained at China’s most exclusive theatre school and went on to become one of the nation’s leading stars in the late 1980s. She was dubbed the ‘Asian Meryl Streep’ and graced the covers of countless glossy magazines. But at the start of the 90s, she caught a plane to Australia to ‘have a look’. Not long after she met her husband, and the role she would accept for the next two decades revolved around the principal parts of wife, mother and cobusiness owner of a fashion company. That was over 25 years ago. Now, the 55-year-old Gold Coast resident is back to reignite her first love: acting.

When Lin was 14 years old living with her family in China’s 10th largest city, Harbin, she successfully auditioned for the Chinese Beijing Opera Company. She spent five years training to become a professional opera singer before ‘chucking a sickie’ to catch an overnight train to Shanghai and audition for Shanghai Theatre Academy, China’s leading performing arts university. Back at Chinese Beijing Opera, Lin trained from 6am to 6pm, six days a week. She remembers lying in bed each night wishing she wouldn’t fall asleep, knowing that when she’d wake, she would have twelve more hours of training. ‘It was very, very hard.

Like being in the army,’ she says. ‘But you also knew it was the right thing to do, because everyday you would improve your skills.’

Auditioning for Shanghai Theatre Academy was like auditioning for American Idol, Lin remembers. ‘There were tens of thousands of kids and only a handful of places.’ Lin was among the very few selected. She remembers her limbs being measured in both length and circumference during one of her many auditions for a coveted place in the program.

Lin was fluent in dance, music, song, acting and martial arts. ‘You want to be the best,’ she says matter-of-factly.

‘Not just good or great, but the best.’ And to be the best, you have to put the work in. In her fourth year of study, as her graduation project she played 15 different women in a single courtroom drama. Lin’s teachers recognised her standout talent and constantly tested her ability to diversify. In her final year, she was chosen for a leading role in a film, and her life on the big screen catapulted into action. Perhaps it was the sudden flood of fame Lin experienced, or the approximately 10 years of training

‘I’ve come to the age where I can do what I want.’

that preceded it, but after just six years of professional acting work, Lin decided it was time for a change.

When she landed in Sydney in 1990, she found a job at a clothing business and worked on the factory floor as part of the assembly line. Her celebrity friends in China couldn’t believe she would voluntarily accept this modest job. Especially when endless well-paid and highly respected acting roles were waiting for the star back home. Lin, however, became determined to learn English and soon found a network of performing artists to help her launch her Australian career. She befriended Tony Ayres – one of the country’s pre-eminent TV writers – on the set of Under the Skin, which collected the prize for Best Mini-Series at the 1994 AFI Awards.

The biggest difference between working as an actor in China versus Australia, Lin recalls, was that in China, people sent her scripts. ‘When I first arrived, I thought, “What is this? I don’t audition”,’ she says, laughing. It soon became apparent that the roles on offer in Australian film and TV in the 90s were few and far between. There was little more than the occasional commercial, or bit part with a character named ‘Asian Girl’. ‘It was like, if you’re really in love with someone, and they’re not available, sometimes it’s easier to leave them rather than fight for it to be different.’ After thousands of 5am wake-up calls and years and years of investment in her craft, Lin decided to walk away from what she loved most and focus her efforts on growing her family and new business with her husband in clothing wholesaling, retailing and importing. ‘I had responsibilities,’ she says. ‘So I put my son first and was there for him to grow up. But for 20 years, I [didn’t act].’

It wasn’t until she returned to Shanghai for her 30-year reunion with the graduating class of Shanghai Theatre Academy that she learnt how disappointed her teachers had been in her stalled career. ‘My teachers said, “We worked so hard to train you. We thought you had the most potential.” I felt so guilty. I actually cried because I realised I had let my teachers down, and I felt like I’d let my country down, because uni is free in China. And so many students would have killed for a place in that course.’

When Lin flew back over the South China Sea she asked herself what she really wanted. ‘I thought, “Life is short.

What do I want and what do I not want?” My son is grown now. I’ve fulfilled my responsibilities to my family and I’ve come to the age where I can do what I want.’ When Lin touched down on Australian soil, she called her old friend Tony Ayres after two decades of no contact and said, ‘I’m back.’ Ayres was working as an Executive Producer on Benjamin Law’s The Family Law and quickly cast Lin as Aunt Maisy in the SBS comedy. Almost immediately, she was signed to an agent and auditioning for parts in Hollywood blockbusters.

Soon Lin was cast alongside actor and rapper Awkwafina in the American comedy-drama The Farewell. Premiering at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, the film – and Lin's performance – garnered public and critical acclaim, and was picked up for instant worldwide distribution. In the wake of The Farewell’s success, Lin quickly signed to shoot a short film in New York and her agent warned her the jobs in America could come in thick and fast, and to more or less brace herself.

At the same time, a script for a play in Melbourne had come across her radar. Benjamin Law’s debut stage dramedy, Torch the Place, represented the kind of opportunity Lin had begged for when she first moved to Australia. The role was deep and substantial, and required the use of skills she spent over a decade perfecting in her homeland. ‘I’m just so excited to take on this character,’ she says. ‘I’m planning on putting every ounce of my effort into it. I want people to really see her, and know her, and feel her pain, as well as being able to laugh alongside her. Ultimately, I want the audience to fall deeply in love with her.’

See Torch the Place at Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio from 8 February.

HEAR FROM PLAYWRIGHT BENJAMIN LAW AT MTC.COM.AU/BACKSTAGE

A city of contradiction A family holiday inspired playwright Joanna Murray-Smith to rediscover her Jewish heritage and write her latest play, Berlin.

Joanna Murray-Smith; (right) Grace Cummings in Berlin

Joanna Murray-Smith’s first-ever professional play, Atlanta, was about a young Jewish woman haunted by stories of the Second World War. ‘It wasn’t very successful,’ Murray-Smith remembers. ‘The production didn’t hold up.’ That was nearly 30 years ago, marking the playwright’s first and last attempt to write a Jewish character into one of her stories. Until now.

The idea for Berlin came about on a trip to the German city with her family seven years ago. While riding the U-Bahn, she was reminded of how the past intersects with the present, and consequently how people reconcile the dark history of their nation with their everyday lives.

Attending dozens of museums and memorials dedicated to the murdered Jews of Europe allowed the prolific playwright to re-examine her personal heritage – her mother fled Poland with her family in 1939, landing in Melbourne at the age of 11 as a refugee – and allowed her to look at the way that lineage extended to her adult children. ‘In Berlin, I began to think about how it would feel to be a young German person. How do you make peace with your identity and nationality when everywhere you go there are constant reminders of the war?’

Murray-Smith’s mother was culturally connected to her Jewish heritage, but wasn’t religious. She eloped with the playwright’s father – a member of the Church of England – and raised three children, observing Christian holidays and festivals. It wasn’t spoken of often, but every now and then a story would come up that was spine-tingling.

‘Every single person they knew in Poland perished. For most Jews, the war is a living inheritance,’ she reflects.

‘It isn’t history at all.’

Murray-Smith’s mother made a concerted effort to understand the British colony and assimilate into the Australian way of life when she arrived 80 years ago.

The war metastasised in a plethora of ways for those who survived it, the dramatist explains. ‘In my mother’s case, she fetishised material objects. She was an unbelievable Anglophile. She grew up to become an English teacher and had absolutely no accent. There was no hint of her refugee background at all. However, she was also very European. She was incredibly well-read and was unbelievably knowledgeable about classical music, poetry, and literature.’ As a result, Murray-Smith and her siblings grew up with a split cultural identity. ‘I embody both sides of the coin,’ she says laughing. ‘My snobby Toorak WASP [White Anglo-Saxon Protestant] side, and my Jewish side.’

The matrilineality of Judaism is such that Murray-Smith is Jewish, she recognises, even if she feels like a ‘false representation’ at times. Orthodox Jews – including her late maternal grandfather – believe matrilineal descent is a metaphysical concept relating to the Jewish soul.

It is a notion that rings true for the playwright. ‘I think I have a very strong internal cultural connection … with my brother and sister, we’ve always been interested in Jewish history and the cultural legacy that comes with it.’

At the heart of her play is the question of whether the history we inherit from our families, and the emotion attached to that history, can ever be reconciled. Human relationships have long underpinned Murray-Smith’s storytelling. It’s not surprising then that the characters she imagined in Berlin would embark on an intense love story. Her protagonists, Charlotte and Tom, are in their early 20s when they cross paths at a Berlin bar and their whirlwind romance begins. ‘They have all the passion, attraction, obsession and exhilaration of falling in love.

However, what if that was set against the backdrop of

Writing characters in their early 20s has attracted some criticism for the seasoned playwright from various creative collaborators. ‘It’s odd,’ she says, ‘because in my 30-year career, no one has ever questioned my ability to write older characters. And the thing is, I’ve never been older than I am right now, so it’s completely unknown.

But I have been younger.’ Of course, with youth, there are characteristics that are true to a particular time, she expands. ‘The way that you dress, the language that you use and the pop culture references are all different depending on when you’re young. But the actual

‘How do you make peace with your identity and nationality when everywhere you go there are constant reminders of the war?’

their personal histories?’ she asks. ‘And so the question at the heart of the play is whether it’s possible for a German and a Jew to fall in love without the past hovering – like a shadow – over their relationship?’

One of the things she found so beguiling about Berlin was how sophisticated and cosmopolitan the city was, in contrast to the carefully preserved ruins dotted across the metropolitan grid. ‘We associate the city with this horrific history, however it has grown up to become – what I think at least – is the most progressive city in Europe today. It’s a city that is alive to the needs and to the demands of the current world.’

experience of being young, I don’t think it’s terribly different for any of us.’ The transition from childhood into adulthood is often fraught with the struggle to create your own identity, and the playwright believes this is a universal undertaking regardless of what period you were born in.

‘The struggle to become yourself and the characteristics of falling in love are not that different at all.’

See Berlin at Southbank Theatre, The Sumner from 25 April.

HEAR MORE FROM JOANNA MURRAY-SMITH AT MTC.COM.AU/BACKSTAGE

Five decades of David Williamson The playwright reflects on the highs and lows of his illustrious career.

David Williamson; (right) Jason Klarwein and Nadine Garner in Emerald City

David Williamson is Australia’s most prolific playwright. He is the most produced and most recognised dramatist the country has ever seen. At Melbourne Theatre Company alone, he has had over 20 plays staged in his 50-year career.

Tall-poppy syndrome feels eerily applicable in the case of David Williamson. At 67", the 77-year-old towers over most people he meets. His devotees love him, but equally a groundswell of disdain for Williamson has flourished in Melbourne and Sydney’s indie theatre scenes for nearly as long as his shows have filled the city’s biggest theatres.

He is, for lack of a better expression, a very tall poppy.

Early in his career, Williamson was known for interrogating the establishment, but his success now means he represents the establishment. His ascension to ‘sell-out’ was almost immediate, he remembers. As soon as Don’s Party hit Russell Street Theatre in 1973, his peers from the Pram Factory and La Mama were claiming he’d betrayed the very purpose of a dramatist’s profession.

‘I had to flee to Hurstbridge and then to Sydney to get away from the feeling I was a bourgeois sell-out.’

Williamson grew up far from this ideological scuffle in Bentleigh, a peaceful part of Melbourne 13km southeast of the CBD. His father was a bank teller and his mother worked as a sales clerk at Myer. ‘I didn’t even have an under-privileged background to fall back on,’ he says, half in jest. Melbourne’s theatre landscape at the end of the Menzies era was one of ferocious identity politics, he

‘I remember the plays that really got to me were Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker and Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. They both just blew my mind …’

explains. ‘That was the thing about theatre, you had to come from a disadvantaged background and have suffered. I was failing on all counts: I had a comfortable childhood, I was Anglo-Celtic, I wasn’t even Catholic.

At least if you were Catholic that gave you some kudos …

I was missing out on all the qualifications required except for the audience; they were always on my side.’

Williamson is quick to acknowledge his good fortune in sustaining such a long career in an industry that doesn’t always support longevity. He feels especially fortunate given he studied mechanical engineering – a course he vehemently loathed. ‘I only did it because all boys who were mathematically minded were shunted into science-oriented HSC streams,’ he says. ‘And mechanical engineering had the least chemistry in it, and I despised chemistry more than

just about anything.’ He limped through his first two years at the University of Melbourne and just passed. He didn’t bother to sit his third year exams. His professor threw him a life raft, saying he could transfer to Monash University provided he studied, and passed.

‘I hated it all. I hated the big greasy engines. I was never cut out to be an engineer. The only thing that kept me amused was writing for the Engineering Revue.’ Williamson recalls his parents being in constant marital warfare at the time; to escape, his father would go to his shed and spend hours tinkering with electronics. ‘So I associated electronic instruments with marital discord, and I felt a revulsion to them as much as chemistry.’ He ended up graduating from Monash University with Honours, before heading back to the Parkville campus of the University of Melbourne to study a Masters degree in Social Psychology.

What his years at both universities did do, however, was introduce a young David Williamson to theatre.

‘I remember the plays that really got to me were Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker and Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. They both just blew my mind – I’d never seen drama like it. Albee was the first dramatist who was daring enough to bring the sub-conscious into conscious dialogue.

And it was riveting. As was Pinter with the undertone of menace and the black side of human nature. Those early productions for us students were mesmerising.’ By the time Williamson was ready to commence a postgraduate degree in psychology, his own playwriting took off.

Don’s Party – a seemingly lightweight story about a group of middle-class friends who get increasingly intoxicated over the course of the 1969 federal election night – opened in Carlton in 1971 to his parents’ utter dismay.

Fielding snide remarks from their peers at the Frankston Bowls Club (where his mother was president), both Mr and Mrs Williamson expressed horror at their son’s occupational pivot. Writing plays with four-letter words was not on the agenda, his mother reminded him, while his father couldn’t understand the financial precariousness of his son's decision-making. So Williamson started lecturing engineering at Swinburne

James H. Bowles, Gregory Ross, Martin Harris and Allan Lander in Don’s Party (1973); Martin Phelan and Michael Edgar in The Removalists (1974); Cary Day, Gerard Maguire and Peter Carroll in Emerald City (1987); Garry McDonald and Helen Dallimore in Up for Grabs (2001)

University to subsidise his life as a writer. But in spite of his parents’ disapproval, he’d caught the bug and nothing could compel him to stop. Over the next five decades, he would write 57 plays, 12 screenplays and five mini-series.

‘I think they grew prouder of me as time went on,’ he reflects. ‘But in 1970, it was total horror.’

By 1972, Williamson was considered a champion of the Left. His play The Removalists dissected Australian society at a time of momentous social upheaval, and examined the previously out-of-bounds topics of domestic violence and police brutality. It won Williamson the Australian Writers’ Guild AWGIE Award for Best Stage Play and Best Script in any medium. He also collected the coveted George Devine Award for the play's London production – the first time it had been awarded to a non-British writer. A year later, MTC presented Don’s Party at Russell Street Theatre and cemented his reputation as the new voice of Australia. But for some critics, and the industry that had championed his earliest works, he became the ‘sell-out’.

‘The worst thing a play could do was attract a middle-class audience,’ he says. ‘And middle-class people were seen to be going to my plays which was really, really bad around Carlton. It was painful. I still regarded middle-class people as human beings who had lives that were interesting. But that was very much during the Australian left-wing era.

And to make money from your writing was even worse!’ As Williamson’s plays were picked up again and again by MTC founder John Sumner, his peers at La Mama and the Pram Factory ostracised him. ‘As far as I was concerned, I was writing social commentaries about the deficiencies and foibles and affectations of the middle class.’

It’s a reputation that has followed him from Melbourne to Sydney and even up to sunny Noosa where he currently resides with his writer wife, Kristin. Together they helped found the Noosa Alive! Arts Festival, where a Williamson play is the cornerstone of every year’s program. As he’s gotten older, his style has shifted slightly. ‘There’s always been a humorous element or a satirical element amongst the blackness,’ he says. ‘It’s important to have the relief of laughter. As I’ve gotten older, perhaps I’ve become a little more tolerant and the emphasis has shifted more towards satire, rather than brutal satire,’ he considers.

IMAGES: PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN; ROB LAWLER; DAVID PARKER; TRACEY SCHRAMM

MTC’s Literary Director Chris Mead says Williamson’s form rarely deviates from a utilitarian template: everyday Australians battling it out over a prickly social or political issue, growing increasingly rapacious throughout the course of the play. Humanity’s avarice and narcissism continues to motivate the playwright, says Mead. ‘He remains shocked and appalled by the bourgeoisie’s capacity for generosity and cruelty, grand gestures and petty nastiness, nobility and fallibility, and he genuinely believes that with theatre, we can air and exorcise our demons, that it is a place where unreasonable people can inspire reasonable discussions.’

Williamson has seen many twists and turns in his five decades as a writer – the strangest of which was probably the West End premiere of his play Up For Grabs, starring America’s Queen of Pop, Madonna. ‘It was totally bizarre,’ he remembers. ‘It was my only sold-out West End experience; people were scalping tickets for 500 quid.

I can’t claim that was because of me, they all came to see Madonna.’ As the story goes, Madonna refused to go on stage unless Williamson made significant changes to the play’s climactic ending. ‘She said there had to be retribution [for her character]. “She has to suffer for her sins” sort of thing. It’s the American puritan beginnings,’ Williamson thinks. ‘There’s an earnestness to America that we often don’t realise.’ It’s unlikely that Catholicraised Kabbalah-obsessed Madonna would admit to bearing puritan beliefs, but it was an experience Williamson learnt from nonetheless. ‘At least I had a sold-out West End experience … I didn’t see that one coming over the horizon.’

He has been fortunate to see his plays travel across the Americas, Asia and Europe, although he prefers to see them performed at home. ‘I write plays out of my

Australian experience; the dialogue, the attitudes, and the social situations are very Australian.’ When Williamson started out, there were few Australian voices on stage. Artistic directors, or ‘gate keepers’ as he calls them, went to London and New York to pick the biggest hits and bring them back to our stages. ‘There’s a huge amount of young talent today, and what excites me most is that there’s a need for Australian audiences to see their own lives. It’s almost an expectation.’ These Australian stories are responsible for leaving a dramatic legacy, he explains, about what it was like to live in this country at certain periods in history. ‘It’s something we take for granted now, which we shouldn’t.’ Of his many Australian stories, Emerald City remains a personal favourite. The satirical comedy takes swipes at life in the entertainment industry, which is something he knows all too well. When MTC and Queensland Theatre revive the work in March, Williamson will be sitting in the Sumner proudly.

‘There’s a huge amount of young talent today, and what excites me most is that there’s a need for Australian audiences to see their own lives. It’s almost an expectation.’

Writing on average two plays a year doesn’t happen accidentally. It requires an enormous amount of discipline and passion, which Williamson has harnessed to surpass any other Australian playwright working today. ‘I’m a compulsive writer,’ he says. ‘I love putting something together on paper that will have a life on stage. Some people are addicted to crossword puzzles or Sudoku.

I love starting with nothing and building something that has enough momentum to create a story that can keep an audience engaged. I actually like the act of writing.’ Could this penchant for problem solving be the influence of his mathematical brain? ‘I don’t write a set of equations,’ he says, ‘but what is vital to drama is a tight overall structure … which is the sort of mind that is probably shared with mathematicians, yes.’

After 50 years of high-volume, high-return playwriting, Williamson is going out with a bang, with four productions on the 2020 calendar around the country. Of all the productions that have come and gone, it’s clear there’s none he is prouder of than his family. As a father of five and grandfather of 14, Williamson now has three sons working in the industry, and a 22-year-old granddaughter studying acting. ‘The identity politics [at universities today] are ferocious, you know, “dead white males should get out of the way,” [my granddaughter says] … we’ve come full circle,’ he laughs. As the sound of young, squabbling voices rises in the background, the playwright explains he is currently on ‘grandfather duties.’ And with that, he heads off into the next act of his life.

See Emerald City at Southbank Theatre, The Sumner from 6 March.

HEAR DAVID WILLIAMSON TALK MORE ABOUT EMERALD CITY AT MTC.COM.AU/BACKSTAGE

Telling tales Three new NEXT STAGE Writers-in-Residence join the MTC family.

Without the playwright, there is no play. It’s a fairly obvious evaluation. In the hype of creating a work for the stage, however, directors, designers, actors, stage managers, wardrobe staff, scenic artists, prop builders, secondments and more can relegate the playwright to the back of the stalls.

At MTC we understand that the first, and often most crucial, ingredient in developing outstanding scripted drama, is the playwright. The NEXT STAGE Writers’ Program is our greatest endeavour yet to ensure playwrights are embedded in the fabric of the Company.

MTC welcomes three new writers of extraordinary ability to spend the next year as Writers-in-Residence at MTC HQ.

Andrea James When did your relationship with MTC begin?

When I was studying and working in Melbourne in the late 1990s, I always made a point of going to MTC productions that had Aboriginal people on stage and/or by Aboriginal playwrights or directors (sadly a bit of a rarity back in those days). As a Yorta Yorta/Gunnaikurnai woman, I hankered to see and feel my own experiences on stage.

I remembered clearly the great achievement of Tony Briggs’s The Sapphires on stage directed by Wesley Enoch.

There was a revolving stage, an original American Army jeep used in the Vietnam War and a very handsome actor, who was flown onto the stage as if parachuting from a helicopter! And the wonderful women in those sparkly blue dresses – Deborah Mailman, Ursula Yovich, Leah Flanagan and Rachael Maza – in full song and glory. When the women sang the Yorta Yorta classic lullaby ‘Bura Fera’ down the phone to their Mum at Cummeragunja, I wept tears of joy and recognition. I also remember seeing Glenn Shea playing Caliban in The Tempest in a politically complex, knockout performance. Two ambitious productions that celebrated Aboriginal achievement and sought to reconcile with our past.

Andrea James, Phillip Kavanagh and Elise Hearst

Why do you think opportunities like this are important for writers at all stages of their career?

It legitimises our nation’s playwriting canon and nourishes a theatre industry that artists from all persuasions and concerns have dedicated their lives to. It also emboldens

old and new audiences who will inevitably reap the thoughtful, and hopefully entertaining, fruits of our labours. The best thing about theatre is the exchange we have with other artists and producers, and ultimately with our audience. I come from a reciprocal culture,

‘As a Yorta Yorta/Gunnaikurnai woman, I hankered to see and feel my own experiences on stage.’

— ANDREA JAMES

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‘The relationships you build when you’re making a work of theatre can feel almost spiritual. When it’s going well, you start finishing each other’s sentences, knowing what they’re thinking, seeing through each other’s eyes.’

— PHILLIP KAVANAGH

steeped in tradition, ceremony and a wealth of storytelling might, so I hope that the Company has as much to learn from me and my mob as I do them.

What are you working on?

For the past four years, I’ve been working hammer and tong on my new play, Sunshine Super Girl, about the inspirational Wiradjuri tennis star Evonne Goolagong Cawley. The play has finally reached stage readiness, and so I’m ripe to explore some other stories that have been ticking away in the back blocks of my mind for a while.

I’m quite happy to follow a few creative trails, even if they don’t find their destination. I recently travelled to my grandmother’s Country – through the five clans of the Gunnaikurnai – and the landscape is so diverse and lush with story, struggle and achievement. I could feel the energy of my Great Great Grandmother, Lucy Pepper (nee Thorpe), whose voice was curtailed, and I feel in my throat and the tips of my typing fingers something that wants to burst forth. Theatre gives us a chance to heal, to laugh and to sit with one another. I feel the spark of a fire for us to sit around. Let’s see where it takes me …

Phillip Kavanagh

Elise Hearst

When did your relationship with MTC begin?

I grew up in Adelaide, so my relationship to the Company began as a tourist, seeing shows whenever I visited Melbourne. I never expected to end up living here or working here, but I moved over in early 2019, in part to be closer to my niece and nephew. Straight after I landed, I was lucky enough to be engaged by MTC through Cybec Electric with a public reading of the first act of my play As One. I loved that experience. It was a lightning-fast process, with six actors juggling so many roles across the program, and each writer getting the chance to test out works with a warm and receptive audience. I’m thrilled to continue this relationship with MTC as part of NEXT STAGE.

When did your relationship with MTC begin?

I grew up in Melbourne and I remember going to see MTC shows as a child, and thinking, yes, this is what I want to do.

Like many Jewish kids, my parents and grandparents were, and are, long-time MTC Subscribers, and I just discovered that my sister-in-law’s grandmother is one of the first MTC Subscribers ever (Hi Helen!). I believe my family’s dedication to MTC, theatre and storytelling stems from the migrant experience where art’s purpose is to facilitate escape, hope, education and stimulation. A production I recall seeing with school was Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui in 1999 and I was blown away.

I vaguely remember Paul Capsis on a swing? (someone correct me if I’m wrong). In 2009, I was part of a series of developments with my play The Sea Project, which culminated in a Cybec Reading, directed by Sam Strong.

Why do you think opportunities like this are important for writers at all stages of their career?

The relationships you build when you’re making a work of theatre can feel almost spiritual. When it’s going well, you start finishing each other’s sentences, knowing what they’re thinking, seeing through each other’s eyes.

The play that reaches an audience really does share authorship from every person who’s helped bring it into being, and for the duration of that process a family is formed. But then everyone returns to their lives, and even as friendships endure, that magic remains locked in the time and place of creation. And being a writer, this means going back to the laptop, or notebook, or reading pile, and starting the dreaming again.

The NEXT STAGE residency offers us the chance to dream in tandem with other writers, and to be a part of a company of people making theatre, to be embedded within an infrastructure that doesn’t get dismantled after four weeks. Not only do we get to learn how the Company runs, and how the works on stage make it there, but we’re supported as part of this infrastructure to write and dream with a view to having those works on those stages.

What are you working on and what are you hoping to achieve through this residency?

I’m in the initial stages of writing a comedy about science, politics and apocalyptic disaster in a world without experts. I’m currently surrounded by piles of books about Trump, post-truth, environmental collapse, and conspiracy theories, and I’m regretting just drinking that third coffee. I want to create works through this residency that speak to the current state of the world, are satiric, entertaining, and help myself and a future audience to make sense of how we’re muddling our way through life in the 21st century.

What excites you most about this NEXT STAGE residency opportunity?

Being part of a cohort of eclectic, diverse, vibrant writers and voices that can breathe new life onto the Australian stage. Having the support of an incredibly sharp, focused and passionate literary team, and the MTC family at large.

Why do you think opportunities like this are important for writers at all stages of their career?

There are so few opportunities like this around, for writers to be supported to dream, contemplate, reflect and create, whilst at the same time being immersed in the complex workings of a theatre company. The NEXT STAGE program is unique in the way it integrates its resident writers into all aspects of the company, so we can understand from the ground up the mission of the theatre, its history, and the nuances of programming. All of these things are invaluable.

What are you working on and what are you hoping to achieve through this residency?

I hope to write lots of plays, meet lots of people, see lots of theatre and have lots of fun! I’m currently working on a play called Goat, which tackles the current and seemingly unresolvable tensions between animal farmers and activists.

MTC's NEXT STAGE Writers’ Program is made possible with support from the donors and foundations of MTC's Playwrights Giving Circle.

LEARN MORE ABOUT NEXT STAGE AT MTC.COM.AU/NEXTSTAGE

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PHILANTHROPY

Spotlight on MTC Education Donations play an increasingly important part at MTC and much of our Education Program would not be possible without the support of our Education Giving Circle supporters. Here is what our generous donors helped us achieve in 2019:

8,000+

10

subsidised tickets to mainstage MTC productions were provided to schools

13,000+

work experience students

students and teachers reached

600+

students and teachers stepped behind-the-scenes with an HQ tour

1,450

951

3000+

kilometeres travelled on The Violent Outburst That Drew Me To You Regional Tour

downloads of Education Packs

students and teachers attended a pre-show talk

(Clockwise from right) Storm Boy pre-show talk; students attending a Storm Boy matinee; work experience student Jazelle; Theatre Royal in Hobart; Dead Puppet Society teacher professional development workshop

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT MTC’S EDUCATION PROGRAM AT MTC.COM.AU/EDUCATION

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teachers participated in professional development

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C O R P O R AT E PA RT N E R S H I P S

Money Mindfullness Building financial wellbeing with the ANZ MoneyMinded Workshop

Now in its sixth year, MTC’s Women in Theatre Program has supported over 50 theatre professionals in their career development and continues to provide invaluable opportunities for women working in the theatre sector. The program, which provides leadership training, career advice and coaching across a wide range of business and commercial aspects of the industry, helps to create practical pathways for women pursuing careers in a range of disciplines.

In 2019, Women in Theatre participants attended a MoneyMinded workshop facilitated by the Brotherhood of St Laurence in partnership with ANZ. Developed by ANZ to improve the financial wellbeing of the community, MoneyMinded is a free global education program that builds knowledge and confidence to help individuals make informed decisions about how to manage money. The workshop included a series of interactive activities and productive discussions focused on practical tools for freelancers.

MTC’s Producer and Women in Theatre curator Martina Murray says, ‘With many of the participants being freelance practitioners, financial security can often feel unobtainable and can feel like a taboo topic to discuss with peers. The MoneyMinded session provided participants with some quick and practical financial tips for saving and taking control of personal finances whilst also opening up a valuable conversation amongst the group on the financial challenges of a career in the arts and the supports available.’

More information on the MoneyMinded program and MoneyMinded online activities can be found at moneyminded.com.au.

Special Offers Film offer Judy & Punch

Puppeteers Judy and Punch try to resurrect their marionette show, but Punch’s ambition and penchant for whisky lead to a tragedy that Judy must avenge.

In a visceral and dynamic reinterpretation of the famous puppet show, Punch and Judy is flipped on its head and reimagined as a fierce, darkly comic and epic femaledriven revenge story, starring Mia Wasikowska and Damon Herriman. In cinemas 21 November.

For your chance to win a double pass, email offers@mtc.com.au with JUDY & PUNCH in the subject line. Competition entries close on 28 November.

Film offer Mrs Lowry & Son

Starring Timothy Spall and Vanessa Redgrave, this fine UK drama set in 1930s Lancashire tells the story of renowned British artist, LS Lowry and the oft-fraught relationship he shared with his mother, who tried to dissuade him from pursuing his passion for painting. In cinemas 28 November.

For your chance to win a double pass, email offers@mtc.com.au with LOWRY in the subject line.

Competition entries close on 28 November.

Parking offer Literary Director Chris Mead with Jennifer Vuletic, Diana Glenn and Melita Jurisic at the ANZ Forum Night for Arbus & West

ANZ continues its generous support of MTC in Season 2020

Wilson Parking

In 2020, ANZ Forum Nights return to the MTC stage. As the exclusive Major Partner of the ANZ Forum Nights, ANZ is helping to bring the community closer to the stage.

Held at each mainstage production across Season 2020, the ANZ Forum Nights are special post-show events that offer audiences a unique opportunity to extend their theatre experience and hear directly from members of the cast and creative teams.

ANZ Forum Nights are held directly after the first two Monday night performances for most productions and are available to all ticket holders attending these shows.

In 2020, there will be 21 ANZ Forum Nights held across the season.

For more information on partnerships at MTC, please visit mtc.com.au/partnerships or contact partnerships@mtc.com.au.

Whether you’re seeing a show at Southbank Theatre or Arts Centre Melbourne, Wilson Parking has got you covered. As a MTC ticket holder, you can access special online rates when you park at Wilson Parking’s Southgate or Eureka car parks.

Book your parking online via wilsonparking.com.au or through the Wilson Parking app using promo code MTC and enjoy convenient parking just a stroll away.

WINNER OF 7 TONY AWARDS INCLUDING BEST MUSICAL

,

CAROLINE O CONNOR

STARS IN

CAST CAROLINE O’CONNOR, JAKOB AMBROSE, BLAKE APPELQVIST, ELANDRAH ERAMIHA, ADAM-JON FIORENTINO, NATALIE GAMSU, JOE GAUDION, RYAN GONZALEZ, BERT LABONTÉ, AINSLEY MELHAM, LYNDON WATTS DIRECTOR DEAN BRYANT MUSICAL DIRECTOR & ORCHESTRATOR JACK EARLE CHOREOGRAPHER ANDREW HALLSWORTH SET & COSTUME DESIGNER ALICIA CLEMENTS LIGHTING DESIGNER MATT SCOTT SOUND DESIGNER NICK WALKER PROJECTION DESIGNER JAMIE CLENNETT VOICE & DIALECT COACH LEITH McPHERSON ASSISTANT DIRECTOR/ASSISTANT CHOREOGRAPHER LUCA DINARDO

FROM 18 NOV MTC.COM.AU

MTC is a department of the University of Melbourne