DAVID WILLIAMSON

1
DAVID WILLIAMSON

• David Keith Williamson AO, BE, Honn. D Litt.
• DOB 24 February 1942 (Or 19th certain
  confusion).
• Australias best-known playwright.

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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!

3
The Philosophy

• To survive in the 90s youve either got to be
  lucky, rich, or able to tell Brilliant lies.
• David Williamson

4
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.)

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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 Australias
  current circumstances, our societys
  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.

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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 its 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 doesnt even know me?
• Sandra Bates, 2012

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The New Wave

• 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 1970s.
• 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.

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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 1970s 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'.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 Theres 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 isnt so sure about Garys
  behaviour.
• Sexuality in the workplace is changing and Gary
  hasnt kept up-to-date.

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• 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.
• Susys 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.

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Discussion Questions

• In a video interview Williamson said Im a
  dramatist, Im looking for flawed and interesting
  characters. Discuss.
• Susy doesnt 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 Williamsons work on the basis of
  perceived superficiality and glibness. Discuss.
• Counterclaim Williamsons 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.