David Williamson is a legend of Australian theatre and Emerald City is one of his best known plays.
First produced in 1987, it tells the story of screenwriter Colin who brings his family to Sydney to further his career.
True to traditional satirical structure, the play is constructed from dichotomies: Sydney versus Melbourne; the Eastern Suburbs versus the Rest of our Sprawling Metropolis; Private Schools versus State Schools; America versus Australia; Entertainment versus Art; Ambition versus Acceptance; Hypocrisy versus Integrity.
Each of these dichotomies evoke the more fundamental binary division of Evil versus Good.
The game we’re asked to play is to consider whether these dichotomies are overly simplistic or just plain false. We’re encouraged to do this by intriguing character arcs and piercingly funny one-liners.
As a screenwriter, Colin gives the advice that something always has to be at stake – but it’s not reasonable to assume a theatre reviewer will relate to a story in which characters seek glamour and success. (Some might even suggest that ambition is not a particularly interesting subject – unless it leads you to kill the king of Scotland and afterwards deliver some hauntingly desperate soliloquys.)
Inoculated by hard experience, two-bit reviewers might be immune to the siren song of Success – but that immunity is hardly universal. Many conversations about Art do sound like demarcation disputes, or performance reviews, or quality control panels, or price negotiations. But only one conversation is vital. And it happens in the desert, when the artist battles with the devil – alone, naked and true – and in that battle forfeits her ego to win her soul. And tired but free, she returns to the city, and scratched in the dirt if necessary, she offers a vision of the kingdom of heaven.
This play attempts no such a vision – but it does effectively make the primrose path to hell appear a little less rosy.
Mark Kilmurry’s production is a fascinating opportunity to observe the challenges of the actors’ craft. Satirical roles can be surprisingly tricky, especially when the characters themselves are granted an aptitude for mocking comic observation. It’s fun to watch Tom O’Sullivan as Colin and Rachel Gordon as his wife Kate navigate the slippery duality of being both declaimers of foibles and figures of ridicule themselves. Juxtaposed with these two is the more straightforward characterisation of the hustler Mike, who is transparently duplicitous, a gloriously self-seeking philistine – and Matt Minto embraces the role with a wonderful physicality and a mirth-inducing energy.
Paul Gilchrist
Emerald City by David Williamson
At Ensemble Theatre until 23 Aug
Image by Phil Erbacher
Theatre Red 