David Williamson
David Williamson is an Australian playwright, dramatist and screenplay writer who came to prominence in 1967 when his plays observing social interaction were performed at Melbourne’s La Mama and The Pram Factory theatre’s. His plays, films and tele-movies have been entertaining us since then. Greg caught up with David, from his Sunshine Coast home, before the COVID lockdown. Greg T Ross: David Williamson, welcome to The Last Post Magazine for a chat. How are you? David Williamson: Oh, we’re fine. We’re in semi isolation up here on the Sunshine Coast, staying out of harm’s way we hope because this virus is really wreaking havoc all around the world. GTR: Yeah. Yeah. It’s an interesting time though to be sure and we do our own thing. How are you handling it? How are you feeling about it? DW: Oh, I think it’s going to get very bad. I have to say I’m a little bit shocked at so many Australians not taking it seriously when our infection rate is doubling every three days. I went out last night to get some essential supplies and there’s all the five restaurants around the corner rocking on with people cheek the jowl and I thought, “Oh my God, have any of them not read the news?” And then I see a picture of Bondi Beach with people cheek to jowl on Bondi Beach and I say we’re in for a bad time because nobody is listening out there. GTR: Yeah, yeah. I was about to say maybe these are the same people that went to Bondi but yeah Leunig did a good take on that a couple of years ago, the Australian nonchalance with a couple of guys hanging upside down in prison with chains and shackles and, “How you going mate?” “No worries mate, fine.” DW: It’s something ludicrous. I mean 670 deaths last night in Italy and they’re in social lockdown and they’re still climbing and we still party on. It’s really weird. GTR: Yeah. That’s so true though. David, you first came to note, I mean, you’ve been part of the Australian art scene for so long and widely and pleasingly appreciated by so many here and overseas, how did it all start for you? Did you feel an urge to write at an early age? DW: Yes, I did. I don’t know where it came from, but I always felt I wanted to tell stories right from a very early age. I used to write stories. I don’t know why, so it was an urge that was there but then the education system didn’t exactly encourage creativity at my time and I was good at math so they all
said, well, you’ve got to be a scientist, a doctor or an engineer. That’s the only three things boys can be who are good at maths and so I proceeded on to become a mechanical engineering graduate even though I had no interest in it whatsoever because mechanical engineering had the least chemistry of all those courses and I loathe chemistry. And so, a very bad way to choose a career because I had no interest whatsoever. But then I graduated, taught engineering, taught fluid mechanics and thermodynamics and I went back to Melbourne Uni and did a prelim in psychology, which was the real interest in why people behaved as they did and what causes human conflict and all the things that were really interesting to me. And I finished the fourth year with honours and I was going to do postgraduate research, but then Betty Burstall came back from New York inspired to find new Australia writing and I’d been writing for university reviews for some years and I loved the feeling of actors doing your words on stage and the audience reacting. So I submitted some scripts to Betty and they were done. They weren’t terribly good, but they gave me a start. Then the first full length play in 50 years ago it was called The Coming Of Stork and it was made into a very early and very low budget Australian movie that connected with the audiences. Then I wrote a play called The Removalists, in Carlton, and John Bell came down and saw it and said, “We’ve got to do this in Sydney,” and he did a wonderful production at the Nimrod Theatre in Sydney and suddenly, boom, everyone took notice and my career took off and then a year later, I think it was almost a year later, Jane Street Theatre with John Clark, did a production of Don’s Party and that took off too and suddenly I was a playwright. I was in hot demand. GTR: Yeah. You arrived with a grand announcement of... We talk about The Removalists. I remember seeing the movie and being knocked out by that. But you did plays first of course, and I guess La Mama and The Pram Factory in Melbourne and this thing you spoke about with psychology, of
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conflict, there’s an underlying of that isn’t there in your work? The human conflict and argument within oneself. I mean, Don’s Party’s an example of so many different characters and the conflict, but you do a great job of that in all of your plays. Has that been something that you’ve- I mean it’sDW: Well, the Greeks worked out that the essence of drama is conflict and I grew up with conflict because my mother and father fought all the time. There was never any physical violence, but the verbal sparring was just intense all the time and it wore my brother and I down. We thought why on earth do people... Is this what happens to you? Do you have to get married and then fight all the time? And so the big question mark in my mind was why do people fight all the time? I mean, where does this conflict come from? So that was part of the reason I was obsessed with human behaviour and psychology and it’s the same obsession that drove me to write plays. Why is it impossible for people to get on together amicably? And so when my plays were sort of exploring the same sort of questions I would have been exploring if I had of continued on to do postgraduate work in psychology. GTR: Well it’s a theme that brings people in because as you saying, it is a constant theme in human relations and everyone can relate to what you say unfortunately and it still remains a big question as to why the conflict and why the fighting but it seems to be a part of the human nature. DW: It is part of human nature. I mean, look, fundamentally we’re selfish creatures. We’re all out for number one and when somebody else tries to grab something that we want, it’s on for young and old but on the other hand, we are also are highly social creatures. We really care about what other people think of us. We don’t want to be regarded as really bad people. So our selfishness is tempered by the fact that we have to appear to be non-selfish. It’s quite a juggling act because if we appear too selfish and too self-interested, people will dislike us. So we’ve going to pretend we’re social creatures, we’re socially
