The Removalists (Tamarama Rock Surfers) runs at the Bondi Pavilion
from 14 May – 15 June 2013. By David Williamson, directed by Leland Kean.
If there is a canon of Australian plays, then The
Removalists is certainly part of it. Set in 1971, David Williamson’s iconic
meditation on police brutality and domestic violence is brought vividly to life
in this revival at the Bondi Pavilion. It is sharply realised and blackly
funny, making the audience deeply uncomfortable even as they laugh. And yet,
given the fact that is canonical and set in the past, it is a
frustrating piece of theatre. Has anything actually changed?
The story is a familiar one (certainly to the many HSC
students who have been made to study the play, anyway). It is Constable Ross’s
(Sam O’Sullivan) first day on the job. He is lectured about what it really
means to be a policeman by his new sergeant, Sergeant Simmonds (Laurence Coy)
who has apparently not made an arrest in 23 years on the job, when two women, Kate and Fiona (Caroline
Brazier and Sophie Hensser respectively), come into the police station. Fiona has been battered
by her husband Kenny, and when the two policeman, assisted by a removalist (Sam
Atwell), come to her apartment to help her move out the furniture she has
purchased, they encounter –and batter – said husband (Justin Stewart Cotta), to
the point where it seems that the villain of the piece almost becomes the
victim.
This is a deeply unsettling piece of theatre, and this
production does not shy away from that at all. The battered wife manages to
escape from her abusive husband, and for that, we should definitely be glad,
but this story feels like a subplot. The primary plot is about violence between
men: specifically, police and criminals. Both stories unfold as the removalist
watches on. He functions as the outside world, uncaring and unchanging, as long
as he gets to knock off on time. Black comedy is a troubling genre, because it can
be hard to know quite what it is making fun of. In The Removalists, no
one is mocked. We laugh because if we don’t, then we’ll have to cry. Beneath
the jokes is a deep and horrifying story, made even less palatable by the comic
treatment.
Leland Kean’s revival of David Williamson’s play has
maintained the setting. This is very much 1971, with Errol Flynn movies watched
on wood panelled televisions and police reports written (or not) on
typewriters. In his author’s note in the program, Williamson notes that this
choice highlights how little has changed between 1971 and today, especially as
regards domestic violence. I agree with this point, but would also note that
the setting risks creating a sort of fantastical distance between the show and
the audience: painting a picture of how things were “back then” as opposed to
now. (This is a matter for the individual audience member to decide: I interpreted
it the former way, but deal enough with interpretations like the latter in my
academic life to know that such a reading is possible when dealing with texts
set in the past, even if that past is relatively recent.)
All six performers did a great job – I must especially
commend Justin Stewart Cotta as Kenny, who is probably the best at acting
injured I’ve ever seen – but I felt like the project of the revival could have
been a little more clearly defined. The text doesn’t necessarily have to have
an overt mission – Williamson’s script is a comment, not a sermon – but at
times, I wasn’t exactly sure where this production was going. If it was to show
how little attitudes towards women have changed, then it definitely succeeded,
but what about all the differing politics of masculinity in the play? Putting
Kenny in an AFL jersey was a nice touch (reminding one of Williamson’s 1974
Meanjin essay, where he talks about Kenny as “a great fucker and a great fighter”,
someone who takes pride in his ability to absorb pain, as well as making a
pertinent comment about the treatment of footballer’s wives today) but at
times, I feel like there needed to be more nuance to the attitudes of the male
characters towards the other men in the play. This is especially true of the
lackadaisical Sergeant Simmonds: sure, he was trying to impress Kate with his
brutalisation of Kenny, but is that all there was to it? Whence comes his
strange hypocrisy, offended at Kate’s adultery at one minute, talking about the
call girls he frequents the next? I feel like there could be quite a
fascinating exploration of different modes of masculinity using this text, but in
that respect, this production didn’t quite get there for me. (However, this
might be a function of the text rather than the production: The Removalists is very much an observation, and thinking about it
in terms of a “message” is a fraught practice.)
That said, this is a very, very good revival of Williamson’s
classic text. While maintaining the play’s 1971 setting might have limited some
avenues which could be explored, Leland Kean has directed a lean, taut
production that really packs a punch (dark pun intended). It is the kind of
show that makes you deeply uncomfortable watching it because some elements of
it are so familiar: how often have we been the removalist, willing to ignore
something horrible so it didn’t interfere with our lives?
