The Removalists

I thought I'd review something a bit different today. In my hot little hands I have this play by David Williamson, The Removalists, a rather sharp and snappy piece of Australian rhetoric that I picked up out of a bargain bin. I like reading plays sometimes... they're so easy to get through. It's all dialogue, and it usually only takes an hour or two at the very most. I don't particularly like watching plays as they're performed, I just prefer reading them as the themes and ideas and great dialogue seems to get absorbed right into your head. This play in particular is quite good, it helped send David Williamson on his way to becoming Australia's greatest modern playwright (and possibly our greatest playwright of all time) and the beauty of it is that it's accessible to nearly everyone too. No flowery language, no boring scenes, no esoteric conversations.

The play opens on Simmonds, a police sergeant interviewing Ross, a newly recruited constable. As Simmonds tries to get to know his new subordinate, and Ross attempts to retain some form of independence and righteousness, we are introduced to this tiny police station that manages to get by without doing any real work. Enter Kate and Fiona, sisters, who have come to report domestic abuse that has been visited upon Kate one time too many by her aggressive husband. Simmonds isn't particularly keen to actually arrest anyone, but he does sense an opportunity for some extra-curricular activities of a sexual nature, and so he and Ross agree to help Kate take all the furniture she and her abusive husband bought together. This sets the scene for an eventful and explosive evening at Kate's place that goes anything but to plan.

Primarily, this is a text concerned with violence and aggression, and the role of these forces in the Australian character and the dynamics of our relationships with one another. It quickly becomes clear that Sergeant Simmonds is a bully and a hypocrite, and through this Williamson taps into our convict-founded society's deep-rooted distrust of authoritarian figures. But whilst Simmonds might be the least sympathetic character in the play, it's worth noting that there are no real entirely likeably characters in the cast at all. By the play's end you're left with an acute sense of discomfort. The levels of inner ugliness that pockmark the psyche of each and every character is all too familiar to our everyday world.

The play suggests that everyone is, at some level or another, capable of violence. Through the microcosm it presents us with it demonstrates how violence and authority are used as tools to gain leverage, and how there is no actual justice when personal aggression and motivations are involved. Ross's transformation in the last stages of the play suggest that our own Australian brand of aggression is a latent thing too, called to the fore by situation rather than any real historical or social hardship, and the evolving relationship between Simmonds and Ross shows the way that our alpha-male and authoritarian figures attempt to enforce comformity via the threat of violence. Even the presence of the two female characters is coloured by such aggression... Simmonds' whole reason for helping Kate is motivated by sex, and this in turns fuels his caveman-like demonstrations of strength and superiority over her husband.

Whilst all these are impressive themes in themselves, David Williamson's real genius lies in the way he manages to make it all palatable and entertaining. It's a powerful play but it's also darkly funny, uniquely Australian in it's use of character and dialogue, and written at a time when such truthful representation of our culture wasn't a cliche and could still be taken seriously. The characters come right off the page and into your mind, I could hear every line as if someone was speaking them right in front of me. I could hear the laconic wit, the resentment, the insecurity, the camaraderie and the flirtation in each character's voice as they spoke. It was wonderful.

If you get a chance to read this text, go for it. In our current environment of brah-boys and riots it's every bit as relevant today as it was back in the early 1970s. An true Australian classic.