Left - Andrew Moon and Tony Bates“You can ask a friend for anything… except money”, or so goes the truism that is at the heart of this 1991 David Williamson play.
Or is it? Perhaps not. Although it does eventually become the device which drives the plot in the latter portion of the story, the title perhaps has something of a double meaning. Williamson seems to be not only taking a look at the social perils of simply asking friends to give you a loan, but more broadly is drawing his long bow and taking aim at what it’s like to have friends with money, or in other words, the wealthy upper-middle classes.
A lot has been made of the waning popularity of David Williamson, Australia’s most prolifically successful playwright - waning, that is, if not necessarily with the viewing public then at least amongst most of those currently programming major theatre companies’ subscription seasons. But looking back, before the latest sniping sessions in the press, before his several premature announcements of retirement, I find it hard to forget how a decade ago there was a prevailing, apparently default attitude shared by many in certain theatrical circles that Williamson was a voice of profound irrelevance. To what extent, I wonder, is this still the case?
At the time I was fairly nonplussed by this mind-set, feeling then (as now) that several of Williamson’s early plays such as The Removalists, Don’s Party, and The Club really are finely-crafted enduring classics of Australian theatre. However, it soon became apparent that it wasn’t just the wannabe enfants terribles who had cast Williamson onto the bonfire. Rather, it was a genuine emerging critical trend that viewed him as a formulaic playwright, lacking in innovation and increasingly using for his material only the wealthier classes, to which in real life he had evidently become familiar. The more biting insult still was to cast him as a bankable (shock horror!) safe bet for theatre companies. Having seen the debut productions of most of Williamson’s new plays since the late ‘90s, I eventually began to see some veracity behind these complaints, even if rarely agreeing wholeheartedly.
One could easily defend Williamson on the basis that he has always been a fly-on-the-wall type of social satirist, generally parodying the circles he himself has travelled in, and as his success over the decades has propelled him upwards into more prosperous company, thus his sources of inspiration have shifted accordingly. Furthermore, for those engaging in a bit of knee-jerk complaint over the “relevance” of satirising the affluent, one may well point out that the audiences which regularly attend our theatres are hardly dominated by a wholly different demographic.
So yes, one could labour these points… but that wouldn’t really be addressing this production in question, and it’s high time we did so.
As stated, Money and Friends is a gently scathing lampoon of those wealthy enough to have waterfront properties in Sydney and holiday houses down the coast, and how their greed is but one expression of their manifold personal shortcomings. Margaret is our narrator yet not really our focal character (a technique Williamson has used elsewhere), a recently discarded wife who can’t stand her holiday-retreat neighbours – a vapid collection of surgeons, lawyers and TV presenters, not to mention their equally self-involved wives. And yet, somehow, they’ve all been “friends” for years.
The only person she really likes is Peter, an easy-going widower who has the unfortunate curse of being a sympathetic listener, a “father confessor” of sorts to whom each of these semi-delusional characters comes to bend his ear about their problems, which are invariably the self-inflicted product of their own vanity and neuroses. Peter, however, has some serious difficulties himself, borne instead from his own generosity, and is facing financial ruin. Although he wouldn’t even contemplate asking for a personal loan, Margaret is convinced that their selfish “friends” should help him out. Needless to say, things do not go smoothly.
Having never seen this 1991 play before, it is interesting to situate it in terms of Williamson’s oeuvre. Being one of the earlier major box office successes of his aforementioned “bankable” period, in which he was coming out with a new play virtually every year over the ‘90s and early ‘Noughties, it is also an early example of what became his fairly consistent use of the upper-middle class as subject matter. For those cynics who like to spurn post-‘70s Williamson, they may well consider this to be around the time when the rot set in.
Although we certainly needn’t go that far, it would be hard to dispute that this is not one of his better plays, and that’s including even more recent ones. Although the characters are amusing and well-observed, none of them are especially memorable, nor too far removed from familiar clichés. And while Williamson’s plots often have a degree of predictability in the rather inevitable comeuppance of its unlikable fools, this story has a particularly obvious structure that you can see coming some way off. Watching the pieces all fall into place one after the other would almost become tedious were it not for the eternal saving grace of the playwright’s reliably funny dialogue and wry one-liners. Yet for a play almost twenty years old it is less dated than one might expect, with references to the recession following the crash of the late ‘80s mirroring the recent financial crisis of our own times.
Having not been to the Zenith Theatre in quite some time, it was delightful to return for this production which is, ultimately, still quite enjoyable. With a dedicated cast who are clearly enjoying playing these broad, humorously flawed characters, each and every one gets their moment to shine and as such this is a good choice of material for a community theatre company like Epicentre. The staging and scenic effects make some fun use of the theatre space at times, hampered a little by some poorly executed lighting, but effective on the whole at setting the scene.
Money and Friends may not be David Williamson at his finest, but it is an undeniably funny play, and well worth seeing for those with an interest in the “middle-period” of his work to date.
Epicentre Theatre Company presents
MONEY AND FRIENDS
by David Williamson
Directed by Lenore Robertson
Venue: Zenith Theatre, cnr Railway & McIntosh Streets Chatswood
Opening Night: Friday February 26 @ 8pm
Season: Sat February 27, Wed-Sat March 3, 4, 5, 6 @ 8pm
Matinees: Saturdays February 27 and March 6 @ 2pm. Sunday matinees February 28 @ 5pm
Tickets: $25 & $20. High School Students $17 (booking fees apply) | Generous group concessions available by phoning 9975 6780
Bookings: 9777 7547 | www.epicentretheatre.org.au
