Sydney Reviews

Nearly forty years on, David Williamson’s Emerald City is possibly more pertinent, poignant and passionate, the skewering satire and sparkling dialogue finding solid contemporary footing in Mark Kilmurry’s excellent, buoyant production.

A moral fable about wealth, power, status and moral comprise, Emerald City is about scruples scuppered and moral compasses reset.

Screenwriter Colin moves from Melbourne to Sydney with his less than enthusiastic wife, Kate, with the notion that he is better appreciated in the harbour city.

His integrity is soon corrupted by Philistine fledgling screenwriter and harbour city hustler, Mike McCord, a sort of Mephistopheles to Colin’s Faust. Eager for fame, fortune and harbour views, Colin succumbs to the mover and shaker, sharing a screen credit on a project dear to his heart. To quote McCord’s dismissive catchphrase of local film production – “Disaster!”

By the end of the first act, the sale of his soul is secure with Colin exclaiming “I don’t want to make art films or films with a message. I want to produce a product that entertains and I want it to make me awesomely powerful and fabulously rich”.

Act two capers through the consequences with unexpected twists and turns full of irony and pathos. “Don't blame the city. The demons are in us” says Colin, echoing Shakespeare’s “The fault is not in our stars but in ourselves”.

Tom O’Sullivan exudes a care worn quality as Colin, his capitulation a nicely calibrated conversion. Similarly, Rachel Gordon as Kate finds the right chime between idealism and pragmatism.

Matt Minto makes a meal of Mike, his crassness and pretensions perfectly played, his duplicity diabolic and hideously hilarious.

Aisha Aidara is vivacious as Mike’s girlfriend Helen and Danielle Carter is cut glass perfect as Elaine, who has been producer on films previously scripted by Colin. Rajan Velu as merchant banker money man, Malcolm, impresses in a couple of cameos.

The production’s set is ingeniously simple – basically a desk with a typewriter, a couple of chairs, and a back drop symbolising a giant strip of celluloid film on which is projected various images, from surreal and abstract to photo realism. It is an inspired work by Dan Potra who also serves as costume and video designer.

With Emerald City, Williamson, the wizard of Oz play writing, observes the tectonic shifts between the substance of self fulfilment and the fickleness of self gratifying success, in a seriously very, very funny play.