Sunday, October 18, 2020

Play review - "Credentials" by David Williamson (2017)

 Lesser known latter day Williamson, written for La Mama I understand. It's another example of him having a great central idea - woman fakes her credentials - but doesn't really go into the subject matter of that idea, i.e. importance of education, people who fake qualifications. 

 What it really is, is the tale of two contrasting females, one the working class heroine, the other the upper class daughter of the person that working class is telling the story too. Both turn out to be hookers. Look, I get it, that happens, there were some funny laughs - it's just this writer tends to sexualise young women a lot. He could have told this story about young men who wind up as hookers - would he have been interested in that?

It has the Williamson virtues - it's accessible, it tells a story, there's some strong jokes. It covers a lot of familiar ground in the tale of the spoilt girl (private school, wants to be a filmmaker - do young filmmakers care about Bunuel?). These sections seemed to have more energy than the working class stuff which felt more written from the outside - but that may be my prejudice too.

Come to think of it, a lot of latter day Williamsons have a terrific central idea that he doesn't then explore, preferring to go back on old tropes (batty female teens, talking about sex, pretentious wives, adulterous middle aged men).

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