Friday, October 23, 2020

Play review - "Dead White Males" by David Williamson (1995)

 Do I want to wade into this territory...? I'll try... 

The play remains surprisingly relevant in a post Trump world where people are fired up against the patriarchy. Williamson gives his ostensible villain, Swain, plenty of room to make his arguments and a lot of them makes sense, but he stakes the deck by having Swain try to root his students and support silly artists.

The post-modernism he mocks deserves it, to some degree. But other stuff as aged less well - women just wanting to be rammed by Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew, and the character of Stephen, the gormless children of academics who wants to be a mechanic (one in a long line of Williamson nerds who are the true love interest) feels like he's going to turn into an incel who will get on 4Chan in a few years. You can't say David can't analyse male behaviour.

I did like how he dramatised the issues at this stage of his career.: the daughter longing to be Aboriginal, the bitter mother, the grumpy old dad, the lonely aunt. He is good on families. 

It is imaginative and smart and a play of ideas. Some of it was whiffy.

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