Thursday, December 03, 2020

Play review - "The Coming of Stork" by David Williamson (1970)

 Williamson's first hit - only a minor one but it was filmed, and the movie was a profitable hit at a time when people thought such things were impossible. The dialogue is fresh (for the time), funny and imaginative - Williamson had It. Stork is a wonderful character, tall, horny, hypochondriac, not dumb but also dumb. The banter with his mates is fun - alpha Clyde, quasi alpha Tony, future mens rights activist West.

It must have been a revelation at the time and much of it is still funny. Its remarkable also how Williamson still writers like this - male competitiveness, talk of dicks and money, insecurity about dicks, tossed away socialism. The one female, Anna, sleeps with them all, including a married man, Alan, who I forgot was in this -Alan left his wife and kids for Anna and is torn up about it. Williamson was already writing like a middle aged man. I guess he had a wife and kids by this stage. Anna is the first in what would be a long, long line of women who Just Can't Get Enough Dick, in particular middle aged dick.

I think Williamson's use of structure improved over the years, and he would learn how to tell a story with greater finesse. but he is very recognisably Williamson here. And even at this stage he understood the importance of narrative in a way most of his contemporaries never did, eg there's still a plot with Anna falling pregnant and the rest of the cast could be the father.

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