I have memories of loving this play when I first read it at uni - I had heard it was based on his real personal situation and was taken aback that someone could be so honest in its writing. Then I heard Williamson would run it down, and indeed he rewrote the play as Third World Blues, and was wondering if I remembered it wrong.
So on re-reading...
The opening is electric. Man turns up to the flat of his married lover. The husband of said lover is there, back from Vietnam. This is tremendous. Then it becomes apparent the Vietnam vet is going to kill the husband and tension is disappated. There's appearances from the woman they both love, the man's wife, the vet's old pal from Vietnam who has committed robbery. There's a cop similar to the ones in The Removalist and also another man in love with the main woman, Jamie, who feels like a surplus character - he could have been folded into the pompous Williamson surrogate.
Williamson can tell a story - I love how he gets out of the armed robbery stuff by having the cop take the proceeds as a bribe. This is good writing.
Yet something about the piece is wonky. Too many characters or something. Or the way it's dealt with doesn't work. The stakes start off high and then go low. Maybe that's it.
No comments:
Post a Comment