Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 16
Creatives
Playwright: Davide Williamson AO
Director: Mark Kilmurry; Asst Director: Julia Robertson
Set & Costume Designer: James Browne
Lighting Designer: Veronique Benett; Sound Designer: Daryl Wallis
Stage Manager: Erin Shaw; Asst Stage Manager: Alexis Worthing
Costume Supervisor: Renata Beslik
Cast
Penny Poulter – Emma Diaz; Rachel Poulter – Caitlin Burley
Alex Whittle – Georgie Parker; Grace Delahunty – Kate Raison
Brian / Joel – James Lugton; Alan Bridger – John Wood
Among David Williamson’s highly successful earlier plays, The Club (1977) was all about the same ‘great divide’ as now, in 2024. But The Great Divide is the better play, and hits at the social crux of the issue with greater force.
The Club was all about men maintaining the traditions of Australian Rules Football against the threat of commercial profiteering. Williamson’s Melbourne origin made this a necessary plea for an Australian cultural icon, saying “My original intention for The Club was that it was a satire of male competitive behaviour and ruthlessness when power and success were dangled before us. So originally it was a satire of bad male behaviour towards each other.”
This was in an interview – We speak to the playwright about how one of his most revered works has aged over the last forty years – when, in 2019, the State Theatre Company of South Australia presented The Club with an all female cast.
https://medium.com/behind-the-curtain/david-williamson-on-the-club-34606386beaa
Williamson supported the move, saying “one of the things that The Club will underline is how much values have shifted or, at least, should have shifted.”
In 2020 – https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/jan/11/david-williamson-on-retirement-politics-and-critics-for-years-i-couldnt-go-to-an-opening-night – as his Family Values and Crunchtime were being staged, he announced his intention to write no more plays. Yet “In March 2024 the Ensemble stages his new play The Great Divide while in September 2024 the State Theatre Company of South Australia opens with another of his new plays The Puzzle.”
[ https://davidwilliamsonplaywright.com/biography ]
The Puzzle remains a puzzle as yet, but, because by interval at The Great Divide I found myself already being reminded of The Club, I am guessing that that female casting stirred a deeper need for a more crucial issue – maintaining Australia’s unique environment: social and natural – as seen from the perspective of how women deal with competitive behaviour and ruthlessness when power and success are in the offing.
In Australia there is the Great Dividing Range, separating the east coast of the continent all the way from Victoria to Cape York – an image representing the issue of essential concern as commercial forces destroy our environment – literally as fossil fuel burning overheats the planet. In the play, just the title is enough to remind us of the enormity of what Penny Poulter will need to do to save “an almost idyllic life in one of Australia’s best kept secrets, Wallis Heads”.
In the action we see the equal enormity of Alex Whittle (clearly referencing Gina Rinehart, Australia's richest woman with an estimated $36.7 billion fortune), who sees only ‘development’ of the environment as the way to stimulate the economy – meaning profiteering by and for the wealthy, including herself.
And then we see how this massive conflict – still often satirical in form and stirring us to laughter – is played out in the life of Rachel Poulter, Penny’s 16-year-old daughter, facing her sense of responsibility to herself, her family and her future. And indeed, our future.
It must seem odd to John Wood, after playing in the original The Club, to play now in The Great Divide, where football is certainly not such a big issue as in 1977. Especially as he so successfully plays the bemused male, mayor of Wallis Heads Council, trying so hard to bridge the gap between the proposed investment opportunity offered (are rather demanded) by Whittle, and the strength of support in the community for Poulter – not only for never allowing the natural beauty of their environment to be lost, but equally for working in real terms for reducing economic inequality. Penny Poulter is a genuine battler, a mum left to raise her daughter by a recalcitrant ex and determined to change the world for the better.
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| James Lugton and John Wood as journalist Brian and mayor Alan Bridger in The Great Divide, Ensemble 2024 |
The role of the journalist, played very correctly by James Lugton both as the small-town newspaper man and national tv interviewer, is an element not presented in The Club – and at this point in our struggle to regulate social media platforms, such as Meta, is absolutely relevant to the future, even, of democracy.
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| Kate Raison as PA Grace Delahunty and Georgie Parker as Alex Whittle The Great Divide, Ensemble 2024 |
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| Emma Diaz as Penny Poulter and Caitlin Burley as Rachel Poulter The Great Divide, Ensemble 2024 |
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| Georgie Parker as Alex Whittle and Emma Diaz as Penny Poulter The Great Divide, Ensemble 2024 |
Photos by Brett Boardman
What makes The Great Divide better than The Club as a drama is Williamson’s perceptive writing of the women’s complex emotions and the intensity that the situation develops. Each of the four actors Emma Diaz as the mother and social activist; Caitlin Burley as her equally determined daughter on the cusp of adulthood; Georgie Parker with her own story of financial and political power; and Kate Raison as Whittle’s PA with so much more to offer both her employer and her competitor – each create characters we feel about remarkably strongly.
We begin expecting a social satire – after all, this is David Williamson, isn’t it? We end knowing so much more clearly what our society does – doesn’t do – for these women.
And we all need to know. So don’t miss The Great Divide.
