FACE TO FACE

 

Face to Face by David Williamson. 

Directed and designed by Celine Oudin. Assistant Director Jo Hogan. Stage Manager and Lighting/Sound Operator Aoife McFoley. Lighting Design Rhiley Winnett and Celine Oudin. Set Design/Concept Chris Baldock. Sound Design Celine Oudin and Cast. Costumes and Props. Celine Oudin and cast and Production Team. Mockingbird Studio Theatre. Mockingbird Theatre Company and Acting Studio. October 7-17 2026. Bookings: 6173 3300 , www.belcoarts.com.au

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Sacin Nyak as Jack Manning. Joshua Nicholls as Glen Tregaskis

 It is a quarter of a century since I first saw David Williamson’s Face to Face in a professional production on the Playhouse Stage of the Canberra Theatre Centre. Ten actors were seated on chairs at the front of the stage with a curtain behind them. The play was the first in Williamson’s Jack Manning Trilogy, which explored his fascination at the time with Restorative Justice as a humane, consultative alternative to the harsher processes of a court system that could inevitably lead a convicted felon to a prison term. Director Celine Oudin has set Mockingbird’s production in the same simple setting of the ten chairs on a grey carpet and a water station on the side of the stage. This allows us to focus entirely on the characters, Williamson’s naturalistic dialogue and the arguments seductively revealed by the questions raised by the convenor Jack Manning (Sachin Nayak). In the intimate setting of Mockingbird’s studio theatre Oudin lures us into a complex web of personalities, conflicting arguments and  complex issues, struggling for resolution. The stakes are high, because if the process fails or any person present leaves the room the consequence will be a return to the courts and an inevitable goal term.

Zade Fainstein as Barry. Joshua Nicholls as Glen and
Anna Hemmings as Maureen

The situation is straightforward. Glen Tregaskis (Joshua Nicholls) has driven his car into the rear of his boss’s Mercedes after he was fired for beating up the foreman of the scaffolding firm, Richard Halligan (David Yates). Glen has been brought to the conference room to face his boss Greg Baldoni (Terry Johnson) along with Baldoni’s wife Claire (Victoria Nicholl-Dixon), Halligan, a worker in the firm Luka Mitrovic (Ryan Hedley), Baldoni’s PA Julie Rossiter (Chloe Smith) and the firm’s accountant Therese Martin (Sophia Costello)

Glen is supported by his mother Maureen (Anna Hemmings) and best friend Barry Maclean (Zade Feinstein). With Manning as convenor the scene is set for a confrontation between opposing parties in an attempt to resolve the situation. Tregaskis, a dedicated worker, is desperate to have his job back. Baldoni is determined not to rescind his decision. The stage is set for irreconcilable drama and Oudin  meticulously orchestrates the eruptions that inevitably arise as Williamson’s play ekes out the hidden conflicts, motives and explosive issues. The result is a gripping exposure of injustice that festers beneath the surface of a single narrative. Gradually Williamson peels back the outer layer to reveal Greg’s relationship with his fellow workers, Halligan’s resentment, Mitrovic’s bitterness, Baldoni’s infidelity and Martin’s emotional release of the hidden truth. As each layer is forcefully peeled back, the complexity of the process is skilfully navigated by Manning, played with calm expertise and intelligent  insight by Nayak.

Sachin Nayak (Jack Manning), Maureen Tregaskis (Anna Hemmings

Oudin has cast the production with a keen eye for type and the actors rise to the occasion. From the moment they enter the room, the body language ripples with the tension of cautious expectation. Only Manning is free of the palpable discomfort of the invited people in the room. Williamson has veered from his sparkling satire of his tribe to depict the seriousness of restorative justice. The drama is not without Williamson’s wit, irony and jocular accusation, but Manning is intent to point out to Rossitor at the end of the play that not every conference results in a successful outcome. Williamson has based the play on four separate cases and in Face To Face the moments of capitulation, hugging and comic relief tend to diminish what one might suspect a real and more aggressive outcome could be. But Williamson offers a positive aspect of the process and its optimistic resolution and Mockingbird’s production certainly acknowledges Williamson’s advocacy of a more hopeful conflict resolution.

It might be easy to accuse the play of cliché, featuring stereotypes speaking predictable dialogue that is not necessarily representative of today’s society and workers. It is worth remembering that cliché has its roots in reality and in Face To Face it is this reality that expounds universality. There will be many in an audience, no matter what their creed or culture who might be likely to identify with the characters and the issues. That is what makes Mockingbird’s production so riveting, revealing and instructive. Williamson’s art and wit simply add to the conferencing to make the whole production entertaining and palatable.