NOTHING PERSONAL
NOTHING PERSONAL, Ensemble Theatre, 1 December 2011 - 28 January 2012. Photos by Natalie Boog: Greta Scacchi and Emma Jackson; Andrew McFarlane.
WHEN A PERSON looks at you apologetically and says: "Nothing personal", it's the verbal left hook which is often preceded by the right uppercut "With all due respect". Both are always delivered with a maddening self deprecating smile and both are lethal. The main triangle of characters in David Williamson's new play are especially familiar with the delivery – and reception – of these weasel phrases. They inhabit the scary world of modern Australian publishing, where the plug has been pulled on old-time values and methods and all bets are well and truly off.
Bea (Greta Scacchi) is the doyenne of Australian publishing; she has published more bestsellers, discovered more now-famous authors and demolished more rivals than anyone else in the industry. Unlike the real and legendary Beatrice Davis (also known as Bea in her day) she didn't turn down the without-literary-merit, yet multi-million selling Let Stalk Strine by Afferbeck Lauder. Nevertheless, Bea too sets much store by literary merit and "good writing", and she's slipping. She won't look at a young Aussie-Vietnamese author, won't talk eBooks, and she shudders at the new breed of grunge author and marketing-driven publisher.
Naomi (Emma Jackson) is the marketing-driven, up-and-coming, ambitious, stop-at-nothing new kid in the old firm. She is championing the new Oz-Viet author over the elegant writer of lonely middle-aged women's lit who's been the sparkle in Bea's tiara for decades. Naomi also understands that whether or not a heroine named Morwenna who runs the woods with a wolf pack is up to the standard of Middlemarch, the fact is Fantasy sells.
Between these two stands Kelvin (Andrew McFarlane) the chairman of the board. He would be the envy of most poobahs in Australian publishing because he's deadly attractive, stinking rich, has homes in several countries including Majorca and a private jet too. That particular fantasy aside, he is unenviably placed when the "nothing personals" and "with all due respects" start flying between the Old Lioness and the Young Cub and he handles it the only way an Old Lion knows how. That there'll be tears before bedtime is a given.
Circling these three in some extremely neat overlapping and inter-weaving scene handling (director Mark Kilmurry choreographs as much as anything) are Naomi's longtime boyfriend and hitherto unsuccessful architect Simon (Matthew Moore); her mother Carla, who's about to give up on chemo and go gracefully (Jeannie Drynan); Bea's semi-estranged and pregnant daughter Lucy (Rachael Coopes) and her faithful No.2 and brilliant old-style editor Roxanne (Julie Hudspeth). How the balls and few degrees of separation between them all are kept in the air is the material for a couple of hours of vintage Williamson people-watching.
It's Williamson with a difference, however. This time he isn't laying on the laughs for a one-liner fest, rather this is a more reflective, often melancholy, bitter-sweet story of time passing, love lost and found and lives not turning out quite the way they do in novels. Not only are happy endings not guaranteed but even the words "the end" are far from certain nor neatly arrived at. Those in the audience expecting a Williamson wisecracking comedy may at first be puzzled, if not disconcerted by this change of pace and focus; yet it rewards patience.
On opening night (in a long season in which the settling-in process will happen quickly) there was the added "off" element of a cast not totally gelling with one another or the script. The rhythm, so essential to the delivery of Williamson lines, was ragged and Emma Jackson the one who held it together and hit her stride early and deceptively easily; she shines. The others – especially Coopes and McFarlane – deliver characters whose nuance and personality make for absorbing watching and listening as they add their classic ingredients to the formula. It's the kind of literature Bea would enjoy, without understanding the irony of her liking.
Another star of this particular show is the design and lighting (Steven Butler and Peter Neufeld). The single set becomes Bea's office, Naomi's apartment, Kelvin's Northern Rivers love-retreat and a restaurant via area lighting and the movement of a chair. The set itself and its furnishing – including laptops – is constructed entirely of clear Perspex. In a milieu of secrets and evasion, where lives and motives are hidden and wilfully obscured, the gleaming transparency is a wry comment on their world. This is story as written by Mary Wesley rather than Yann Martel and if you can get your head around that, there's much to enjoy.
