Patrick
White Playwrights’ Award
24 May 2008
STC, Wharf 2
On May 24, Angus Cerini and Timothy Daly were announced
joint winners of the 2007 Sydney Theatre Company and The Sydney Morning Herald
Patrick White Playwrights’ Award. Their winning plays, Wretch and The
Man in the Attic were chosen from nearly 150 entries and presented as a
rehearsed reading.
The $20,000 award, shared by the winners, is Australia’s
richest playwrighting award. An initiative of STC and The Sydney Morning
Herald, it was established in 2000 in honour of Patrick White. Previous winners
are: Patricia Cornelius (2006), Wesley Enoch (2005), Stephen Carleton (2004),
David Milroy and Ningali Lawford (2003), Reg Cribb, Ian Wilding (2002), Brendan
Cowell, Toby Schmitz, Jackie Smith (2001), and Ben Ellis, Bette Guy, Ailsa
Piper (2000).
Wretch’s reading
received a very mixed response from the sold out audience; some refused to
applaud at the end, many were simply stunned, while the rest of us cheered at
the unveiling of such a unique and challenging voice.
On behalf of the judges Polly Rowe (Literary Manager, Sydney
Theatre Company) said,
“Wretch grabbed hold of us, shook us up and left us devastated. Angus Cerini drags the audience into the lives of characters who share a cruel yet tender relationship in which resentment, blame and love co-exist. The playwright’s original style unearths the poeticism in fragmented and brutal language.”
“Wretch grabbed hold of us, shook us up and left us devastated. Angus Cerini drags the audience into the lives of characters who share a cruel yet tender relationship in which resentment, blame and love co-exist. The playwright’s original style unearths the poeticism in fragmented and brutal language.”
Cereni’s work is extreme and confronting in its content, its
characters and its original language. A mother visits her son in prison. Poverty,
violence and prostitution are simply part of their lives. Her cancer ridden
‘loogy booby’ means she has to lose her ‘woman bits’, but she still offers to
help her son prepare for his likely anal rape. Meanwhile he is struggling with
the guilt and consequences of his own violence. These are far from comfortable,
accessible characters, but there is an almost exquisite beauty in their
squalor. Cereni takes us to such extremes to create a remarkable work about
love. We may not like his characters, but we understand their choices and want
a miracle to save them.
Timothy Daly says, “The
Man In The Attic is based on an amazing true story, of a Jew who was hidden
by a German couple during World War II, but when the war ended, they decided
not to tell the man. The story is a unique blend of intimate and epic, personal
and political. It’s a writer’s gift.”
Rowe said that, “it impressed us all by demonstrating authorial skill, dexterity and craftsmanship.” Daly’s work is an extremely well crafted play, with a balanced combination of past tense narrative and present tense action. When the family first find and hide the Jew, it proceeds like many stories we have heard before. Then the twist is finally revealed and the real drama begins - when the family don’t tell their ‘guest’ that the war is over and he is free.
The complex plot revolves around two unexpected pairings.
The Jew and the wife, who talk daily, but cannot see each other because he is
sealed in the attic; and the husband and their Nazi neighbour, who regularly
see each other naked, but are unable to communicate. The second pair’s story is
more complex, but nowhere near as compelling as the first. The Jew and the wife
drive the story and our interest so much that I wondered why we needed to know
so much about the other couple.
Cereni’s beautiful depravity and Daly’s images of stars and
hiding will both lead to stage productions that hopefully won’t be too far
away.
This appeared on AussieTheatre.com
