A murder and rape is the catalyst for the community justice forum portrayed in the second part of David Williamson’s Jack Manning Trilogy, A CONVERSATION
This play follows a similar format to the first part of the trilogy, Face to Face, although the subject matter is significantly darker and extremely unpleasant. Members of the victim’s family and of the now imprisoned criminal’s family meet in a facilitated conference in an attempt to resolve their grief, anguish and remorse. Scott, the criminal, has been imprisoned for life. Scott’s mother has initiated the conference to apologise Barbara and Derek, the parents of the horrifically murdered Donna.
Williamson’s script is cleverly structured and contains some wonderful dialogue, however his attempts to imbue the drama with a theme of the role of class, disadvantage, wealth and privilege in criminal behaviour occasionally hampers the drama and makes some things seem slightly unnatural.
At times Williamson is lecturing and preaching and it can get a bit weighty and ponderous but overall the drama between the two families is captivating.
Sandra Bates’ direction is excellent and she extracts a fine range of anger, hate, remorse and attempts at reconciliation from the cast and script. To counteract the lecturing we are entertained by Bob, the murderer’s uncle, in a wonderful performance by Peter Phelps.
Bob had the same underprivileged background as the rest of the family but “has pulled himself up by his bootstraps” and now runs his own business. Any time the discussion becomes too intellectual, esoteric or too sympathetic he pulls them into line, tells them it is bullshit and espouses his simple and direct position on the subject. He is a great foil and very entertaining.
It is interesting to watch as the play progresses the characters going through various degrees of realisation that their entrenched position is not sustainable and needs to undergo some alteration. Glenn Hazeldine gives an excellent performance and is ably supported by the cast of Jo-Anne Cahil, Merran Doyle, Alexandra Fowler, Anthony Gee, , Mark Lee, and Erica Lovell.
This production of A Conversation opened 10th September and runs until 27th September.
http://www.theconcourse.com.au/event/david-williamsons-jack-manning-trilogy