Rose Bay lawyer and playwright Tony Laumberg recently had his first play, of some 13 plays he has written, published after a season of his play ‘Bondi Legal’ was performed at Bondi Pavilion. It was time to catch up for coffee.
What’s it like being a published playwright?
It’s a big thrill. I remember going into my local bookstore and seeing published plays by Shakespeare and others and I always hoped that I could one day join that exclusive club.
I hope the publication of ‘Bondi Legal’ will be the first of many as I have another twelve plays to go.
Is it true to say that all your plays have a legal theme?
Basically yes, after all I ma a lawyer and I like to make fun of other lawyers. But then again one of my plays was a children’s play and one was about my father who was a Doctor during the holocaust.
Do you have a favourite play of yours?
It’s like trying to decide which is your favourite child but I have a real soft spot for ‘Lawyer! Lawyer!’ which was based on an actual event in my legal career.
What event was that?
I’m not sure that I should be telling you this but the senior partner of my firm called me into his office and said that he noticed in my CV that I spoke fluent German. He went on to say that this was wonderful news because the firm was going to receive a lot of new work from Germany which would require me to translate documents and correspond with people in Germany. As my high school German was not good enough to allow me to read a German newspaper I took immediate action. I left the firm.
But in ‘Lawyer! Lawyer’ I wanted to explore the possibility of a young female lawyer, when confronted with the same situation, deciding to bullshit her way through the whole thing. What starts off as a little white lie snowballs into bigger and bigger lies.
Will you be writing any more plays?
Not at the moment because I am getting a real kick out of other people producing new versions of my plays. It’s wonderful to sit in the audience and see someone else’s interpretation of my work.
Now that David Williamson is retiring are you ready to step into the breach?
With all due respect to David I believe he has retired a number of times so I’ll just keep on doing my thing and I hope to meet David at the opening night of his next play.
Featured image – The cast and crew of ‘Bondi Legal’ which played the Bondi Pavilion in October 2019.
Book details:
Title : Bondi Legal: Sun, Surf and Solicitors
Publisher : David Spicer Press
ISBN : 978-0-9943473-1-2