John Romeril
Edited by Gareth Griffiths
Australian Playwrights Series, No. 5
Editions Rodopi B.V. 1993
Reviewed by David Adamson
This is a generous, well-compiled and broad-ranging account of one of Australia's most significant and socially committed playwrights. Over 200 pages of essays, working notes and descriptive reminiscences are complemented by photographs and a thorough bibliography of Romeril's work.
John Romeril has survived as a playwright for a quarter-century, from his original work with La Mama and the Australian Performing Group in Melbourne in the late 1960s, through to work with various theatre companies in various forms and styles in the 1990s
He remarked at the launch of this book that he felt it was something like a gravestone — a book being published about him. But this book is not an epitaph. It is a tribute to an era of Australian theatre that is still with us, and is full of vital ideas necessary for its continuation.
In its discussions and reminiscences, the book amply demonstrates Romeril's recognition of being a theatre worker — a collaborator with many people, representing in many forms and contexts the varied and conflicting realities of life, politics, history, race, class, gender and culture.
Geoffrey Milne's encompassing account of Romeril's work from the radical APG days to the equally radical political musical Black Cargo of 1992 (about a waterfront union struggle of the early 1950s in Melbourne) gives the sense of the breadth and flavour of Romeril's work. So do other essays, but part 2 of the book, devoted to personal accounts by collaborators, fills out this sense.
I've worked as an actor in two recent original plays by Romeril (Black Cargo and Bring Down the House). In both cases a workshopping development period of about two weeks took place at least four months before rehearsals started. I worked in these also, and they were invaluable: discovering what might or might not be possible in character or narrative or stylistic or musical terms.
Everyone shared in this creative process, and John would return each day with changes, developments, new directions. He then had that creative experience as more raw material from which to devise and complete his play. This collaborative process also continued (in a more structured form) in rehearsals for the productions.
This book conveys the style of Romeril's work: the way in which he deals with the content and form (never slighting either). It is a history of a mode of theatrical activity that needs to be cherished and developed.
Direct orders or inquiries about the book (cost approximately $32) can be made to the English Department at the University of Western Australia (Professor Gareth Griffiths).