The Removalists
at Touchstone Theatre
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At least on paper there are compelling reasons to stage The Removalists, a darkly satiric expose of corrupt and brutal police. Incendiary and brashly outspoken, this 1971 Australian play seems as immediate as today’s headlines. The ferocious dialogue and rough-and-tumble stage combat offer excellent opportunities for a company of fine actors to strut their stuff. At the same time, Williamson’s hackneyed, implausible story nearly crosses the border into bloody farce just when it should be most gripping. With the ten o’clock news rife with tales of cops shaking down gang members, torturing suspects, and shooting unarmed citizens, a drama about police brutality that defies belief seems unlikely. Yet Williamson has written just that.
Williamson is known here primarily for his film work, most notably The Year of Living Dangerously and Gallipoli. And like the stage plays of many successful screenwriters, The Removalists is somewhat schematic and two-dimensional. Set in Melbourne, it concerns a cynical police sergeant who enlists the help of a new constable on a simple domestic assignment, intending to use it as an opportunity to seduce or rape the two women who’ve come to the police for aid. Sergeant Simmonds and Constable Ross are asked to protect a woman and her sister from an abusive Foster’s-swilling husband who’s supposed to be out drinking while his wife is having her furniture removed from their apartment. When Simmonds’s initial plan is foiled by the husband, who decides to stay home that night, he and the constable get their kicks by beating the living shit out of the man.
Equally understandable but a good deal less defensible is Organic Touchstone Company’s choice of After-Play: the recognizable author and the roles for talented, older Equity actors are aimed right at the heart of OTC’s staid audience. Meara’s extended dinner conversation between two aging show-biz couples, one Jewish and one Catholic, might be a commercially viable choice. But one small item ruins everything: the script.
