Debra Oswald gets into her own version of Ted talks at the Ensemble. Photo: Prudence Upton
Where to start? There is so much to enjoy in Debra Oswald’s frank, funny and very personal account of what it’s like to be a writer. From her first thoughts as a child: ‘I’ll never be a writer, I live in Carlingford and my parents are still together’; to one of the reasons for writing – ‘the urge to defy death’, as in leaving a legacy; and on to why she believes ‘all creative writing courses should have a “how to wait” element built into them’. That last one will resonate with nearly every screenwriter, singer, actor, musician, playwright and indeed anyone who has chosen a career in the arts. It certainly provoked one of many huge laughs from the audience.
And Oswald, who is one of this country’s most successful authors and screenwriters is no stranger to waiting. Later in the piece she produces reams and reams of unproduced scripts, labours of love, hundreds of hours of hope and work, that have found no audience except for perhaps her nearest and dearest. Projects that still await a green light.
This show is not a litany of grievance though. Far from it. And Oswald, in her own words, is nothing if not dogged. She also knows how to tell a tale, and her engaging personality and delivery make her recollections very funny. She says she fell in love with theatre aged eleven, but asks how she, a child hypochondriac, then a teenager with scant success in romance, could possibly make it in showbiz when she was stumbling from one disaster to another?
This from the writer of Offspring, one of the most successful and most loved series on Australian television.
But of course it wasn’t instant success and that’s what this show is all about. Oswald’s drive to write and her doggedness. Her tenacity; her strength to resist rejection after rejection. And her ability to make us laugh with her self-deprecating stories.
All that and a small ‘ted talk’ about the weird and wonderful funereal requests of one of her relatives. Like many of her anecdotes, this one shares some family photographs projected onto the screen behind her.
Otherwise Jeremy Allen’s set is minimal. A red bucket chair, mountains of storage boxes for all those rejected scripts and some teddy bears. Teddies have featured in Oswald’s professional life, too. Let’s not forget that as well as such plays as Mr Bailey’s Minder and Dags, she has penned award-winning episodes of TV’s Police Rescue and wrestled with new plot lines for Bananas in Pyjamas (with teddies). Theatre may be Oswald’s first love, but television has also been a sporadic suitor.
And of course, as a writer, she must kill people. And write sex scenes. Both of which have given Oswald grief – from fans outraged at the death of Patrick in Offspring – and from the embarrassment (hilarious to her audience) of having to hear her directions for sex scenes read aloud.
Lee Lewis (who directed the premiere of this show for Griffin in 2021) returns to allow Oswald free rein to be herself. There are some cute family photos, an image of Deb’s first typewriter (an Olivetti that was a birthday present when she was 12) and a few jokes projected on screen but otherwise Oswald is on her own. And making us laugh, even when we shouldn’t – because it’s a tough life in the arts.
But there it all is. Love. Sex. Death. A writer’s need to fill a ‘vast psychic hole’. And the ability to resist large doses of rejection (the title of this 90-minute soliloquy references the reaction of a child to its mother alarmed to see Oswald sobbing in a supermarket aisle) as well as rejoice in the ‘splodges of luck that have landed from time to time’.
Oswald calls herself a ‘bruised old dame’; I think she’s an inspiration to others to stay ‘match-fit for waiting’ and for that alone I’m so glad to have seen this show. That and all the laugh-out-loud moments in a thoroughly enjoyable evening, hearing from someone who’s honest enough to share the ups and downs of her professional life. A glorious night at theatre. Not to be missed.
At the Ensemble until 14 October 2023
Tickets: $38-80
More info at https://www.ensemble.com.au/shows/wrong-with-that-lady/
