The Club

David Williamson

• Publisher: Currency Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781921428906
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Teatro

Williamson's famous play about the uses and abuses of managerial power, which in 1976 foreshadowed the great changes that Australian football has since endured, proves even more prescient since the rise and fall of Super League. This is a play set behind the scenes; a head-on tackle of brawn versus bureaucracy.Also available in David Williamson's Collected Plays Volume II.

ACT ONE

GERRY COOPER, lean, alert, in his middle thirties, sits on the table smoking, a folder in one hand. TED PARKER enters from left. He is small, pudgy, manic, nervous, in his early forties.

TED: Good.

GERRY: Good what?

TED: Good that you’re early.

GERRY: Always early.

TED: Going to be tough.

GERRY: What?

TED: (more clearly) Going to be tough.

GERRY: Who? Laurie?

TED: No. The whole business. Going to be awkward. It’ll have to be handled carefully. My first impulse is to blast hell out of him. Really blast hell out of him. He’s hurt me, Gerry, and I’m angry. Really angry, but I think it’s much better if I stay cool. Don’t you think so? Better to stay cool?

GERRY: If you stay as cool as you are now we’re all in trouble. Calm down.

TED: Sometimes it takes more courage to hand out the olive branch than to jump in boots and all. I’m not going to smile and pretend that it didn’t happen mind you, but I’m going to stay cool.

GERRY: Calm down.

TED: I could use a drink.

GERRY: Grab a bottle of Scotch from next door.

TED nods and goes out, right.

TED: (off) How’s June?

GERRY: Sick.

TED: (off) That’s great. Sick?

GERRY: Mmm.

TED re-enters with a bottle of Scotch and two glasses.

TED: What’s she got?

GERRY: ’Flu.

TED: There’s going to be a new ’flu strain in the next ten years that’s going to wipe out nine tenths of the world population.

GERRY: Yeah?

TED: I read it in the Sunday papers.

GERRY: That’ll test Medibank.

TED pours them each a whisky. The left door opens and LAURIE HOLDEN comes in. LAURIE is a tall well-built man in his middle forties. There is an awkward silence. TED inclines the whisky bottle towards LAURIE. LAURIE declines.

TED: I’m sorry it’s come to this, Laurie.

LAURIE: So am I.

There is another awkward pause.

June better yet, Gerry?

GERRY: Improving, thanks, Laurie.

LAURIE: Give her my love.

GERRY: Will do.

TED: Thanks for coming, Laurie. The Committee thought it might be better if we tried to thrash this out privately before tonight’s meeting.

LAURIE: Fine.

TED: The Committee wants to see if you and I can settle our differences, Laurie. They don’t want to accept your resignation.

GERRY: I thought I’d come along to see if I can act as an impartial sounding board for you both. Jock was going to come along and lend a hand too, but as usual he’s late.

LAURIE: Jock? Lend a hand?

GERRY: His idea, not ours, but once he gets an idea in his head he’s a little hard to discourage. We’ll go if you two get to a point when you’d rather talk things through yourselves.

TED: The Committee’s unanimously of the opinion that they don’t want to lose you, Laurie. You’re one of the best coaches we’ve ever had and you’ve given the Club great service.

GERRY: We’d find it very hard to replace you, Laurie.

There is another pause.

TED: The Club’s going through a slump but nobody blames you.

LAURIE: I should bloody well hope not.

TED: (exploding) Holy Jesus, Laurie. There’s no need to be totally self righteous. When a football club performs as badly as ours has over the last five weeks, most coaches would be honest enough not to try and absolve themselves of all the blame. It really makes me wonder whether there’s any point to this exercise when I come to you in a spirit of conciliation and you jump down my throat at the first opportunity. I was hurt by what you said about me in the press, deeply hurt. It took all my self control to be pleasant to you when you walked in that door.

GERRY: I think I should tell you that the Committee took a pretty dim view of your press statements, Laurie. If you had any grievances you should have come to us.

LAURIE: The press asked me if it was true I was handing in my resignation, so I said yes, and they asked me why, so I told them.

GERRY: How did they know about your resignation before we did?

LAURIE: I don’t know.

GERRY: Did you tell the players you were about to resign?

LAURIE: Yes. I felt I owed it to them.

TED: You must have known they’d take it to the press.

LAURIE: I thought it was a possibility. I didn’t ask them to.

GERRY: It puts the Committee in a hell of a position when you criticise the Club President in the press, Laurie.

TED: What’s my sin, Laurie? What’s my crime? All I could get out of the article was some vague accusation that I was autocratic. What exactly were you trying to say? That I have opinions? All right. I’m guilty. That on occasions I express them? All right. Guilty aga...