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Title Page

Playwright’s Biography

Playwright’s Biography

RAY LAWLER was thrust into prominence when his play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll became a hit for the Union Theatre Repertory Company, under John Sumner’s direction. The year was 1955, and Ray, appearing in the role of Barney, toured with the play through its successful seasons in Australia and London’s West End, until it finally finished on Broadway in 1958. Ray then lived abroad until 1975, when he returned to Australia to join the Melbourne Theatre Company as Literary Adviser, and to occasionally direct for that company. Among other plays, Ray has written The Piccadilly Bushman, which toured nationally under the J.C. Williamson banner, The Man Who Shot the Albatross, Godsend, The Unshaven Cheek and Cradle of Thunder. Ray now lives as a semiretired and devoted grandfather in a bayside Melbourne suburb.

To Kylie,
with love and blessings

First Production

FIRST PRODUCTION

Other Times was first produced by Melbourne Theatre Company at the Russell Street Theatre, Melbourne, on 14 December 1976, with the following cast:

Director, John Sumner
Set Designer, Anne Fraser

Characters / Setting

CHARACTERS

EMMA LEECH

ROO WEBBER

BUBBA RYAN

OLIVE LEECH

BARNEY IBBOT

NANCY WELLS

JOSEF HULTZ

SETTING

The Leech house in Carlton, Melbourne, 1945.

It is late winter and the setting of the furniture has been arranged to make the fireplace a natural gathering point. A fading wartime poster on the wall sternly emphasises the carelessness of loose talk, replacing an equally stern peacetime Biblical warning against strong drink; and scattered decoratively here and there are eight carnival dolls on walking sticks, souvenirs of past visits. The restrictions and shortages of wartime show in the curtains and chintz coverings on the furniture, which are shabbier than might be expected in a well-maintained boarding house. Also some untidiness in the garden greenery around the front and back verandahs, the plants, shrubs, and trees have been let go their own way and need trimming.

All in all, a sense of winter, war and slackening standards.

Other Times

ACT ONE

SCENE ONE

Time: an early morning in September, 1945. The overall effect of this scene should be one of multi-purpose preparations for the day’s activities.

EMMA is on her knees before the fireplace, collecting the ashes from the night before. She works with the practised sureness of routine, her mind on other matters.

ROO is heard whistling cheerfully and he comes into the room from the direction of the kitchen. He is in his army shirt, trousers and socks, and carries a battered-looking household container with shoe-cleaning equipment. He puts this to one side, pulls out a chair from the table and climbs up to start unfastening a pair of army boots that are hanging suspended by their laces from the overhead light fitting.

EMMA pauses to watch him coping with the laces, and gestures towards a nearby pair of army socks to give voice with expressive reserve.

EMMA: Nasty socks left on the fender, slouch hats up on the pianner, that I might expect. But two boots danglin’ from the lightshade—no.

ROO: Barney thought you might like them for hanging baskets. Reckons you could plant ’em with a couple of ferns, and shove ’em out on the back verandah.

EMMA snorts and returns to her chores. ROO surveys the boots he now has free.

He’s goin’ to have ’em dipped in bronze and give to Nancy as a pair of bookends.

EMMA: Any sense, you’ll keep ’em on your feet, both of you. Pretty hard to get a decent pair of boots outside the army.

ROO: [descending from the table] Pretty hard to get a decent pair inside as well.

EMMA: Dunno you’re alive. Wait until you see the sort of things they’re sellin’ in the shops these days. And what you’ll get with your discharge is not much better.

ROO: Have to have a word, then, with your Mister Bromige. Try our luck on the black market.

EMMA: Doesn’t deal in boots. And he is not black market, Mister Bromige—

A figure appears on the back verandah and raps impatiently at the French windows for admittance. EMMA shouts an automatic dismissal.

Go ’way.

BUBBA: ’S me, Bubba.

EMMA: Know that. Go ’way. [To ROO] Mister Bromige got a feeler out, that’s all. For things that might be interestin’.

ROO: [heading for the French windows] Same lurk as an octopus.

He unlatches the French windows to admit a breathless BUBBA, wearing a school uniform, overcoat and scarf, and carrying her schoolbag and hat.

What’s this, eh? A dawn raid?

BUBBA: Thanks, Roo.

She kisses his cheek in a rushed morning greeting.

Nancy said if I came in, she’d check my homework.

She moves towards the hallway.

EMMA: Isn’t out of bed yet—don’t you go upstairs now.

BUBBA: [calling upwards] Done the English, Nance, and done me Algebra! You want to see?

NANCY: [a voice from above] How about your project?

BUBBA: ’S nothin’—hygiene. I can work on it tonight.

NANCY: Alright. I’ll be down.

BUBBA: ’S cold outside. A touch of frost. [Hanging her schoolbag and hat on the newel post] Better tell Barney to wear his woolly long’uns.

BARNEY: [from upstairs] Take a whole lot more than woolly long’uns.

BUBBA: [calling] Olive?

EMMA: Olive’s busy.

OLIVE: [approaching] No, she’s not.

OLIVE appears from the direction of the kitchen. She is wearing a dress, with a pair of slippers.

Made the sandwiches. Hello, Bub.

Offering a cheek for BUBBA’s kiss:

You’re early.

BUBBA: Homework.

OLIVE: Had your breakfast?

BUBBA: Wouldn’t mind a cup of cocoa.

EMMA: Isn’t any. You drank all we had last night.

OLIVE: Never mind. A cup of tea. [To ROO] You right, are you? Still some bacon out there—

ROO: [shaking his head, as he sets out the shoe-cleaning equipment] I’m sweet.

OLIVE: Sweet’s not the word. [A loving pat in passing] Irresistible. [Heading back for the kitchen] How’s your Auntie Maureen, love?

BUBBA: [following OLIVE off] Head is better. Feet are still up. Said I was to thank you for the stout.

EMMA: Terrible, the things she says in front of that kid.

ROO: Bubba doesn’t mind.

EMMA: ’S what I mean—like the four of you was married couples. Bet if them nuns at her school knew she was shoutin’ up the stairs to tell a fornicator ’ardly out of bed he ought to wear his woolly long johns—

She collects the army socks, dustpan and brush, to rise and register ROO, about to clean his boots.

Ah no, fair go. Polishin’ them great clodhoppers in here—take ’em out on the verandah.

ROO shrugs and collects the cleaning gear.

Nugget over my good carpet—as if I haven’t got enough to do.

ROO moves out onto the back verandah, leaving the French windows open behind him.

And close them windows. House is cold enough without you lettin’ in a lot of frosty air.

ROO returns, empty-handed, to the French windows.

ROO: Pity you didn’t get around to joinin’ the army. You’d have made a fine up-jumped sergeant major.

EMMA: More promotion than you ever got. Five years’ service, and you end up a private.

ROO: [a wide smile] Watch it, Alfie.

He closes the French windows. EMMA makes her way to the hall, as BARNEY comes shivering downstairs. He is wearing his army uniform, with the overcoat hanging from his shoulders, but is barefooted and carries his boots in his hand.

BARNEY: Ah my gawd, it’s cold, this place. It’s freezin’. Draught under that front door is straight from the South Pole.

He sights the army socks on top of EMMA’s ash pan.

And where are you goin’ with me socks?

EMMA: Don’t know whether I should bury them right away, or drown ’em first in a bath of phenyl.

BARNEY: [indignantly] That’s a libel. Fresh on last night.

He rescues his socks from the top of the ash pan.

After Nancy did me treatment. Only wore ’em for a couple of hours.

EMMA goes, shaking her head in disbelief. BARNEY calls after her:

Any smell is all that stuff the MO’s given me for me tinea, and me jungle rot!

NANCY comes downstairs, wearing a dressing-gown and the horn-rimmed bifocals that are now a necessity.

NANCY: Give it to ’em, Tiger. Don’t forget your beri-beri, and the rash around your ankles.

BARNEY: Chances of pneumonia that I should be goin’ on about. [Entering the living room] Bloody deathtrap, this place, if a bloke’s been up the Islands. Why can’t she have a fire in the mornin’? Boardin’ house, you do expect a few home comforts. Might as well be shivering it out in an army barracks somewhere.

He sits and rubs his feet to restore circulation before putting on socks and boots. NANCY collects Bubba’s schoolbag from the newel post and follows him into the room.

NANCY: Lucky you weren’t here around July. It was really freezing.

BARNEY: Put my socks along the fender last night. Thought they might warm up a bit.

NANCY: Never struck it in the real winter. Any of your leaves.

BARNEY: Bad enough in what they call the summer. If you’re used to decent weather—God almighty, these socks, you can feel the damp. I’ll keep ’em on tonight, go to bed in ’em—

NANCY, who has seated herself and opened Bubba’s schoolbag, raises her eyebrows, and BARNEY amends the statement.

Well, ’least I’ll hang them in the kitchen. Don’t care what she says. It’s the only warm spot in the house.

He starts to pull on his socks and boots and NANCY opens the first of Bubba’s exercise books.

You comin’ down the station, see us off?

NANCY: Might, maybe. If you were heading for Japan. Bit much when it’s just a day trip to South Ken.

BARNEY: Olive comes down. Every mornin’.

NANCY: [her eyes on the homework] Uh-huh.

BARNEY: Makes it look as though you’re not too keen.

NANCY: G’wan. You know me. Keen as mustard.

BARNEY: Yeh.

ROO comes through the French windows, now wearing his boots and carrying the container with the cleaning equipment, which he sets aside. BARNEY eyes him sourly.

I know all about that keen as mustard lark. You been polishin’ up again, have you?

ROO: [on his way upstairs] Ought to get stuck in yourself. Them boots of yours look like they still got mud from up New Guinea.

BARNEY: Bet your life. And that’s the way they’re gunna stay. The army wants me hangin’ around, pretendin’ that the war’s still going on, they can take me as I come.

ROO has vanished upstairs, and BARNEY tugs at his bootlaces with savage energy.

All his lousy spit and polish—killed our chance of a discharge. He went up before the Board at Royal Park, smart as hell, full five-year veteran. You could see the Board, they hated him. Base bludgers, never been near a frontline in their lives, couldn’t wait for some excuse to knock us back—

The sound of a short, sharp double whistle brings him to a disconcerted halt, before NANCY supplies an explanation.

NANCY: Postman.

BARNEY: [recovering] So what’s your civvy job, then—canecuttin’, is it? Well, have to check that for priority. In the meantime, servicemen like you can make yourselves useful. Useful!

EMMA moves along the hallway, heading for the street.

Guardin’ army eggcups in a tin hut at South Kensington. [He rises, stamping to get the feel of the boots on his feet.] You think that’s a joke, don’t you? Honest, there’s a great big pile of crates out there marked ‘Officers’ Amenities’. I had a geek inside the other day, and that’s what they was full of—army flamin’ eggcups.

NANCY: [still engaged with the homework] Well, don’t s’pose that getting out of any war is ever easy. Look at our little stoush. I been waiting on an honourable discharge for years.

BARNEY: [snorting] Yeh, but then you got trouble with the honourable part of it—

As EMMA re-enters the house, sorting a handful of letters:

Any mail for Miss Pacific, 1945? Or have they eased off, now the war is over?

EMMA: Usual bits and pieces.

She passes three airmail letters to BARNEY, and moves on to the kitchen with her own disappointing mail.

Breakfast is on for another ten minutes. After that you starve.

BARNEY takes the letters to NANCY, checking the backs of the envelopes for senders’ names and addresses.

BARNEY: US Navy—US Navy—and one from the US Marines. [Handing her the letters] Like to hear some day how you fought the American Fleet. Single-handed, ’cross a pub counter.

NANCY: Why not? We can swap campaign yarns. All the battles that we both lost.

BARNEY moves out towards the kitchen without further comment. NANCY checks the names on the envelopes, then on an impulse, rises to go to a wastepaper basket. She tears the letters up without opening them and drops the scraps into the basket. She returns to the schoolbooks as OLIVE appears in the hallway.

OLIVE: I’ve asked Bub to bring you in a cup of tea.

NANCY: Not a cup of tea I want.

OLIVE: I know. But tea’ll warm you up. [Taking the stairs at a run] Properly.

NANCY: Jolly dee.

She concentrates on the schoolbooks again as BUBBA enters with a cup and saucer.

BUBBA: What about some toast with this? And marmalade?

NANCY: Please.

BUBBA: I can easy—

NANCY: You sit down. There’s some silly slips in Algebra we ought to look at.

BUBBA: Knew I had a couple wrong. I didn’t get what you was on about last night.

NANCY: I’m not surprised.

BUBBA sits beside her.

Half the time that we were working, you were watching Barney.

BUBBA: Well, he was funny.

NANCY: [indicating in an exercise book] Here and here. It’s these two. You forgot to change the sign when you shifted the x over to the other side.

BUBBA: Oh, yes.

NANCY: Mistakes like that—I mentioned it last night, before you left.

BUBBA: I know. But that was when Barney was hanging up Roo’s boots. And sayin’ what he’d like to do with his pieces of equipment. [Conscious of NANCY’s gaze] Well, it was funny. Sendin’ off them singlets made of string to General Blamey. Even you laughed.

NANCY: Yeh, but then I laugh at anything. And I’m not studying for the year’s exam, and I don’t have a good chance of a scholarship.

BUBBA: Nance—

NANCY: It’s what you do these next few months—

BUBBA: [smothering criticism] I know, I know. And I’ll work like mad. As soon as Roo and Barney get their discharge and go up North. I promise.

She hugs NANCY and moves to the hall, cramming books into her schoolbag. She grabs her hat from the newel post and shouts upstairs:

’Bye ’bye, Ol—’bye ’bye, Roo— [waving her hat] —’bye, Nance— [over her shoulder as she heads for the street door] —’bye ’bye, Barn—

EMMA: [exasperated] Oh, for God’s sake—hurroo! [Approaching from the kitchen] And don’t you slam—

Too late. BUBBA has shut the street door with a bang and runs across the front verandah as EMMA appears in the hallway.

Olive to a tee.

She moves into the room, with an oblique approach to an important question.

The application you filled in for me last week? The government form? You sure you got it right?

NANCY nods.

Well, haven’t had a letter back. Pretty funny that I haven’t heard?

NANCY: [sipping tea] Everyone after a telephone these days. Queuing up in droves.

EMMA: Maybe they are. But they don’t have an introduction to a feller in the right department.

NANCY shrugs and EMMA picks up the shoe-cleaning equipment left by ROO.

What about them eggs and toast out there?

NANCY: Couldn’t face ’em.

EMMA: Sensible, that is. Goin’ off to work on nothin’ but a cup of tea. No time to be nursin’ invalids, y’know.

ROO comes downstairs, wearing full uniform for guard duty, but without his hat and carrying his overcoat. He is followed by OLIVE, dressed for work, and carrying her handbag. EMMA confronts ROO with the shoe-cleaning equipment.

Or chasin’ after the army, either. You tidy up after you.

She goes off to the kitchen.

ROO: [wryly] Easy to see the war’s over. Shift your pack, Jack.

OLIVE: A bit scotty this mornin’.

NANCY: She was hoping for some word about her telephone.

OLIVE: Never stops. Hurry up and dress, and you can come down to the station with us?

NANCY shakes her head.

Oh, c’mon. We’ll all go down together—

NANCY: Be lucky if I make it to the pub on time.

She puts her cup aside and moves for the stairs.

See you boys tonight.

ROO: See you, Nance.

NANCY ascends the stairs. ROO turns to OLIVE, who has opened her handbag in search of a compact.

Thought that it was off, all that?

OLIVE: Off all what?

ROO: Your mother gettin’ the telephone?

OLIVE: Mister Bromige gave her the name of someone in the right department. S’posed to have a bit of pull. Maurie someone.

ROO: [frowning] She’ll get her fingers burnt if she’s not careful. All that under-the-counter stuff.

OLIVE: Kittens. On the way out, all that. Now the war is over—oh, so great to say that. [Happily tucking the handbag under her arm, and opening the compact] No more listenin’ to the news each day, and people bein’ so upset—Nancy was the one. [A last minute scrutiny of her make-up] Always seein’ Barney wounded on a beach, or half dead in the jungle somewhere. Why she started goin’ out with Yanks, I think. Take her mind off— [Returning the compact to her bag with a brisk satisfaction] Anyway, whole thing’s over now. And you’ve come through with flying colours.

ROO: Not the way your mother sees it. Five years’ service, and I end up a private.

OLIVE: [laughing] Oh, but you know what Mum is on about? It’s coz I said when you joined up, you’d be an officer overnight. They’d take one look at you, a ganger who had run his team up North, and you would be a captain or a major straight off. Difficulty with that, of course, was Barney. Nobody’d ever make an officer of him, and you get a promotion—

ROO dismisses this with an uneasy gesture, and moves to pull on his overcoat.

Well, sort of thing that happens, isn’t it? Mates join up together, thinkin’ they can keep an eye on one another, do their fighting side by side, and then the army separates them. One goes on, other gets left behind, and pretty soon they’re out of touch, and it’s a different war for both of them—

ROO flaps his overcoat irritably, and she humours his impatience.

Oh, knew you’d never let that happen, you and Barney. Why I say that you’ve come through with flyin’ colours. Didn’t bother about being an officer, doesn’t matter. What you’ve done is kept yourself up to the mark as what you are.

She collects his slouch hat from the top of the piano.

Smartest looking private in the Second AIF.

ROO: [dourly] Yeh, well—

He ducks his head to enable her to put the hat on his head and slip the strap under his chin.

—more to it than the look of the uniform.

OLIVE: Even so, one of the things that counts.

She kisses his cheek.

Only got to look at Barney. Way he gets around—

She moves to collect the cup and saucer left by Nancy.

Nancy says that walking down the street with Barney is like bein’ seen out with a khaki bundle—

BARNEY: [entering from the hallway] —tied in the middle with a piece of hayband—go on.

OLIVE: Well, you don’t much care, do you?

She skirts around him, in affectionate appraisal.

There’s a stain on the back of your uniform that’s been there for a week.

She moves off towards the kitchen, with BARNEY calling after her:

BARNEY: A good soldier never looks behind.

An unseen OLIVE responds with a dismissing laugh, and a vaguely irked BARNEY collects a pair of gaiters from some corner.

Does he, Private?

ROO: ’Least, you ought to do something ’bout them gaiters.

BARNEY: Who the hell is gunna notice? [He starts to strap on the gaiters.] All them brass at South Ken do is sit around a fire and figure out their pensions and gratuities.

ROO: Still put in reports.

BARNEY: Well, can’t do much to me. And a bit late now to offer you command of the Pacific Forces.

ROO cocks an eyebrow, but BARNEY is seemingly intent on his gaiters.

Be hard enough, when you’re discharged, to get a decent civvy team together. Make the grade again up North.

ROO: You havin’ a go?

BARNEY: Just pointin’ out. Bloke takes orders from these army pipsqueaks long enough, it can get to be a habit.

Hitherto, ROO’s reaction to cracks about his war record have been flatly routine. It is here that we become aware this attitude conceals a quietly smouldering and dangerous resentment.

ROO: Yeh? Well, you hear this. Once I’m back again up North, I’ll have the fastest and the best team ever packed a cane knife. So good that the likes of you’ll be lucky to get a toehold—and I ain’t forgotten what it’s like to be top ganger, and to ginger up some lazy bastard with an order, either. [Rapping it out] You polish up them boots of yours, and get yourself in some sort of a decent bloody shape.

He strides from the room and stands waiting on the front verandah. BARNEY grins widely, pleased with the reaction to his baiting. He seizes an antimacassar from a nearby chair and puts his foot up on a chair arm to polish his boot. OLIVE appears from the direction of the kitchen, carrying two brown paper bags.

OLIVE: Why the grin?

BARNEY: Just had me head bitten off. First time in a month of Sundees.

He tosses the antimacassar aside, to drag on his overcoat.

OLIVE: Way you go on. Here— [placing one of the brown paper bags nearby] —don’t forget your smoko.

BARNEY: Ham and cheese again, is it?

OLIVE: No, it’s not. It’s bacon sandwiches, and fruit cake.

BARNEY: Talk about cut-lunch commandos.

He grabs the brown paper bag, takes his slouch hat from the piano top to jam it on as he leaves the room, shouting upstairs as he passes:

So long, you!

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