But Williamson is not a caricaturist. He has disturbed a subculture in which the world of private lives and wives has taken a back seat to a preoccupation long since grown to obsessional proportions. In The Club, Jock, Ted and Laurie are locked in mortal combat; Gerry manipulates them; Danny and Geoff are incensed by the process but must live with it. Thus, it is not only a truthful tale about football but a dissertation on politics and a microcosm of the world outside. Moreover, because football is ‘only a game’—and ‘tradition’ and ‘honour’, ‘record books’ and a ‘multi-million dollar turnover’ are involved—the characters are freed from the laconic, diffident, mainly silent image reserved for their family and wives; and throw themselves, boots and all, into self-revelation and aggressive confrontation.

Pre-publicity for The Club when it was about to premiere in Melbourne inevitably emphasized the ‘90,000 dollar recruit’. Consequently, the delayed appearance onstage of Geoff Hayward tended to whet the audience’s appetite—conditioned no doubt by And The Big Men Fly—for a joke: a naïve, hulking yobbo or something of the sort. Williamson, however, spares us any such excess. He gives instead a finely wrought combination of arrogance, uncertainty and appeal, a character who ultimately must make a decision which wins for him the respect of the audience. It is a decision which David Williamson has long since made for himself: that however much you may disagree with a system, however proficient you are at exposing or deflating it, you must—whatever the cost to your pride—join it before you can begin to change it.

Rodney Fisher

Brisbane, 1977

FIRST PRODUCTION

The Club was first performed by the Melbourne Theatre Company at the Russell Street Theatre, Melbourne, on 24 May 1977 with the following cast:

Setting design, Shaun Gurton

Director, Rodney Fisher

CHARACTERS:

GERRY COOPER

TED PARKER

LAURIE HOLDEN

DANNY ROWE

JOCK RILEY

GEOFF HAYWARD

SETTING:

The action of the play takes place in the committee room of a top professional football club. A formal committee table surrounded by chairs is seen towards the back of the stage. Lounge chairs and a coffee table dominate the downstage area. It is in this area that most of the action takes place. Large, framed head-shots of former club champions adorn the walls. A door on the left leads to the general and recreational areas of the club building, while to the right a door leads to a private bar used by committee members.

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?