Playwright Joanna Murray-Smith On Seeing The Funny Side Of Life

When I speak to Melbourne-based playwright Joanna Murray-Smith about her latest play, Three Little Words, the city's annual International Comedy Festival is in full swing. But while thousands of Melburnians crowd into venues to catch their favourite comedians, Murray-Smith will be steering clear. "I don't like stand-up at all. I can't stand it, I can't bear going to it," she candidly shares. "Although I must admit, I do find that weird, as I love funny things. Perhaps it's something about chasing after a laugh that makes me feel so uncomfortable? Perhaps I recognise something of myself in the poor comedian standing up there? I think that's why I stay well away from it."

While she may baulk at the idea of being a punter, Murray-Smith does indeed share an affinity with the stand-up comedians she's keen to avoid. Much like the elite comic talents who converge on Melbourne each year, she is a seasoned hand at conjuring humorous moments on stage.

But that's not to say her oeuvre could be easily classified as comedy. In fact, pigeonholing Murray-Smith's canon is quite a head-scratcher. At a glance, her prolific output of stage works - more than 20 to date - reveals a keen instinct for both the comical and a far darker spectrum of storytelling. From Bombshells, a virtuosic collection of scintillating monologues exploring the female psyche, to The Gift, a quietly sinister drama about the obligation of parenthood, and most recently Switzerland, an imagined pseudo-biopic about the final days of author Patricia Highsmith, Murray-Smith's texts hopscotch between a range of competing theatrical tonalities.

A case in point, Murray-Smith's new play for Melbourne Theatre Company, Three Little Words, is an anti-romantic comedy of manners about the breakdown of a marriage, set against the backdrop of a contemporary, cosmopolitan milieu. When compared shoulder to shoulder with MTC's last Murray-Smith outing, its 2015 production of the tense psychological thriller Switzerland, the thematic gulf between these two plays seems to confirm the restlessness in Murray-Smith's writing.

"As a species, we have an innate ability to see the funny side of most situations, even if that humour is black."

But, while it may appear that this capricious variety is a deliberate trademark, the shifts in Murray-Smith's dramatic panorama are far from tactical, she insists: "I think it's natural to want to mix it up, but I'm never self-conscious about it. I think it's how the brain works, or how my brain works at least; once you've expended one type of creative energy there is a natural reflex to engage with an entirely new type of creative energy." In fact, Murray-Smith sees her plays as sharing more similarities than differences. "Although a synopsis of Three Little Words might make it sound like the polar opposite of Switzerland, for example, they're actually not that different when you look at what's going on under the surface," she explains. "Switzerland was a serious idea that was surprisingly funny, and Three Little Words is a funny idea which is surprisingly serious, and that is a dynamic I find myself returning to again and again - this mix of dark influences with a hefty dose of comedy."

The trick to achieving this elastic tether between the earnest and the amusing is not over thinking it, Murray-Smiths says: "Comedy asserts itself very naturally. I'm very distrustful of plays which have no humour, or anything that has no humour for that matter, because I think you're short-changing the truth. As a species, we have an innate ability to see the funny side of most situations, even if that humour is black."

Her skill at striking a balance between darkness and levity has proven highly rewarding for Murray-Smith. She ranks amongst the most presented living playwrights in the country, and overseas her popularity is almost peerless amongst those Australian dramatists whose work is staged internationally - for instance, her most successful play, Honour, has been translated into more than 30 languages.

One possible reason Murray-Smith's plays have an edge on the world stage, compared to other lauded Aussie playwrights such as Michael Gow or David Williamson, is the lack of overt Australiana in her storytelling. "I've always preferred writing a kind of heightened world, that in a way derives its theatricality from the fact that it's not placed in a particular location," she notes. "I've always felt it important to avoid locating my characters somewhere that might make an audience feel that the story doesn't belong to them. I want my plays to belong to the audience that is watching them, wherever they happen to be."

While her narratives may boast an impressive level of flexibility, navigating both comedy and tragedy across borders and cultural barriers, one consistency in many of Murray-Smith's plays is the privileged socio-economic backgrounds of her characters. It's an idee fixe that has come under fire from some commentators, critical of the way these bourgeois stereotypes might reinforce certain notions of social elitism in theatre. However, Murray-Smith believes these characterisations are an important part of what makes her texts globally accessible. "The kinds of people I write about, who are essentially articulate, educated, middle-class characters, are people that exist in one guise or another all over the world. And for that reason, the kind of moral quandaries and predicaments that face my characters have a very international appeal," she points out. "I want my plays to resonate as fluently in Tokyo or Beijing as they do in New York or London or Melbourne."

Of course, a piece of theatre's ability to communicate is only partly the responsibility of the playwright. A director can make or break a play's connection to an audience, so it's telling that the premiere production of Three Little Words has been entrusted to Sarah Goodes, who helmed the highly acclaimed Australian premiere of Switzerland. What makes Goodes and Murray-Smith's partnership so successful? "Sarah is completely unthreatened. She's absolutely rock-steady in her own creativity," Murray-Smith answers. "It means we can have a very robust and open discussion and even disagreements about things, as both of us know that actually the best results are going to come out of that kind of push and pull of ideas, rather than some slavish agreement to just grin and bear it when creative choices are questioned. She's also an incredible listener - she's very sensitive and she's not in it to serve her own ego. She's in it to serve the text, which is an increasingly rare gift these days."

Melbourne Theatre Company presents Three Little Words at the Southbank Theatre.