Family Values

Lee Lewis directs one of David Williamson’s final plays before his impending retirement and hits the nail on the head when she writes, “This play is not perfect but it is necessary,” in the program. Family Values is a sincere call to arms regarding Australia’s narrowing democracy and authoritarian and racist border policies. 

Roger (Andrew McFarlane), a retired federal judge and social conservative, is turning 70. He wants to have a birthday lunch with his wife, Sue (Belinda Giblin), his daughters Lisa (Danielle King) and Emily (Ella Prince), and his son Michael (Jamie Oxenbould). Much like many contemporary family dramas or farces, the family is not a neat unit but a diverse group with a history of small traumas and non-traditional relationships. Lisa is a pro-refugee greenie, Emily is a Border Force officer, and Michael is a recent Hillsong devotee who has let Jesus deep, deep into his heart. Emily brings her new fiance Noeline (Bishanyia Vincent) who is a bullish Border Force commander and Lisa arrives with Saba (Sabryna Walters), an Iranian refugee who came to the mainland under the ‘controversial’ Medevac laws and has escaped the holding centre to avoid being sent back to Nauru. 

McFarlane is uppity and straight-backed, the unsettling image of a ‘self-respecting’ No-Voter from Pymble. His slow pace and unwillingness to adapt hits close to home. Giblin is fabulous. She is someone who listens, thinks, and acts based on new information, but still has a strong and full sense of self. Oxenbould is vastly funny as the whiny, happy-clappy brother. Walters stokes a sense of deep sympathy with her impassioned dream — to have what she sees in front of her; a family, a home, a future. 

The character list might mirror a weeknight TV panel where 'opposing views' are offered 'equal weight' for the satisfaction of a democratic viewership (never mind that climate denier Malcolm Roberts was given equal footing to scientist Brian Cox, or that the ABC censored a strident feminist episode of Q&A that offered actually diverse opinions). Some of the show’s plotline is predictable. We can see from the get-go that Lisa will combat her younger sister Emily’s views on the importance of “saving people from drowning at sea” and that Roger’s social conservatism will be challenged by Saba’s mistreatment at the hands of Australian law. What we don’t quite predict is the honesty of the setting. What we don’t predict is Williamson crafting a potential way that one person might be saved, really showing on stage a near-possibility that exists if high profile figures start risking their own hides for the those of Australia’s tortured asylum seekers. This is especially significant in a political climate where grassroots movements are being criminalised by State and Federal governments.

Williamson’s newest play is not allegorical but direct, artistically imperfect but necessary. Perhaps there are cleverer, more ‘refined’ ways to deal with these issues on stage. But if an audience is offered the chance to engage intimately with the pitfalls of conservative ideology, and then come out with some semblance of hope and a sketch for a less humiliating future for vulnerable Others, the night spent at the theatre is a night well spent.