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Don's Party
Williamson, David, Don's Party
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
2 people are currently reading
38 people want to read
About the author
David Williamson
41 books27 followersDavid Williamson AO gained a Bachelor of Engineering at Monash University in 1965 before briefly working as a design engineer at General Motors Holden and in 1966 he began lecturing in thermodynamics and social psychology at Swinburne Technical College.
Mr Williamson began writing and performing plays in 1968 with La Mama Theatre Company.
The Removalists and Don's Party established him as Australia's best-known playwright and established his reputation overseas on the stages of Europe and America.
His success in films is notable, having written the screenplays to Don's Party (1976), The Club (1980) and Phar Lap (1982), as well as collaborating with Peter Weir to make Gallipoli (1980) and The Year of Living Dangerously (1982). Over 30 years, his work has encompassed more than 36 plays and numerous films and television productions.
Mr Williamson has won four AFI awards and the Australian Writers' Guild AWGIE award 11 times. He has received honorary doctorates of Literature from the University of Sydney (1988), Monash University (1990), Swinburne University of Technology (1996) and the University of Queensland (2004).
Mr Williamson began writing and performing plays in 1968 with La Mama Theatre Company.
The Removalists and Don's Party established him as Australia's best-known playwright and established his reputation overseas on the stages of Europe and America.
His success in films is notable, having written the screenplays to Don's Party (1976), The Club (1980) and Phar Lap (1982), as well as collaborating with Peter Weir to make Gallipoli (1980) and The Year of Living Dangerously (1982). Over 30 years, his work has encompassed more than 36 plays and numerous films and television productions.
Mr Williamson has won four AFI awards and the Australian Writers' Guild AWGIE award 11 times. He has received honorary doctorates of Literature from the University of Sydney (1988), Monash University (1990), Swinburne University of Technology (1996) and the University of Queensland (2004).
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
December 13, 2023
Williamson is in his element in this brash, cheeky satire of morals and aspirations, but I’m still not a huge fan of his plays. An interesting read but hardly enthralling.
October 26, 2023
staying at a 3 star for now - read for uni.
February 26, 2020
Interesting read. Very much preserves a slice of the time it was written in - and actually there was a lot here that's still very much with us. There's a lot of casual misogyny in the language of this play but there's also some interesting stuff going on here with the women slyly undercutting and puncturing the men's egos and images of themselves.
July 24, 2022
Things haven't changed much. 😆
I really liked how lay-it-all-out-there this was, especially because it builds an effectively genuine picture of your dumb friends being dumb the drunker they get. Yes, broader social commentary and alla that, especially pre-AIDS, and before married women had much opportunity at all. Plus, great vocab for an American to pick up. Of course from the lawyer.
I really liked how lay-it-all-out-there this was, especially because it builds an effectively genuine picture of your dumb friends being dumb the drunker they get. Yes, broader social commentary and alla that, especially pre-AIDS, and before married women had much opportunity at all. Plus, great vocab for an American to pick up. Of course from the lawyer.
July 16, 2011
I admit it, I love David Williamson's work. What a great time capsule of the 1970s. I witnessed all of this first hand at my parents' dinners parties. Hilarious. Emerald City is even better.
August 12, 2022
average
August 5, 2024
what do a socialist, a fascist, a racist, a progressive, an artist, a dentist, a lawyer, an environmentalist, a liberal, a left winger, and a communist have in common ?
they all hate women !
they all hate women !
August 12, 2025
i would sooner staple my eyeballs permanently shut then ever feast my eyes on the string of words that make up this misogynistic play ever again.
June 13, 2022
Elections in the 60s
12 June 2022
For an English teacher who loved to study plays, particularly Australian plays, I am rather surprised that this was not on his list of books to study. Then again, there are an awful lot of books out there, and he certainly wanted to stick to some sort of theme, so there are probably a lot of books that he would have wanted to do but couldn’t simply due to time restraints. Then again, when I come to think about it, it wasn’t just Australian plays, in fact I think we only looked at one play, and that was about the generational gap in the 60s.
Anyway, this is probably one of the more famous plays that have come out of Australia, this and The Club. I’ve known about it for most of my life, but I have only just recently got my hands on it to read it, and I decided to read it during the count of the 2022 Federal Election. Needless to say I ended up getting somewhat distracted, and like the characters in the play, ended up having a little bit too much to drink, so I left it for a couple of weeks and decided to give it another go.
So, the play is set in a house in suburban Australia – Lower Plenty in Melbourne to be precise – and is set on the night of the 1969 Australian Election. The background is that the ruling Liberal (conservative) Party had pretty much been in power for yonks, and it was looking like this might be the election that results in them getting kicked out of office. Anyway, Don and his mates, ardent Labor supporters, all come around for an election-eve party. Spoiler alert – Labor doesn’t win, but you could say that the Liberal victory is somewhat phyric and well.
The thing with this play is that there is a suggestion that it isn’t political in nature, it is just that the election is playing in the background as members of the middle class simply discuss their lives. However I would sort of disagree with that, and it all comes down to a line spoken by Jody, a Liberal supporter who happened to land up at this party. Basically, she says that she simply cannot vote for Labor because they represent the working class, and doesn’t seem to see any connection between herself, a university-educated individual, and the crass working class.
This is the key to the play because the thing is that all of Don’s friends are Labor voters, but none of them are working class. In fact, the crudest character in the play, Cooley, is actually a lawyer. Pretty much everybody in the play are university educated and work in white-collar professions (which I would include Don, who happens to be a teacher). This is not to create a contrast with the two Liberal voters, Simon and Jody, but rather to demonstrate that one does not need to be working class to vote Labor, one simply needs to be progressive.
Mind you, what is surprising is that many of the issues that are discussed in the play seem to be exactly the same issues that are faced today. Okay, since the play we have had three Labor governments, but the issues with the Liberals seem to be pretty much the same. What is interesting though is that in 1969 Whitlam, the leader of the Labor party, was courting the white middle-class progressive, whereas in the last couple of elections, Scott Morrison, the leader of the Liberal Party, was courting the blue-collar worker. In fact, this seems to be the case with the conservative parties in the US and the UK as well (though I’m not sure how progressive the Democrats are – in my mind they just aren’t as conservative as the Republicans).
Yet even in this latest election, there is still this belief that one cannot vote for Labor because they represent the workers, which is probably why Morrison was trying to reach out to the workers, namely to destroy their base. Then again, we also have the idea of wedge politics, but that is another huge rabbit hole to descend. The thing with the most recent election was that a number of independents appeared, who were quite well funded as well, who ran on a progressive ‘we aren’t Labor’ platform (we do have the Greens, and while they generally pick up around 10-12% of the vote, many people see them as being a little too left-wing).
The thing with this play is that it is quite surprising to see how much hasn’t changed over the years. Okay, Federal Parliament has become a lot more splintered with regard to minor parties and independents, but the issues are pretty much the same. However, you could say that what this play is recording is the transition that was occurring within Australia, and in part within the Labor party, that is that it was broadening its church, much in the same way the Libs had done earlier, to attempt to capture a much larger portion of the progressive population. Australia had become a lot more educated, and in turn a lot more progressive, something that the Libs were not able to capitalise on.
Mind you, a lot more went on after this, but that is another story for another time.
12 June 2022
For an English teacher who loved to study plays, particularly Australian plays, I am rather surprised that this was not on his list of books to study. Then again, there are an awful lot of books out there, and he certainly wanted to stick to some sort of theme, so there are probably a lot of books that he would have wanted to do but couldn’t simply due to time restraints. Then again, when I come to think about it, it wasn’t just Australian plays, in fact I think we only looked at one play, and that was about the generational gap in the 60s.
Anyway, this is probably one of the more famous plays that have come out of Australia, this and The Club. I’ve known about it for most of my life, but I have only just recently got my hands on it to read it, and I decided to read it during the count of the 2022 Federal Election. Needless to say I ended up getting somewhat distracted, and like the characters in the play, ended up having a little bit too much to drink, so I left it for a couple of weeks and decided to give it another go.
So, the play is set in a house in suburban Australia – Lower Plenty in Melbourne to be precise – and is set on the night of the 1969 Australian Election. The background is that the ruling Liberal (conservative) Party had pretty much been in power for yonks, and it was looking like this might be the election that results in them getting kicked out of office. Anyway, Don and his mates, ardent Labor supporters, all come around for an election-eve party. Spoiler alert – Labor doesn’t win, but you could say that the Liberal victory is somewhat phyric and well.
The thing with this play is that there is a suggestion that it isn’t political in nature, it is just that the election is playing in the background as members of the middle class simply discuss their lives. However I would sort of disagree with that, and it all comes down to a line spoken by Jody, a Liberal supporter who happened to land up at this party. Basically, she says that she simply cannot vote for Labor because they represent the working class, and doesn’t seem to see any connection between herself, a university-educated individual, and the crass working class.
This is the key to the play because the thing is that all of Don’s friends are Labor voters, but none of them are working class. In fact, the crudest character in the play, Cooley, is actually a lawyer. Pretty much everybody in the play are university educated and work in white-collar professions (which I would include Don, who happens to be a teacher). This is not to create a contrast with the two Liberal voters, Simon and Jody, but rather to demonstrate that one does not need to be working class to vote Labor, one simply needs to be progressive.
Mind you, what is surprising is that many of the issues that are discussed in the play seem to be exactly the same issues that are faced today. Okay, since the play we have had three Labor governments, but the issues with the Liberals seem to be pretty much the same. What is interesting though is that in 1969 Whitlam, the leader of the Labor party, was courting the white middle-class progressive, whereas in the last couple of elections, Scott Morrison, the leader of the Liberal Party, was courting the blue-collar worker. In fact, this seems to be the case with the conservative parties in the US and the UK as well (though I’m not sure how progressive the Democrats are – in my mind they just aren’t as conservative as the Republicans).
Yet even in this latest election, there is still this belief that one cannot vote for Labor because they represent the workers, which is probably why Morrison was trying to reach out to the workers, namely to destroy their base. Then again, we also have the idea of wedge politics, but that is another huge rabbit hole to descend. The thing with the most recent election was that a number of independents appeared, who were quite well funded as well, who ran on a progressive ‘we aren’t Labor’ platform (we do have the Greens, and while they generally pick up around 10-12% of the vote, many people see them as being a little too left-wing).
The thing with this play is that it is quite surprising to see how much hasn’t changed over the years. Okay, Federal Parliament has become a lot more splintered with regard to minor parties and independents, but the issues are pretty much the same. However, you could say that what this play is recording is the transition that was occurring within Australia, and in part within the Labor party, that is that it was broadening its church, much in the same way the Libs had done earlier, to attempt to capture a much larger portion of the progressive population. Australia had become a lot more educated, and in turn a lot more progressive, something that the Libs were not able to capitalise on.
Mind you, a lot more went on after this, but that is another story for another time.
June 13, 2024
Even less of a fan of men after this
August 7, 2024
annoyed me but i guess that's the point so yay
August 9, 2025
I too would be struck by my harrowing mortality and the emptiness of my life if I threw an election party and the liberals won
August 12, 2025
discussed this in lit class and my teacher said the more homophobic and hyper-masculine a man presents himself, the gayer he is. and she ate.
August 13, 2025
hilarious irony. aged well
August 14, 2025
Swingers Propaganda
August 20, 2025
Read for uni - can’t be bothered reviewing it because I’ve done enough analysis in class, but I will say that it’s pretty funny. An enjoyable satire if you know what you’re in for and if you can laugh at political opinions and interesting morals.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews