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Juggler's Three
Unknown Binding
Published January 1, 1971
About the author
David Williamson
231 books5 followersThere is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.
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November 29, 2019
Homecoming from War
29 November 2019 – Avoca
This play actually turned out to be rather funny, particularly around the middle where some rather unexpected things started happening. Okay, from the get-go I was expecting it to be rather serious, and then all of a sudden, as we reached the climax, some rather unexpected things happened that left me in absolute hysterics. Of course, I’m not going to say any more than that because, well, that would eventually spoil the whole play for you. It’s sort of like when comedy films advertise themselves, and they do so by showing you all of the funny bits in the film, and you then realise that, well, they were the only parts of the film that were funny.
Anyway, this play is about this young man, Graham, who has just returned from Vietnam. He arrives home to discover, well, there happens to be another man in the house, and that his wife is nowhere to be seen. It comes clear pretty quickly that she has basically left to stay at an unknown motel for the night because, well, they thought that it was best for her. Mind you, as was the case with Williamson’s other play, things aren’t quite as clear cut as Keren (Graham’s wife) simply shacking up with another man. I guess this is one of those things about such plays, that things don’t always seem as straight forward as they are supposed to be.
You could say that this play explores the nature of the home coming, and how many people at the time (the play was set in the early 70s) would return from war to suddenly discover that their entire world had been upended. There is in fact a second character, Dennis, who has also returned (he formed a friendship with Graham), and a similar thing happened, though it was sort of the situation that he rocked up with a ‘honey, I’m home’ only to discover that his wife was in bed with some other fellow. Of course, he thus takes the kid and leaves.
The interesting thing is that with the more recent wars, particularly Iraq, we are also discovering that the nature of the family was being broken up with husbands, and wives, being away for long periods of times. There have been a few movies that have explored the idea that war can actually be quite destructive, at least with relationships, on the home front. The funny thing is that such things never seemed to have been explored when it came to World War II (though of course we have a number of writers, such as Hemingway that would explore the psychological scars that were left by the First World War. Mind you, my grandfather didn’t get married until after he returned from war, or at least this was the case with my paternal grandfather, my maternal grandfather did go to war as a married man.
The other rather interesting thing is that Graham was an artist, or at least a literary artist who was into poems and all that, and like a lot of men at the time, went on to do post-graduate study simply to avoid having to go to war, particularly if their number came up. Then again, I would suspect that a post-graduate degree would take, at most, eight years, and the Vietnam War certainly went on for longer than that. Yet war changes people, especially wars like Vietnam, which weren’t as clear cut as other wars – suddenly we are fighting against a guerrilla force, and no matter what we do, they always seem to be able to get the better of us (the same happened in Iraq, and is ongoing in Afghanistan).
Sometimes though it can be a little difficult ending such plays, though one of the ideas is that the marriage wasn’t always going to be the best. It seemed that Graham was a rather domineering, and manipulative, individual, that sort of creeped Keren out. However, once he was taken out of the picture, it gave Keren the opportunity to, well, leave, or at least start up a relationship with somebody else. Then again, as I indicated previously, things didn’t necessarily end up as clear cut as one would expect.
29 November 2019 – Avoca
This play actually turned out to be rather funny, particularly around the middle where some rather unexpected things started happening. Okay, from the get-go I was expecting it to be rather serious, and then all of a sudden, as we reached the climax, some rather unexpected things happened that left me in absolute hysterics. Of course, I’m not going to say any more than that because, well, that would eventually spoil the whole play for you. It’s sort of like when comedy films advertise themselves, and they do so by showing you all of the funny bits in the film, and you then realise that, well, they were the only parts of the film that were funny.
Anyway, this play is about this young man, Graham, who has just returned from Vietnam. He arrives home to discover, well, there happens to be another man in the house, and that his wife is nowhere to be seen. It comes clear pretty quickly that she has basically left to stay at an unknown motel for the night because, well, they thought that it was best for her. Mind you, as was the case with Williamson’s other play, things aren’t quite as clear cut as Keren (Graham’s wife) simply shacking up with another man. I guess this is one of those things about such plays, that things don’t always seem as straight forward as they are supposed to be.
You could say that this play explores the nature of the home coming, and how many people at the time (the play was set in the early 70s) would return from war to suddenly discover that their entire world had been upended. There is in fact a second character, Dennis, who has also returned (he formed a friendship with Graham), and a similar thing happened, though it was sort of the situation that he rocked up with a ‘honey, I’m home’ only to discover that his wife was in bed with some other fellow. Of course, he thus takes the kid and leaves.
The interesting thing is that with the more recent wars, particularly Iraq, we are also discovering that the nature of the family was being broken up with husbands, and wives, being away for long periods of times. There have been a few movies that have explored the idea that war can actually be quite destructive, at least with relationships, on the home front. The funny thing is that such things never seemed to have been explored when it came to World War II (though of course we have a number of writers, such as Hemingway that would explore the psychological scars that were left by the First World War. Mind you, my grandfather didn’t get married until after he returned from war, or at least this was the case with my paternal grandfather, my maternal grandfather did go to war as a married man.
The other rather interesting thing is that Graham was an artist, or at least a literary artist who was into poems and all that, and like a lot of men at the time, went on to do post-graduate study simply to avoid having to go to war, particularly if their number came up. Then again, I would suspect that a post-graduate degree would take, at most, eight years, and the Vietnam War certainly went on for longer than that. Yet war changes people, especially wars like Vietnam, which weren’t as clear cut as other wars – suddenly we are fighting against a guerrilla force, and no matter what we do, they always seem to be able to get the better of us (the same happened in Iraq, and is ongoing in Afghanistan).
Sometimes though it can be a little difficult ending such plays, though one of the ideas is that the marriage wasn’t always going to be the best. It seemed that Graham was a rather domineering, and manipulative, individual, that sort of creeped Keren out. However, once he was taken out of the picture, it gave Keren the opportunity to, well, leave, or at least start up a relationship with somebody else. Then again, as I indicated previously, things didn’t necessarily end up as clear cut as one would expect.
Displaying 1 of 1 review