The Matilda Waltz

Shortlisted by National Playwrights 2013 for 2014.

Review

“This script is unapologetically epic. It sweeps through decades, looking at Australian identity at home and abroad and discussing what it takes to make someone come home.

Using Banjo Paterson’s poems as a starting point and link throughout the play works well; it brings a lyricism to the play. So too does the theatricality introduced with the paper airplanes, revealed at the end to be Australian birds sweeping through the play.”

- National Playwrights
 

Excerpt

(A figure in the background is BANJO PATERSON. He is always onstage, sometimes in a scene and when not, quietly watching. BANJO moves forward and gives a piece of paper to DRYSDALE, who is seated at his easel. The image of one of DRYSDALES’ paintings appears on the wall. DRYSDALE reads, occasionally casting withering looks at BANJO.)

Prologue (in the now of theatre)

BANJO

What do you think?

DRYSDALE (giving the paper back)

And your point is Barty?

BANJO

I thought there might be a poem in it. What are you doing, Russell?

DRYSDALE

What I was always doing.

BANJO (examining Drysdale’s work)

Looks sort of lonely. Isolated. Big. Empty.

DRYSDALE

Hmm. I see it as a liberation from the civilised world.

BANJO

You just made that up.

DRYSDALE

You reckon?

BANJO

Or you’re quoting one of your art critics.
(on a notepad he begins to write)
“… this new land apart, beyond
The hard old world grown fierce and fond
And bound by precedent and bond,
May we read the riddle right, and give
New hope to those who dimly see
That all things yet shall be for good,
And teach the world at length to be
One vast united brotherhood. “
 

DRYSDALE

Yes. Needs more though.

BANJO

Your painting or my poem?

DRYSDALE

Your poem. Nothing wrong with my painting.

BANJO

You should respect your elders.

DRYSDALE

Finish your poem.

BANJO

“So may it be! and he who sings
In accents hopeful, clear, and strong,
The glories which that future brings
Shall sing, indeed, a wondrous song.”
 

DRYSDALE

Good. I like it. Though – there’s nothing in it about waltzing Germans. Or Matildas.

(BANJO smiles, folds up the paper into an aeroplane and sends it flying)