Hugo Weaving, Web Weaving, Don's Party, David Williamson
 
Hugo Weaving, Don's Party, beard
 

n.  Hugo Weaving ~ Don's Party 

Written by David Williamson
A Kinselas Theatre Company Production 
Mal ~ argumentative, married flirt obsessed with his male shortcomings
Cast (alphabetically): Steve Bisely  Cooley,  Brandon Burke ???, Gia Carides Susan,  Nicholas Eadie Don,  Peter Fisher ???, Deborah Kennedy ???, Julie Nihill  Kath, Lynda Stoner ??? , Geraldine Turner ???, Hugo Weaving Mal,   Bill Young ???
Dir: Graham Blundell     Set Design  Michael Scott-Mitchell
Theatrical run:   October 14th 1988 ~ ?? at the Playhouse, Sydney Opera House
 

Hugo Weaving: Don's Party Plot/Comments:

Originally performed in 1973, David Williamson's play scrutinizes how friendships and marriages change as people grow up: a kind of (good) 70s Thirtysomething set in a world of 'key parties' and surburban swingers.
       Resurrected in 1988, in some ways, Don's Party was a definite period piece. As Hugo Weaving, who played the argumentative Mal commented, "It is a period piece. To see these characters in their costumes is to think  'My God! Did people really look like that in 1969?!' But the issues aren't dated at all. Male-female politics, sexuality, surburbanism, macho role-playing, ockerism, power games --  it's all relevant...it's a play about power, both political and domestic, about sexual repression and obsession, and about dead-end surburbanism, and the fear of it".

 

Hugo Weaving, The Perfectionist From The Perfectionist
 
The play is set on the eve of the national election and a (predominantly) pro-Labour house party, set to celebrate the eve of a 'dead cert' Labour victory. However, unlike the overtly political The Blind Giant is Dancing , Don's Party is far more concerned with the politics of relationships, and especially, the politics of monogamy in marriage (a recurring Williamson theme: see The Perfectionist).
          As each new couple (friends from college days) arrives, the civilised veneer of the party erodes a little more: social gaffes are made; insults are thrown; and the married male characters chase a variety of females ~ usually while their wives either stew in the corner or tolerate their behaviour as a pathetic and unsuccessful attempt at recapturing youth.
 
The two main catalysts for the disintegration of the evening are Mal (Hugo Weaving), who sets out to nobble the two Liberal-voting guests in a fit of drunken sexual rejection, and the coarse, uber-macho Cooley, whose peculiar Neanderthal charms make him irresistible to a certain type of woman. Partners swap (or attempts to do so are made), relationships erode and Mal and Don become increasingly drunk, ending on a wonderful booze n' bullshit climax, where in a session of mutual ego boosting, they very generously offer their wives to each other, while their unimpressed spouses look on. 
Don's Party is a very funny play which works as both social farce and social commentator. 
 
Don's Party Gallery 
Don's Party Interview
Next: Bangkok Hilton
Back: Barlow and Chambers
Next Play:  Taming of the Shrew 
Previous Play: The Perfectionist
Web Weaving
 
 
 

Typical Hugo Weaving Quotes:

 
  • "The Liberals are going to get it up the arse"
  • To Jody: "It's one thing to vote Liberal but another thing to admit it. I think you're quite courageous"
  • "G'day shithead. Where's that bitch of a wife of yours?"    Mack: "I've left her"
  • To Kerry: "You know of course that I would like to have an affair with you, so I'll be frank and just say that. How does that appeal to you?"                                     Kerry: "I'm afraid it doesn't"    "Well that's…er…very frank of you"
  • "My wife. She's the bitch in the hostile stupor over there in the corner"
  • "I didn't come here to have aspersions cast on my masculinity. I came here to admire Susan at close range"
  • To Jody & husband, post-rejection: "The thing that gets me about you people is the way you never think about what you're doing in life…can't you get pregnant in a thirty thousand dollar house? Too cheap and nasty?"
  • "Look you! If you want to contribute to this debate, contribute! If not, piss off!"
  • Winding up Cooley: "He looks rather beautiful when he's angry, don't you think? You can see why we found him irresistible"
  • "Don't be such a cretin!"
  • "Put a hand on a woman's bum you get crippled. Isn't that just too middle class?"
  • To best friend Don: "Look. I don't want you to take this as an insult, fella ~ and what I say I say as a friend ~ but you are a weak turd"


Comments: 

Hugo Weaving, c 1987
 

Hugo Weaving content: 


Ironically, although Mal is the only character described in the stage directions as good looking, he is the least sexually successful of all the male characters, desperately trying to cop off with all the female guests, and being rejected at every turn ~ often for surprising alternatives.
               The main reason for this is his utter belligerence: a psychotherapist, Mal feels the need to compensate, and beat, everybody. His intellectual and political superiority, coupled with his sexual bluntness (in some ways reminiscent of Arcadia's Bernard Nightingale) become an aggressive turn off: as one prospective bed partner puts it, "you have about as much sensitivity as a geriatric wombat".
 
However, this verbal arrogance hides a fragile male ego ~ Mal is obsessed by his conviction that he is unable to get his wife to achieve orgasm because he is packing a small lunchbox (while simultaneously insisting that it isn'tsmall, it's just he thinks it is). 
                 Renowned for the passionate and idealistic socialist political ambitions of his youth, he has compromised them for the sell-out reality of raking the dollars in as the psychological consultant for YUPPIE recruitment; his ever-rising wages always galloping behind an ever-increasing domestic debt. 
          Meanwhile his shotgun marriage is slowly dying; the relationship stuffed full of mutual loathing and failed dreams, while still managing to pop out a new kid every 18 months for his dissatisfied wife to spend exorbitant amounts on.
 
Although this sounds like a typical recipe for the Classic Hugo Weaving Self-Hating Character, Don's Party is predominantly a comedy, and any major moments of angst are avoided, with Mal having many of the funniest moments.
                He is at his best when he is either chasing women (to his disbelief) unsuccessfully; haranguing others for their social-political failings; or spiralling into complete drunken disrepair, obsessing over the health benefits of breakfast cereals and the size of his genitals, giving honest advice to Don that he is a "weak turd" and tight to boot, and then offering him his wife in a session of paralytic "I love you, man" mutual ego-boosting.
Hugo Weaving, Don's Party, poster