Hugo Weaving, The Perfectionist, Peter Carroll, David Williamson
 

n.  Hugo Weaving ~ The Perfectionist

A Sydney Theatre Company production  1982
Erik: laid back, gentle, flirtatious, middle-class Danish Marxist
Cast: Robyn Nevin     Barbara, Peter Carroll    Stuart, Hugo Weaving    Erik,  Diana Davidson     Shirley, Noel Ferrier     Jack
Dir:  Rodney Fisher      Set Design  Shaun Gurton
Wri: David Williamson
Theatrical run:  Premiered on 20th July,  1982 at the Sydney Opera House Play House

Hugo Weaving: The Perfectionist Plot/Comments:

Like Don's Party , this play examines power within relationships and how that power creates inequality, oppression and exploitation. However, The Perfectionist takes a quieter, more  personal route, showing the dangers of trying to create perfection in human relationships.

The play's central characters are successful academic Stuart and his wife Barbara, who has sacrificed her own academic ambitions for domestic life and caring for their three sons. 
         Barbara becomes frustrated at her lack of personal time and identity, hiring a childminder. As this portion of the play is set in uber-PC Denmark, she hires Erik, a "tall, well built, handsome Dane" (Hugo Weaving), who is simultaneously laid back to a fault while also spouting liberal middle class Marxism about how much the individual is repressed by the fascistic patriarchal society. 
           With Erik's tendency to play All of Me on Barbara's piano, drink wine with her and flirt, they inevitably draw closer, although he reluctantly turns down her sexual advances as being dishonest to his political ethics. 
Hugo Weaving, The Perfectionist, Robyn Nevin, David Williamson

The Perfectionist Gallery (large)
Next: The City's Edge
Next Play: Don's Party
Web Weaving
 
 
 

Typical Hugo Weaving Quotes:

  • "The teacher has power over the student, the parent power over the child, the husband has power over the wife ~ everywhere people are told what they must do…any society which results in everyone having to do what they're told isn't very nice"
  • "I read him about the jolly swagman and the billabong, which is quite a strong political statement, by the way…this guy takes a sheep because he's hungry and the police drown him"
  • "If everyone is making love they forget about injustice and the class struggle and revolution…to put it real flatly, to have sex for fun in a world full of poverty and need is not such a smart thing"
  • To Stuart: "When Barbara is here I play romantic tunes on the piano and, yeah, eyes across a crowded room and all that crazy stuff - which is all pretty nice for sure…but then again it's not so honest for someone with my beliefs, right. So I'm sorry or whatever"
  • To Stuart: "Let's say I have eyes, let's say I can see. Stuart you must let her out of her chains"
  • To Barbara: "You think I am going to fall out of love when I see the first wrinkle or something, because if that's your method of thinking then I don't think you really know Erik Larsen"
Comments
  • Production invited to the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, where the production was highly praised by New York critics Clive Barnes and Mel Gussow.
  • Peter Carroll has frequently worked with Hugo Weaving, especially in theatre: e.g. Melba, The Blind Giant is Dancing, Macbeth,  The Madras House and others .  Robyn Nevin later became artistic director of the STC and directed him in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing in 2003. She also had  a small part in the Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions as Counsillor Dillard. Rodney Fisher also directed  Weaving in Melba. See The Usual Suspects for a huge list of regular Weaving co-workers.
  • First David Williamson play. See Don's Party for the next.
  • Quotes from Rodney Fisher.

Meanwhile, Stuart resents Erik's relationship with his wife and kids and the post-feminist lectures he is bombarded with by the slacker Dane: worse, Erik also encourages Barbara to dissolve her wifely responsibilities and finish the PhD she sacrificed to support her exploitive husband's career.
           When the family returns home to Australia, Stuart finds that his quest for the elusive PhD has been in vain, giving up his academic life for a domestic one, while Barbara returns to her career. Always striving for perfection, Stuart reads every available publication on domestic feminist theory, makes a science of healthy eating and drills his sons in manly sports until the family home resembles an army training camp. The role reversal shows how Barbara compromises her family role as she is pushed out by Stuart 's domestic domination, while she simultaneously exploits him.
            The dynamics of the changed family are strained again when Erik visits for an extended holiday, sitting around smoking huge joints, smiling amiably and chatting with the boys. Although his now apathetic presence initially unsettles Barbara, she eventually leaves her family for him. Barbara later urges him to return to his Danish ex-girlfriend and university studies, while she chooses singlehood and independence, before being finally ~ if somewhat reluctantly ~ reconciled with Stuart when he relaxes his quest for personal perfection.
Hugo Weaving, The Perfectionist, David Williamson

The Perfectionist was originally unfinished when "intensive" rehearsals began, with the cast collaborating on their character development and language with Williamson. 
        Rodney Fisher chose to direct the play without the artificial 'realism' of backdrops and props, instead using box-like spaces lit by bright lights. A boldly theatrical representation of film techniques was used: different characters would occupy the same sparse spaces for different scenes, with some 'moving out of focus' without actually leaving the stage, giving the play a "film-like attention to close-up". This also meant that the wide stage of the Sydney Opera House's Playhouse would not swamp the production, while still creating the feel of an intense, emotional character piece, where it "struck a strong emotional chord with its audiences".
Hugo Weaving, c 1986

Hugo Weaving content: 

From the stage notes: Erik speaks in the melodic, modulated voice of Scandinavians who speak English and uses a curiously outdated hip jargon that speaks of too many hours watching American TV…[like] LPs of Cheech and Chong.

Erik  is laid-back, gentle, and enquiring. He is politically rabid,  yet is utterly naïve in his middle-class Marxism, 
        Although we see the once idealistic Erik sliding into apathy, he is there as a catalyst rather than an emotional  focus of the play. 
                  Erik shares a typical Hugo Weaving ingredient of having high ideals dimmed and crushed by reality and having his faith in others rejected (see also For Love Alone, Don's Party , The Blind Giant is Dancing ).