FEATURE Riverside Theatres presents Griffin Theatre Company DIVING FOR PEARLS by Katherine Thomson Katherine Thomson’s story about aspiration and reinvention is one of the great Australian plays. Set in Wollongong during the economic rationalism of the ‘80s, Diving for Pearls remains startlingly relevant – the political decisions of that time planted the seeds of divide we continue to witness between those with opportunity, and those without. With the town she grew up in changing all around her, Barbara is determined to change with it. Dreaming of a way out, she sets her sights on landing a job at one of the new resorts popping up all over town. Meanwhile, her partner Den is having change forced upon him. The steelworks he’s worked at his whole life has been sold and Den must reinvent himself to survive. The arrival of Barbara’s daughter, Verge, just might be the thing that tips Barbara and Den over the edge. Helpmann Award-winning actor, the great Ursula Yovich stars as Barbara, a character as significant in the history of Australian theatre as Willy Loman is in America’s. Wednesday 8 November 7.30pm Thursday 9 November 7.30pm Friday 10 November 11am and 7.30pm Saturday 11 November 2.15pm and 7.30pm Adults $52, Concession $47, 30&U $38, Groups 10+ $47 Riverside Members Adults $42, Concession $37, 30&U $28 Transaction fees apply – see page 32 for details to write a piece of theatre about micro- economic reform. He took in the news and replied, “Well all I can say is that I’ve always preferred a comedy myself.” We were in the Hawke-Keating years: some inspiring and overdue economic reform, which also opened the flood-gates for the selling off of state-owned assets. As I began to write the play, BHP re- committed to Wollongong but over in Fremantle, the people of W.A lost its State Engineering Works (home of the stump jump plough) to privatisation. All was not lost, the land was cleaned up and they gained an apartment development with water views. Of course, we know now that this was the beginning of the privatisation decades, and while some sell-offs of government assets have seemed timely and logical, it becomes increasingly obvious that bankers rather than citizenry are the beneficiaries. There was a time when child-care was the province of local government, the profits if there were any were returned to council; when the concept ‘private prisons’ seemed an absurdity; when there was a structure called the Commonwealth Employment Service which was tasked with finding jobs for people. Now the unemployed are put into the hands of private companies making their fortunes from this endeavour, over with which the unemployed increasingly seem to have scant redress. So Diving for Pearls opened at the MTC in 1991, directed by Ros Horin who had shepherded the play through Playworks which had been set up by Ros in 1985 to develop women playwrights. I had chosen Paul Thompson (then at AFTRS) as my dramaturg for the development, he also led me to Elvis Costello’s song Shipbuiding which is where I found the title. The relationship with Paul Thompson then continued into other plays commissioned by Robyn Nevin in her various Artistic Director positions, and indeed continues to this day as co-writers on a feature film project. Diving for Pearls has attracted wonderful directors, actors and audiences over the years. It’s been a privilege to talk to students in schools and universities who are studying the play, I’m proud of having made those curriculum lists over the years. Perhaps I should have sold some essays on the side. I wish the play wasn’t still relevant, but it seems it is. I’ll finish this off with a quote I came across recently from The Conversation, ‘Victorian budget splash raises questions about privatisation’ by David Hayward (May 3 2017): It is quite striking that in the case of Victoria – Australia’s most ardent privatiser over the last three decades – there is no evidence of user charges falling, or government spending abating. This is what you’d expect were the privatisers to deliver the promised efficiency gains. In the case of public transport we know that the state is now spending more today than was the case under inefficient public ownership. The one difference is that these days the private owners of Victoria’s infrastructure tend to be overseas owned, and in the case of energy, increasingly from China. The metropolitan trains are run by a company from Hong Kong, the trams, one fifth of the metropolitan buses and the massive desalination plant by firms from France, and about 40% of prisons by an American corrections company. Profits from taxpayer payments are repatriated overseas in a nice little twist that sees privatisation down under contributing to globalisation on top. Enjoy the show! LEARN MORE GRIFFIN THEATRE COMPANY: DIVING FOR PEARLS PHOTO BY BRETT BOARDMAN 18