'I'm terrified': Offspring creator contemplates next project

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

Advertisement

This was published 4 years ago

'I'm terrified': Offspring creator contemplates next project

By Linda Morris

Debra Oswald admits to being genuinely terrified. The author, playwright, and creator of the successful television series Offspring usually prefers to sit at home in her "Ugg boots and type up stuff for other, better-looking people to say on a screen or a stage".

This time Oswald will fly solo when she debuts her one-woman show Is There Something Wrong With That Lady? at the Griffin Theatre next year, part of the theatre's 2020 program line-up announced on Sunday.

Australian author and playwright Debra Oswald will debut her one-woman show at the Griffin Theatre.

Australian author and playwright Debra Oswald will debut her one-woman show at the Griffin Theatre. Credit: Steven Siewert

"In television and theatre, you write so much stuff that never gets made, never reaches an audience, which can be heart-breaking, so there’s something intoxicating about just jumping up on stage and telling a story live, hearing people respond to it right then and there," she says.

"My partner, Richard Glover, jokes that this is my 'late-onset stand-up career'. But I hasten to add, I’m not attempting stand-up-comedy-level funny. A one-person show can be a mixture of funny and serious and whatever else would be juicy, as long as it's not boring."

On the 50th birthday of the Stables, Griffin's Darlinghurst home, the theatre company renowned for its championing of new Australian writing will present five plays directed by three women, two by its artistic director Lee Lewis, including the season opener, David Williamson's Family Values.

Lee Lewis (right), artistic director of Griffin Theatre, and Shari Sebbens, who makes her directorial debut in 2020.

Lee Lewis (right), artistic director of Griffin Theatre, and Shari Sebbens, who makes her directorial debut in 2020.Credit: Steven Siewert

Shari Sebbens directs Dubs Yunupingu and Aleks Mikic in Mark Rogers' Superheroes, winner of the 2019 Griffin Award and the 2019 Patrick White Award, while Nadia Tass tackles a revival of the sharp-fangedWicked Sisters, which looks at ageing, survival, ambition, adultery, blackmail and murder.

The feminist play by Alma De Groen was way ahead of its time, Lewis says, and it was about time "she was welcomed back to the Stables and acknowledged for having the courage of her female convictions in a time when that would not help your theatre career".

The all-female director line-up was not deliberate.

Advertisement

"The idea is always to find the right director for the play and the playwright," Lewis says. "This year those directors, Shari and Nadia, happened to be female . . . so we have a female line-up of directors. I didn't do it on purpose, but I do like it for next year. The year after it may be completely different. It always should depend on the plays."

Loading

For 2020 Griffin has scheduled a special program of readings of landmark works, podcasts, and conversations about how to make the Stables "fit for the next 50", Lewis said.

Two of Oswald's plays, Mr Bailey’s Minder and The Peach Season, were staged at the Griffin in 2004 and 2006 respectively.

"The [one-woman] show is me examining my origin story, my neuroses, the glorious and the toxic components of a writer's life, trying to work out the motivations that drive some of us to do it," Oswald says.

"I’m genuinely asking the audience to help me work [out] what the hell I should do next. It also includes my spectacular childhood hypochondria, my dogged mission to lose my virginity, my mother-in-law's wish to be buried with 25 of her teddy bears, and other tales. And yes, I’m terrified! I can't believe I'm doing it!"

Lewis says Oswald has a voice like no other. "An honour to have her in the house."

Most Viewed in Culture

Loading