By Hannah Story
Picture yourself sitting in a cavernous wine cellar. The walls are cut into sandstone. On one hangs portraits of unfamiliar faces, although you think you might recognise a few. There’s David Williamson. There’s Kate Mulvany. Is that what Tennessee Williams looked like?
Leaning against the bar (there’s a well-stocked bar, a bartender in a vest at the ready) is an actor – or perhaps a writer or a comedian. You’re seated at a table of 10 – there are six in all, the tables laid out just so. You’ve already had a few courses of French cuisine; it’s almost time for dessert.
Wendy Beckett in her Glebe restaurant, aptly named Beckett’s.Credit: Janie Barrett
As other people shuffle their chairs to see around sandstone columns, you lean back, glass of wine in hand (it’s a yummy drop), and the room hushes, as the actor opens their mouth to speak.
This is Wendy Beckett’s series of theatre vignette events, which have featured the likes of Heartbreak High’s Thomas Weatherall performing scenes from his debut play Blue and Heather Mitchell performing a section of Suzie Miller’s play about Ruth Bader Ginsberg, RBG: Of Many, One.
Heather Mitchell starred as Ruth Bader Ginsberg in Suzie Miller’s RBG: Of Many, One.
Playwright and director Beckett hosts these intimate events at her restaurant, aptly named Beckett’s, in Sydney’s Glebe.
“I cherry-pick the best shows in town,” Beckett explains. “You get a taste for what the play was like.”
She hopes that these vignettes could help a play to have a second life – for example, if an interstate producer saw it and offered to help mount the work in another city.
“It’s really about bringing people together so that people get to see Australian work and also meet the people that might be able to bring their work to another audience,” says Beckett.
Weatherall performed a sample of Blue in November 2022, before its Belvoir premiere season this year. Beckett says her event encouraged ticket sales. “Many of the people that were at that dinner were there [at Belvoir],” she says.
Thomas Weatherall performs a snippet from his play Blue at Beckett’s.
But she thinks we do not appreciate playwrights like Weatherall enough.
“We never really pay any homage to the people behind the stories that we have,” she says. “We don’t really even know Australian playwrights’ names. They just sort of disappear out of our psyche.”
Beckett knows just how tough it can be to make a living as a writer for theatre. Her plays have been performed at the Opera House (Claudel; For the Love of Alma Mahler) and Belvoir (Anais Nin: One of Her Lives).
Imogen Sage and Christopher Stollery perform in Wendy Beckett’s play Claudel at the Sydney Opera House.Credit: Daniel Boud
“[Playwrights] get paid bugger-all, I don’t mind telling you,” says Beckett. “They’d be lucky if they pull in $4000 for a script in theatre … It’s still impossible really for the playwright to get opportunities and to earn a living.”
Beckett also recognises that playwrights very rarely get to hang out together. “There’s no playwrights’ union where playwrights get together,” she says. “I thought it’d be good just to be in the room [together for] the first time.”
To do that, she’s created The Night of the Playwrights, inviting a number of writers including Andrew Bovell (Things I Know to Be True), Stephen Sewell (The Blind Giant Is Dancing), Alana Valentine (Wayside Bride) and Andrea James (Sunshine Super Girl) to dine with her (and the public) at the end of July.
For The Night of the Playwrights, one or two playwrights will be seated at each table. “People that have seen their work can ask a question, and they’ll be accessible,” Beckett says.
There will also be a set from comedian Peter Berner.
“Because I had so many playwrights, I thought, ‘I can’t really do a reading from anyone’s work because someone might get jealous!’” Beckett says. “We don’t want to encourage that. I’m all for not being competitive. So, I’ve asked Peter Berner to come and give us some humour.”
Beckett introduces one of her theatre vignette events.
Framed photographs of both Australian and international playwrights hang on one wall of the cellar. Among them is Suzie Miller, whose Prima Facie has recently been lauded at the Tony and Olivier awards.
At the RBG event, Miller spent time talking to federal Special Envoy for the Arts Susan Templeman.
“She was invisible as a writer pretty well most of her life,” Beckett says. “She was flying under the radar big time and it wasn’t until she did Prima Facie and RBG that anybody even knew her as a playwright.”
When she saw herself on the wall that night, Miller laughed: “God, I look good there!” Beckett replied: “Well, I look pretty good too! I think it’s at least four years old!”
Beckett will be adding more local writers to the wall over time – including her guests from The Night of the Playwrights.
Future events include a celebration of the work of David Williamson, a snippet from Joanna Murray-Smith’s play about Julia Gillard, and a section from Amadeus, which played at the Opera House over summer.
Beckett is working on an opera with composer Ross Edwards. She says the next move for Beckett’s – after the aforementioned vignettes – might be opera. But that’d take place in the upstairs section, not in the cellar.
“My vision for the restaurant wasn’t just business,” Beckett says. “I thought it would be something that includes people in the community and the arts. And great food.
“I definitely am all about giving back. I’m fine. My career is established. What I really want to do is make it possible for other people to get a leg up.”
The Night of the Playwrights is at Beckett’s Restaurant on July 27.
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