Read Online Emerald City by David Williamson - Free Book Online

first interview he lay on the floor and screamed at the journo to jump on him.
    COLIN : Jump on him?
    HELEN : He said she’d only come to put the boot in—why didn’t she do the job properly?
    MIKE : Jesus!
    HELEN : What was I supposed to do? He was uncontrollable.
    MIKE : You should have told him that the journo thought he was a genius.
    HELEN : It’s a bit hard to spread disinformation when you’re being raped in peak-hour traffic in George Street.
    MIKE : If you didn’t wear gear that opened you for public inspection, you wouldn’t have that sort of problem. Two coffees! Do you think you can do that without getting yourself raped?
    HELEN glares, turns and goes.
    COLIN : [ to the audience ] Why did she put up with it? She deserved someone sensitive, intelligent—someone who sat and marvelled as the passions passed like summer storms across the face of her beauty. She deserved me, but I didn’t know how to make the offer. In the past I’d been so inept and shy that I always waited for the woman to give the first sign in case I made a fool of myself, but this time it was too urgent for that. I didn’t want to wreck my marriage, I just wanted a heady, passionate affair, but if I made an approach and she refused, she’d be sure to tell Mike, and if she accepted, knowing my luck, Kate would find out and be off to her room in Glebe like a flash. I didn’t know what to do but I knew I had to do something Every time she spoke, every time she did anything including standing stock still, I was overpoweringly attracted.
    COLIN exits. ELAINE enters at a cocktail party. Chatter and the clinking of glasses can be heard. ELAINE stands by herself with a glass in her hand. MIKE approaches her.
    MIKE : Mike McCord.
    ELAINE : [ frostily ] Oh, yes. You’re working with Colin.
    MIKE : [ nodding ] Getting a few projects together.
    ELAINE : Good.
    MIKE : You?
    ELAINE : Getting a few projects together too.
    MIKE : Good.
    There is an awkward pause. ELAINE doesn’t want to continue the conversation, but MIKE stands there doggedly.
    Ned Wiseman’s film’s a disaster.
    ELAINE : [ interested despite herself ] Really?
    MIKE : They put it in the third house at the Hoyts complex and it only did seven thousand.
    ELAINE : The first day?
    MIKE : The first week.
    ELAINE : That’s a disaster.
    MIKE : Total. Have you seen it?
    ELAINE : Bad?
    MIKE : A character says, ‘I don’t know why we’re doing this’, and the audience yells, ‘Neither do we’.
    ELAINE : [ trying to hide her glee ] How sad for Ned. I quite liked ‘Coastwatchers’.
    MIKE : Could’ve been better.
    ELAINE : It lacked momentum.
    MIKE : [ nodding ] Right.
    ELAINE : Second half was a little better.
    MIKE : [ nodding ] A lot of that was mine.
    ELAINE : You wrote the second half?
    MIKE : We were both still in on it, but Colin ran out of steam.
    ELAINE : The second half was quite strong. Emotionally.
    MIKE : Had to fight for that. Emotion embarrasses Colin.
    ELAINE : Yes, it does, doesn’t it?
    MIKE : Prefers things clinical and distant. With me it’s emotion, emotion, emotion all the way. Colin’s a bit cold.
    ELAINE : As a person?
    MIKE : [ nodding ] Never seems to get stirred up by anything.
    ELAINE : No, he doesn’t.
    MIKE : Shows up in his writing.
    ELAINE : I’ve never thought of it like that, but you could be right. The second half was a lot stronger emotionally.
    MIKE : [ shrugging, taking credit ] Well, if you don’t know when to put the accelerator down, you shouldn’t be driving the car. Whenever I write a scene I ask myself one simple question: ‘What’s at stake? Who stands to lose, who stands to gain?’ Unless something’s at stake all you’ve got is two people chatting.
    ELAINE : That makes a lot of sense, Ian.
    MIKE : Mike.
    ELAINE : Sorry. Mike.
    MIKE : Those films you made with Colin. How much of the horsepower and the emotion