Family drama abounds
I love a good family drama, and David Williamson has come to the party with his Succession-esque play Aria, written once again (supposedly out of retirement!) for the Ensemble Theatre in Kirribilli. Aria centres around matriarch Monique who constantly reminds all how she sacrificed a potentially grand career in opera to raise her three sons. While the sons can do no wrong, Monique is critical of her daughters-in-law who can never measure up to her own impossible standards.
Sydney actor Tamara Lee Bailey plays the ‘newest’ wife Midge, an outspoken ‘Gen Z’ beautician who can’t hold her tongue. “Everyone else enters Monique’s home with pretences, but Midge doesn’t lie. She’s very upfront. She knows who she is and she takes up space in a way that’s just so freeing to play,” Tamara says. The 27-year-old has come from playing Shakespeare in 2024, and says it has prepared her well for Williamson’s ‘muscular’ writing. “The dialogue is very fast paced and visceral,” she explains. “There’s no physical violence, like in Succession (the popular drama based on the Murdoch’s media dynasty), but the dialogue itself is so strong and muscular and every character has their moment to shine and change.”
Aria is written with a very ‘operatic’ structure, Tamara says, with ‘duets, trios and quartets,’ and a crescendo at the annual family gathering where tensions explode. Every year Moniqe performs an aria at the event, and there is a live performance of her ‘biggest one yet’ – to be revealed during the show, Tamara laughs.
The play explores what characters hide behind, she explains. “It’s important to see that we aren’t very honest sometimes, and we come into family dynamics not telling the whole truth. And this is an opportunity for these characters to change and tell the truth.”
In his notes, Williamson says Monique is a ‘magnificently insufferable’ narcissist. “In Aria I wanted to tackle the moment when a narcissistic personality’s delusions are put under severe threat.” Tamara says the Australian playwright has produced a ‘very witty, very sharp, honest and deeply human’ dark comedy, which will be a great start to The Ensemble’s 2025 season.
Aria at Ensemble Theatre
Until 15 March
78 McDougall St, Kirribilli
ensemble.com.au/8918 3400