A pro-battler view of crime and punishment

March 29, 2000
Issue 

Face to Face
By David Williamson
Darwin Theatre Company
Darwin Entertainment Centre, March 22 to April 8

Review by Peter Johnston

An angry young man, Glen (Tim Sinclair), with a troubled family background, assaults a co-worker and is sacked from the job he loves. In retaliation, he rams his ex-boss's Mercedes and is arrested.

In the Northern Territory he would automatically go to jail if older than 16 — but incarceration would not only have failed to address Glen's problems, it probably would have worsened them, possibly to the point of suicide.

This timely new play by David Williamson explores victim-offender conferencing as an alternative to incarceration. With the support of his mother and best mate, Glen is confronted by his ex-boss and co-workers and must deal with the consequences of his actions face to face.

The play is based on actual conference transcripts, with believable characters who are steered by a facilitator towards unravelling a web of bullying, shame and guilt.

The play examines the broad range of issues that impact upon a seemingly isolated incident: domestic violence, sexual harassment, worker exploitation, workplace bullying, racism, the beauty myth, alienation and boredom in a capitalist society, anger management, unemployment, the role of trade unions, and, of course, conflict resolution and the issues of jailing and the alternatives.

That's a large number of issues for a 90-minute play, but, with frequent doses of humour and readily identifiable characters, it works very well.

It is wonderful to see such an important play when mandatory sentencing is the focus of national and local debate. And in the current climate of bashing the unions, victimising the unemployed, blaming single mothers, it is refreshing to see a play with a pro-union, pro-worker and pro-battler approach.

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