Maybe you haven’t seen a play since high-school, but when Australia’s most prolific playwright, David Williamson, makes one of his leading characters a surfer, it gets your attention. Williamson’s plays and films (‘The Club’ and ‘Don’s Party’) have a knack for cutting to the bone of Australian culture and this one is no different. ‘The Great Divide’ is framed around the topic of coastal gentrification, a theme almost every Australian surfer can relate to. How many of us have been priced out of the beach we grew up in or watched developers ruin the essential charm of a place we loved? All these issues are raised in the ‘The Great Divide’ , which opened last week at Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre.
Caitlin Burley plays 17-year-old Rachel, who is ranked number two in the state and desperate to make a career out of Pro Surfing, despite the objections of her mother. When Alex, a major developer, roles into Rachel’s quaint beachside town, she offers Rachel a scholarship to join the best college surfing team in the world and start on a degree in Marine Biology at the University of California San Diego, one of the finest Universities in America. But what’s the catch?
To get ready for a role that requires her to bring a little stoke to the stage, Caitlin has been binging clips of Molly Picklum and Caitlin Simmers, practising her pop ups, taking surf lessons and drawing on a childhood of beach experiences.
How might surfers relate to this play?
The setting is about this incredible coastal town… a rich billionaire wants to sort of pretty much ruin it by sort of building it up … take away its charm. I’m sure that there are surfers all over Australia who, you know, are annoyed by this. I mean there are positives and negatives about people coming in for holidays and things like that in small coastal communities. I’ve always gone up to Copacabana. And I loved going there for holidays growing up, so it’s my happy place. But sort of over the last sort of 20 or so years of being there I’ve seen how much it’s built up. And so many of the houses are left unoccupied most of the year… I think it’s about these people coming into small towns and, and sort of taking it for themselves. And although it’s good for the small businesses, it’s only a seasonal thing a lot of the time, and it pushes a lot of the locals further and further away from the actual beach… I can imagine that would be really frustrating… even with the hierarchy of surfers, where it’s like, these idiots don’t know how to surf and they’re here. This is the best break in Australia right now, and all of these people on holidays are taking up our waves and not knowing the surf etiquette.
Many of us grew up on beaches where the hierarchy was based around surfing but that hierarchy has been flipped. Because if you can’t afford to own a house near the beach, it doesn’t matter how good a surfer you are?
I think it’s, it’s a really important and relevant play in that sense. Because , I mean, money talks … the rich favour the rich. All of our policies are structured to help them get richer and get you know, a second or third holiday house, and it’s just like, ‘Oh, my God’. So, yeah, my character doesn’t care about money at all. She just wants to surf.
However, she has to decide whether to make a deal with the devil. Isn’t that the premise of the play?
She kind of does… She knows what her dream is. But it’s sort of at what cost? How far will she go? What will she sacrifice in order to fulfill her dreams? What are the values she’s going to put in front of – you know – greed and money, and the chance to get ahead, which is hard. Because, yeah, money does help. And if you don’t come from a lot of money, it’s hard to say no to a once in a lifetime opportunity, even it doesn’t sit with your values.
Do you think surfers are a powerful symbol of Australia’s connection to the coast?
Oh my God, it is such a powerful symbol. I don’t know. I feel like wouldn’t everyone like to be a surfer if they could… I think we’re a beach culture, wherever you’re from (in Australia). But I think also it’s not just being a surfer, she’s (Rachel) someone in this economy trying not to do a ‘stable career’ with a university degree; it’s sort of about turning your passions into your vocation, and how hard it is, you know, the costs of following your dreams. So I think it’s sort of fitting that Williamson’s chosen the passion; the dream of one of the characters to be surfing, as opposed to like, you know, skiing or something because I feel like it wouldn’t be as Australian.
I’m curious about the method acting component to this role. How did you get immersed in it?
Well, I did take some surf lessons, which was good. And, look, I do love it… And I ocean swim. So that’s really nice to go. ‘Ah, I’m gonna go for a swim. And that’s going to be my research.
If we look at a mainstream portrayal of surfing like ‘Puberty Blues’, which was set in the 70s, the girls were on the beach watching, but that’s certainly not the case here is it?
No Rachel isn’t doing anything like that. She’s got respect in the lineup and she’s not a little grommet anymore. She’s ranked second in the state. And I think her main thing is getting her mum to respect her talent and sort of be like, ‘I don’t need to go to university because I’m going to become a professional surfer. This is a viable career.’ And it is becoming more and more a viable career. Now that there’s like more pay equity for female surfers, it’s been cool to research that.
Surfing has a pretty distinctive vernacular? Did Williamson try to capture that with the script?
He’s very good at capturing the vernacular, I mean, there are lots of like bloodies and then talking about the wave’s power and shape.
What’s the line in the play where you really have to lean into the surf jargon?
Probably, ‘Waves cranking off the point.’ There’s also a bit where I talked about how I haven’t been doing my homework. And I’m trying to convince my mum that the surf today was, you know, once in a lifetime surf, it was just perfect. And I needed be out there.
A lot of surfers may not have been to many theatre productions. But why is the stage such a powerful medium for promoting discussion about major issues?
I’ve always loved theatre because it’s right there immediately in front of you. It’s people having experiences and those hard discussions and conversations that you might not have, personally… It sort of gives you a safe distance to view, any kind of experience or challenging moments in life, either moments that you might have had previously in your life, or moments that you might encounter later in life. And it gives you more empathy towards people going through all the different facets of life. I think, with this play, it’s relatable to anyone who sort of had to give up a dream because of, you know, financial means or parents who’ve had that struggle between, you know, having a stable career and going to university and having a degree.
The ‘Great Divide’ is currently playing at The Ensemble Theatre.
