A Peach of a Play

Debra Oswald, author, playwright and Creator and writer of TV’s Offspring, talks to Coral Drouyn about The Peach Season and how she works.

1812 is one of our best known community theatres, with a truly lovely theatre of their own just off the Burwood Highway at Upper Ferntree Gully. In any given season they will present a classic comedy, a little known drama, a thriller or “Whodunnit?” and the very best of Australian contemporary drama. Their current production is award winning The Peach Season by Debra Oswald. If there’s a little bell ringing in your brain that says you know the name but can’t place it, I’ll make it easy for you. Oswald is the hugely successful writer and creator of the Mega-hit television series Offspring which blitzed the ratings and put Channel 10 back on the radar for most people. Before that Debra wrote The Secret Life of Us, Police Rescue and even Bananas in Pyjamas (TV writers have to be versatile to survive). She’s also written seven plays for theatre (who hasn’t seen Dags?) and several novels for young people. She’s even had a play produced in Japan. She is a true writer, and by that I mean she is compelled to write, because she has things she wants to say…it’s a compulsion almost. 

I asked her what the special attraction of theatre was for her. She told me, “There is a special thrill about being in a space with a live audience, responding to the story together, right in front of you.” Television writers work either in solitude or in a room with other writers. We only know from ratings whether a script was well received, but we don’t get a chance to witness it first hand, or to share it spontaneously with the audience.

The Peach Season won Deb the Rodney Seaborn Playwright’s Award and was shortlisted for a Premier’s Literary Award. So what inspired it?

“I was intrigued by the dilemma faced by parents (or anyone who cares deeply about another person): how do we let people we love go out into the world with boldness but still keep them safe? I loved the idea of concocting a story that involved farming, hard work, a fiercely protective mother, a wild young man, a young woman dealing with her first sexual passion and all sorts of other elements. I also drew on the Demeter and Persephone myth to help shape the drama.” So many themes are universal and apply to areas of our own lives. The skill of the playwright is recognising the universality of a story and putting it in a setting we can all relate to.

In film and television we rarely get a chance to stay with our scripts through to the end of production. One of the attractions of live theatre is that sense of involvement as a play comes to life,” Debra explains.

“I’ve always been very involved in the first production of my plays – busily rewriting as actors start to work with the text and as the play gets on its feet, then faces an audience for the first time. For later productions, I might swing by and have a squizz and I’m always happy to answer questions about the text but I generally leave people to get on with it.”

Writers get so many ideas…so many of which never come to fruition in the medium they were originally intended for. I have recycled many ideas and so I asked Debra if she has too. She was very candid. “Yes definitely. Many of my favourite projects have come about through ‘creative ecology’ (!) – that is, recycling a defunct project from one medium to another. My first novel for young readers was adapted from a rejected TV script. I wrote my first really successful play (Dags) after failing to sell the idea as a TV project. Currently I’m in the process of dismembering a play that failed to get a production and using the bloodied pieces of it for a novel and various TV ideas.”

When we write for television there are deadlines and production requirements which mean we don’t have the luxury of taking “as long as it takes.” So how does Deb’s work ethic change from one medium to another? “I’m driven by a powerful combination of strong work ethic and crippling self doubt – that applies whatever the medium. I’m a girly swot and never miss a deadline. For a TV drama in production, there are things to help you along the way: the camaraderie of colleagues and the sense of obligation to deliver the scripts to the busy people who will make it happen. For my own speculative projects, I usually fall in love with the characters and that creates a momentum that keeps me working until their story is told.”

You too can fall in love with those characters  - The Peach Season continues its run at 1812 Theatre until March 21st, 2015.

Production photos from the 1812 production by Ian Turner from I & J Photographics.