Final Project – The Removalists
David Williamson’s 1971 Australian play The Removalists revolves around the story of a pair of police officers, Constable Neville Ross and Sergeant Dan Simmonds, and their investigation of a domestic assault charge placed by Fiona and Kate against Fiona’s husband Kenny in a Melbourne suburb in the 1970s. Through a tremendously realistic style and deeply complex exploration of the themes of violence, treatment of women and police brutality, The Removalists manages to create a uniquely compelling portrait of 1970s Australian life and its changing social norms, as well as the universal capacity for human beings to inflict and be subjected to violence in its many forms.
The plot of The Removalists involves Kate and Fiona entering the police station, Kate declaring that Fiona’s husband Kenny has been abusing her and asking the police to arrest him (the introductory incident). While Simmonds suggests Ross (the play’s protagonist) takes the job, Kate is insistent on Simmonds handling the situation. After personally inspecting Fiona’s injuries and taking pictures of them, Fiona asks for furniture from her apartment to be removed prior to Kenny’s arrest, to which the officers agree (the moment of engagement). However, Kenny is home when the removalist and the officers arrive, forcing them to handcuff him to the door and deal with Kenny’s verbal abuse (which leads to Simmonds beating him). After Kate arrives, Simmonds challenges her as a serial adulterer, causing her to leave and take Simmonds with her. Leaving Ross alone with Kenny, Kenny uses this chance to egg Ross on with insults until Ross beats him nearly to death in the play’s climax. Fearing that he has killed Kenny, Ross (with the help of Simmonds) begins looking for ways to create a story that justifies Kenny’s death. While Kenny shows himself to be alive for a few minutes, he later dies, leading Ross and Simmonds to end the play in the denouement beating each other in order to create the impression that Kenny was killed in self-defense.
The given circumstances of the play involve both sets of characters, the police officers and the group surrounding the case against Kenny. Furthermore, the play’s setting is a 1970s Australian suburb, occurring at a time of great social change in which women are finding a greater sense of equality in Australian society. Ross, the protagonist, is a rookie cop, the son of a coffin maker, who is stationed to Simmonds’ precinct and is innately idealistic and malleable as a character, hoping to make his way as a police officer. This is contrasted with Simmonds, who is an experienced police sergeant who has been around long enough to find ways to abuse his authority as a police officer to seek his own ends, which usually involve soliciting sexual favors from victims. Kenny is a working-class ‘larrikin’ who repeatedly beats his wife Fiona in order to get what he wants from her. Fiona, meanwhile, is extremely meek and vulnerable due to Kenny’s sense of power and domination over her, while Kate is implied to be a serial adulterer and much more strong-willed than Fiona.
The Removalists is written in a tremendously realistic style, with naturalistic dialogue and a relatively static and stable progression of events that could conceivably happen in real life. This play follows closely the formula of the realistic social drama, including multiple characters discussing and personifying differing perspectives on the nature of modern life. The mood of the piece is also very nihilistic, with characters becoming corrupted and sullied due to their own selfish desires for power and control. This is most clearly shown in the statically amoral characters of Kenny and Simmonds, who are both selfish, arrogant brutes who take pleasure in the subjugation of women (namely Kate and Fiona). All of these characters represent a wide swathe of Australian class and societal norms, from working-class couples (Kenny and Fiona) to rich, stuck-up, authoritarian individuals (Kate) to the differing dynamics between young and old members of law enforcement (Ross and Simmonds).
Structurally, The Removalists is a two-act play, in which the first act establishes the characters and action that will be seen in act two, which is much more fast-paced and constantly moving. The naturalism of the play means that there is a decidedly firm fourth wall, with little to no indicator through the characters or the production that what is happening is a ‘play.’ The characters themselves are dressed in realistic costumes, and the issues at hand in the play are ones faced by people in everyday life. The use of Australian slang also contributes greatly to the film’s sense of localization, and makes the story decidedly Australian in theme and character.
Themes
The Removalists uses its domestic setting and realistic tone to explore very prescient social issues, particularly within Australian culture at the time. For instance, the most obvious theme is police brutality, as personified by the over-the-line and aggressively authoritarian actions of the two police officers (Simmonds in particular). Simmonds as a character demonstrates through his actions the lack of care police officers have for the people they are supposed to protect, and the extent to which he actually wants to exert power over them. He is extremely quick to violence, and instinctively starts finding ways to get himself out of trouble. For instance, the death of Kenny is brushed off while they try to get off the hook for it in very callous ways, as Simmonds suggests things like “Let’s get a shotgun and make it look like suicide. Shoot his bloody head off” (Williamson).
Early on, Simmonds explains that cops have a very narrow window for crimes and offenses they actually have to care about: “Something doesn’t have to be very big before it’s too big for us and likewise something doesn’t have to be all that small before it’s not worth worrying about (Williamson). Even the titular removalist understands the police’s selfish natures and ability to look out for each other at the expense of everyone else; when Kenny tells him to call the police on Ross and Simmonds, he replies, “You must be mad. Do you think they’d come down and collar their own mates?” (Williamson). Throughout the play, the police force is shown to be a totally corrupt institution that uses its power for its own ends, and not to protect the people it is supposed to serve.
The treatment of women is another theme that runs throughout The Removalists, as both Simmonds and Kenny are shown to be abusers of women in various respects. During this time in Australian culture, the more chauvinistic attitudes of adult men were clashing against the greater assertion of women for their own independence, equal rights and respect within Australian society. Simmonds, for instance, treats women as sexual objects, and makes frequent mention of prostitutes and call girls. He even attempts to entice Kenny with one at the end, showing his willingness to put his sexual needs for women over his own job: “Well, there’s a very attractive group of young girls a block or two from the station who, well the fact is they’re very high class call girls” (Williamson).
Perhaps the most generalized, broadly applicable theme in The Removalists, however, is the nature of violence in human behavior. Violence is the primary means by which people convince others to do what they want. This is clear from the start with Kenny’s depiction as a domestic abuser; that power dynamic involves him beating Fiona in order to make her submissive and give him control in their marriage. This patriarchal culture also takes a tremendous toll on Fiona, whose victimhood shakes the foundation of her identity: “It hardly inspires confidence when you’re made love to one minute and bashed up the next” (Williamson). As the play progresses, even the idealistic Ross succumbs to the application of violence, beating Kenny mercilessly in order to exert his power over him and attempting to shut him up. In many ways, The Removalists paints a picture of Australian society as an inherently violent one, with everyone having the capability for the kind of aggressive instincts shown by the characters.
Reflection
This play is incredibly interesting in its ability to create a kitchen sink drama that manages to deal with such universal themes as violence, police corruption, and more. Upon my initial response to the script, I felt it was almost needlessly nihilistic; even the heroic Ross succumbs to the petty, selfish allure of violence by the end of the play, turning into the kind of cynical, power-abusing brute that Simmonds is shown to be. However, with each subsequent reading of the script, I felt a greater sense of connection and understanding toward the themes of the play. Upon later readings, I recognized that the play was not interested in forcing a moralistic interpretation towards these characters, but instead wanted to show the mitigating circumstances that can lead all kinds of human beings to violence.
Looking back on the play, what interests me most about the play is its characters – all of them are extremely well-drawn and compelling, each of them exploring a different part of the dynamics of power and violence that run throughout the play. Ross is the blank slate upon which the violent world of the play is written; Simmonds, the old, cynical power-tripping police officer shows Ross that he does not have to treat victims or perpetrators as human beings, but merely as people over which they have tremendous power. Their treatment of Kate and Fiona (another innocent) showcases the significant problems police have in believing or caring for victims, treating Fiona as an opportunity for sexual reward rather than someone who needs their help. Showing the moral complexities of these characters, and their instinctive push toward violence at the slightest bruise to their ego (especially Ross and Kenny), made the play incredibly tense and a compelling read.
Synthesis:
My production of The Removalists would include all of the aforementioned elements, chiefly dealing with the nature of both police brutality/abuse of power and domestic abuse of women. All of these images demonstrate the police in some kind of conflict or defensive standing they are meant to be prepared for, which showcases the sense of power and the differences in how Ross and Simmonds wield it. Furthermore, the images of domestic abuse and contemporary fighting for women’s rights showcase the victimhood of the women in this play, and the resentment that Kenny and Simmonds feel that women no longer allow men to do with them what they want. These visual elements, images and gestures would be used to show the difficulties inherent in the police system, its tendency toward brutality, and how that violence is also visited upon women who were fighting for their rights at the time.
Works Cited
Williamson, David. The Removalists. Samuel French, 1971.
