Fifty years ago, David Williamson’s The Removalists barrelled onto the stage at Melbourne’s La Mama. Though loosely based on a true story, one can only imagine the reaction back then – gasps? Walkouts? Even now, in 2025, the play’s brashness hasn’t dulled. Police brutality, domestic violence, unchecked misogyny – it’s all still here.
Director Anne-Louise Sarks (My Brilliant Career, A Streetcar Named Desire) stages this revival with a sharp eye for Williamson’s absurdist cynicism. The audience is seated in traverse – on both sides of the stage – as implicit witnesses. Sarks doesn’t try to modernise the text; instead, she leans into its 1970s setting (Matilda Woodroofe’s period-perfect costume design includes mustard dresses and flared jeans).
The opening scene, set in a sterile police station cluttered with bureaucratic paperwork and buzzing under fluorescent lighting (a little too bright, perhaps), introduces Steve Mouzakis’ Sergeant Simmonds breaking in new recruit Ross (William McKenna). Ross rolls on his heels like a kid who’s wandered into the wrong classroom, while Simmonds mocks and steamrolls him – it’s classic schoolyard bullying. Just when the berating gets old, Eloise Mignon’s Fiona arrives, bruised and hesitant, with her sister Kate (Jessica Clarke), to report her husband’s latest assault.
Now, suddenly, Simmonds is all charm. Of course, he’ll help. Of course, he’ll retrieve Fiona’s furniture. But, naturally, there’s a cost.
The set transitions cleverly – a makeup artist paints Fiona’s bruises in real time while movers transform the stage into a distinctly 1970s living room: itchy-looking armchairs, plastic chairs and a chunky TV set. Fiona’s escape plan is in motion, but trouble stumbles through the door in the form of Michael Whalley’s Kenny. Drunk and armed with that uniquely Australian blend of bravado and self-pity, Whalley nails the performance. Watching his dynamic with Fiona unfold is challenging – he’s handsy, threatening, unpredictable. But The Removalists has never been a play that flinches from discomfort.
The play’s midsection slumps. There are long pauses. A lot of sitting around. Then a lot of arguing. Clarke’s Kate, wealthy and well-meaning, parries with both Simmonds and Kenny. It’s the ‘70s, so this is still glossed in niceties, but she’s also privileged and educated, so she gets a jab in here and there. Yet it’s Martin Blum’s titular Removalist who steals many of these scenes, punctuating the rising tension with deadpan monologues about the logistics of furniture removal. His absurdist asides (including a running gag about $10,000 worth of moving equipment that stretches a beat too long) offer much-needed levity, even as they underscore the play’s central thesis: when violence erupts, there are always bystanders who do nothing.
Just when the play risks meandering, it finds its brutal climax – one so violent that the production wisely enlisted fight director Nigel Poulton to choreograph it. And then, in the eerie calm that follows, comes the moment: Simmonds, Ross and Kenny sip beers, locked in a game of violence and manipulation where they become one and the same. This, of course, is the point. The Removalists is a play about cycles of abuse, the illusion of control and what happens when unchecked power festers. The final moments hammer this home with devastating simplicity.
Really, this play is less a historical curiosity and more an indictment of how little has changed. Police brutality remains a headline issue, particularly for First Nations and migrant communities. Domestic violence statistics are still grim (one in six women experienced physical violence from an intimate partner in 2021–22).
This production is a reminder that, in Australia, power still belongs to the person who can hit the hardest – and get away with it.
The Removalists is playing at Southbank Theatre until April 17. Find out more and get tickets here.
