Story
The plays centres on the Rogers family, loosely modelled on Williamson's own. They have recently moved from Melbourne to Sydney. Colin is Australia's most successful screenwriter (like Williamson), but currently down on his luck. He does not want to make what he perceives as a "movie of the week" about Tony Sanzari and an amusement park hijacking that is offered to him by his agent, Elaine Ross, but a story about the coastwatchers of the Second World War, because his uncle was one, and it was Australia's great contribution to the war. His wife, Kate, is a book editor and wants to publish a novel by the Aboriginal writer Kath Mitchell titled Black Rage, but her publisher, Ian Wall, says, "Blacks don't sell books." They have three children, Penny, who has been frequenting a disco called Downmarket, Hannah, whose teachers say is depressed, and Sam, whom Colin fears Kate is encouraging to be gay.
Colin teams with a womanising hack writer named Mike McCord to work on Coastwatchers, who hates the idea, but wants his name on the film as co-writer because it is an instant status boost in the industry, even though he is primarily just typing dictation. When he hears of Kate's problem, he prank calls Ian Wall, accuses him of racism, and threatens that a group of militants will mob the publishing house if he does not publish Black Rage.
Coastwatchers proves a ratings disaster, so Mike latches on to Colin for another project, a rip-off of Miami Vice set in Australia and loaded with Australianisms. Malcolm Bennett, who usually finances Colin's productions, advises him to get back with Elaine because his project is "shit". "So is Miami Vice," Colin responds. "That's classy shit," Malcolm tells him, "This is absolute shit." The difference is that the writers of Miami Vice are writing at the best of their abilities, while the fact that Colin is writing below his level is painfully obvious. During this time, Colin becomes attracted to Mike's girlfriend, Helen Davey, but ultimately draws the line in the friendship and avoids cheating on his wife.
Ultimately, Kath Mitchell is nominated for the Booker Prize, and Kate accompanies her and Ian Wall to the awards ceremony, though she does not win. Although Kate tells Colin that Ian looks like a "garden gnome" she admits to the audience (the play contains a great deal of direct to audience monologues) that she was unfaithful. A disillusioned Colin returns to Elaine Ross and accepts the project she offered him. Elaine calls Sydney "The Emerald city of Oz. Everyone comes here along their yellow brick roads looking for the answers to their problems and all they find are the demons within themselves."
The play takes many swipes at contemporary occurrences in the entertainment industry, such as Steven Spielberg's purchase of the Australian writer Thomas Keneally's novel, Schindler's Ark, which one character jokes will be made into a film in which the Jews are rescued by space aliens. At one point, Mike sums up the "great Australian novel", Henry Handel Richardson's The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, as, "Doctor's marriage goes bad, he goes to the goldfields, gets gangrene and dies", to which Kate says, "I don't think your synopsis quite does the book justice." To that, he simply dismisses it as a "downer".
Possible inspirations
Williamson and Denis Whitburn worked on a Second World War miniseries with the director Chris Thomson titled The Last Bastion, which ran on Network Ten. The running time was 360 minutes. (Academy Home Entertainment released a version that ran only 160 minutes to U.S. home video.) The miniseries was much ballyhooed but was not well rated. Also, Williamson assisted his brother-in-law, Chris Löfvén, on Oz, an Australian rock musical film that retold 1939 film The Wizard of Oz on the streets of Melbourne. The fictional Land of Oz rarely comes up in Australian conversation; the term is used almost exclusively as the nickname for one's own country.[citation needed]
The title of the play Emerald City has been used as a frequent nickname for the city of Sydney since the play was first presented. The title has been attributed to Brett Sheehy who was Sydney Theatre Company's literary manager when the play was written and first produced. The play's director, Richard Wherrett, recalls in his autobiography, The Floor of Heaven, that Sheehy suggested Emerald City as the title, which Williamson accepted, adding the line of dialogue, "The Emerald city of Oz. Everyone comes here along their yellow brick roads looking for the answers to their problems and all they find are the demons within themselves."[2]
The play was once called The Ingratiator.[3]
