Don Parties On

Forty years ago, a young playwright muscled his way onto the scene with a clutch of time-defining plays, including Don’s Party. With this sequel, David Williamson celebrates four decades of telling the tribe their story.

It’s 21 August 2010, the night of yet another Federal election and, of course, yet another election night party at Don’s place. Over the decades, as he and his friends watched governments come and go, they have also closely followed the incoming results from each other’s lives: the tallies of luck and misfortune, the unexpected swings for and against. And through it all, the lesson that this crowd of superannuated baby boomers never seemed to learn is that politics and strong personalities should never be mixed with alcohol.