By Helen Musa

Playwrights have always loved using travel to symbolise personal growth, escape from the mundane or exploration of the unknown, and Australia’s best-known playwright, David Williamson, is no exception in his much-performed 1979 work Travelling North, soon coming to Canberra Rep Theatre.

Williamson’s play explores complex themes of identity, societal change and personal struggle. It was also the basis for the 1987 film adaptation of the same name, starring Leo McKern and Julia Blake.

Small matter that the play looks back to the ’60s, it is still one of Williamson’s best-loved works and, with its comic reflections on youth and ageing, continues to be performed nearly 50 years after it was written. Rep describes it as “a timeless journey that hits close to home”.

Described by Williamson himself as “biographical”, Travelling North tells of a late-life romance and relocation to a warmer climate,  the “north”,  by newly retired engineer Frank (Pat Gallagher) and his younger companion Frances (Danielle Spiller), far removed from the expectations of their adult children.

Director-designer Cate Clelland sees it as classic Williamson.

Although written relatively early, it is a work of a mature, confident playwright, she believes, “going beyond the self-consciously aggressive Australianness of the earlier plays.”

Even so, the familiar comic talent is there, with Williamson’s now-famous gift for one-liners to the fore.

Clelland has created a tiered set that follows Frances and Frank’s east coast road trip from Melbourne northwards, culminating in an artwork evoking Queensland’s subtropics.

Travelling North, Canberra Rep Theatre, Acton, June 12-27.

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