Griffin Theatre’s 2014 production of David Williamson’s love/hate letter to Sydney suggested it, and a decade later this Ensemble Theatre staging confirms it: Emerald City is a very hard play to bring to life convincingly on a small stage.

First seen in 1987 when Williamson was a huge drawcard for Sydney Theatre Company, it is the work of a playwright at his commercial peak –  a piece tailored to the big rooms he could reliably fill. Its concerns are raised billboard-size. The characters are broadly drawn sketches, with their ethical conundrums illuminated as if by arc light. In a room tuned to chamber-sized work, Emerald City comes across as shouty and unsubtle. 

Ensemble Theatre’s Emerald City. Photo © Phil Erbacher

Tom O’Sullivan is Colin, a 40-something screenwriter who has trodden the Yellow Brick Road from Melbourne to Sydney. He’s temperamentally unsuited to the vibe – the city’s crassness and focus on money. His current pet project is a World War II drama Coast Watchers, a gritty tribute to the heroic chaps who … watched coasts. 

Producer Elaine (a hard-boiled Daniel Carter) doesn’t see much hope for it in a market...