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With two plays on Sydney stages and big-screen directing debut Ruben Guthrie in cinemas, actor-playwright Brendan Cowell exposes his demons... and his little dog.
Brendan Cowell’s 2009 play Ruben Guthrie tackles Australian drinking culture head on. It’s the story of a high-flying Sydney advertising exec who gives up drinking for a year following a mishap at a party that shakes his world. The play is one of many career highs for Cowell, a Newtown resident whose achievements span acting and writing for TV, film and the stage. He also has written a novel, How It Feels.
Cowell has starred in films ranging from romcom I Love You Too (with Peter Dinklage) to World War I drama Beneath Hill 60, and in June his film adaptation of Ruben Guthrie opened the Sydney Film Festival. With the film reaching cinemas this month, Time Out stopped to chat with a local legend.
Brendan, what were the challenges of adapting Ruben Guthrie to the screen? My number one concern was, I never wanted anyone to watch it and say it feels a little bit like a play. So I wrote a few versions of the movie but in the end I found that the play was the thing that really worked, and I came back to it to write the screenplay. When I thought about what was cinematic about Ruben Guthrie’s life, it’s the beauty of the landscape. You have Sydney on show throughout the film, but he’s kind of bashing his head against this beautiful place. Living in Sydney, surrounded by that magnificent landscape, you can feel you have to live up to it. It can be your undoing. He’s the guy who has it all – the money, the acclaim, the perfect house and the perfect girlfriend, and yet he hates his life. Ruben is bored. He’s bored by how beautiful his girlfriend is. So he jumps off the roof [in a drunken stunt]. And it’s only after he stops drinking he thinks, was I actually playing with death there?
The play and film were inspired by your experience giving up the booze for a year, weren’t they? Yes but in a way it could be anything: he could be coming out as gay, Christian, changing his gender; it’s kind of how his changing affects others. But it’s also about how drinking is so ingrained in our society that if you try to rail against the culture you might not be accepted.
To have Jack Thompson as the dad who can’t understand why his son won’t have a drink with him… that’s a statement in itself. Jack called Ruben Guthrie “the great pro-drinking play” after he saw it [ laughs]. So when he was sent the script he was on board because he’s really passionate about Australia and Australia’s identity. And Robyn Nevin is great playing Ruben’s mother. Robyn gave me my first job out of university at Sydney Theatre Company in Tony McNamara’s The Recruit, and I ended up running Wharf2Loud there, so it was really nice to continue our story of working together. She’s an amazing lady.
Why Patrick Brammall for the lead role? It was [producer] Kath Shelper’s suggestion. I initially baulked at the idea: Patrick Brammall? But he’s so funny! And then I thought “he kind of looks like me... That quite works actually!” I often get told how great I am in Moody Christmas and he’ll get told how much someone loved Love My Way, and we just decided we were going to take each other’s compliments.
AWhat’s your relationship to sobriety these days? It’s something you have to constantly consider. If I get on a plane and they hand me a Champagne, then something’s going to click. A lot of people can take it or leave
it. I know it lives within me.
Your short play The Dog is running alongside Lally Katz’s The Cat at Belvoir. That one is inspired by the dog that you share with [Belvoir artistic director] Ralph Myers, isn’t it? [ laughs] Clearly I can’t invent anything, I just write shit that happened to me! Ralph and I became mates through the sharing of Lucky Jim, and we take it very seriously: we talk some days as if we are sharing a child and divorced. The Dog is about two mates sharing a dog who are both trying to proposition the same girl at the park. It’s a bit of fun, about the role that pets can play in our lives.
And your 2000 play Men, about three men and one woman in a room, is being revived at the Old Fitzroy. What was it like revisiting that? I thought: who the hell was that guy who wrote that play? It’s kind of like this ball of fire. I think I’m a better writer now but I kind of miss that ferocious energy that I had as a young man. And the disappointing thing about the play is it hasn’t dated. What men think and what men get up to is all very much in place, except more so.
Ruben Guthrie opens Thu Jul 16. The Dog/The Cat Belvoir St Theatre, 25 Belvoir St, Surry Hills 2010. belvoir.com.au. Tue 7pm; Wed-Fri 8.15pm; Sat 2.15pm & 8.15pm; Sun 5.15pm. $25-$48. Until Jul 26. Men Old Fitzroy Theatre, 129 Dowling St, Woollooomoloo 2011. www.oldfitztheatre.com. Tue-Sat 7.30pm; Sun 5pm. $25-$35. Jun 30-Jul 25.