Wanting to punch theatre reviewers is one of the many pleasures of a life in the theatre. This impulse, in TN's very bourgeois view, is best sublimated in civilised discourse, when it can entertain and perhaps even illuminate the rest of us. In any case, playwright David Blackman is upset with our favourite mainstream reviewer, the Age's Cameron Woodhead, for a negative review he gave to Blackman's play, The Revisionist, which is currently running at the Clifton Creative Arts Centre in Church St, Richmond.

The Revisionist is one of the many plays which I noted as being of interest but which my insane workload regrettably prevents me from seeing, and so I have no opinion myself. It is loosely based on the Demidenko affair, one of our celebrated literary hoaxes. As we know, white-bread Anglo Helen Darville posed as a child of Ukrainian peasants with a war criminal past, and released an allegedly autobiographical work which was awarded some of our most glittering literary prizes. Opinions differ on whether Darville's worst sin was her style or her anti-Semitism; in any case, the revelation of her unexotic identity caused one of the major literary scandals of our time, exposing some disturbing fault lines in Australia's literary culture.

Woodhead has some stern views on how the Demidenko material ought to be treated, claiming that The Revisionist misses the point: "The biggest mistake the play makes is the one Helen made: thinking that it's all about her. It should be concerned with what the hoax says about us." He criticises the play for not dealing with the judges, the publishers and the media debate, and for not even mentioning the issue of plagiarism.

Interestingly, The Revisionist is not the first play inspired by Helen Darville: last year Theatre@Risk presented Noelle Janaczewska's Mrs Petrov's Shoe. Of that show, I had rather opposite concerns to those Woodhead has with The Revisionist: as I said at the time, "It's impossible to talk about Mrs Petrov's Shoe without talking about Darville/Demidenko, and I think this is part of its problem. It remains too close to the Demidenko affair to really take off as a fiction of its own, and yet it is not, either, a theatrical retelling of Darville's fantasising. ...This is, as I fear this review rather reflects, a play that is ultimately about issues, illustrative rather than inherently theatrical."

It's clear here that I have my own views on the possible treatment of the material. Which raises the question: quite aside from judgements of the aesthetic success or failure of a work, can artists actually be mistaken in their approach to source material, and is it fair to tick them off for exploring the wrong aspects? At what point does aesthetic discrimination become something else? Blackman was not, after all, writing an essay on the cultural implications of the Demindenko hoax, but an imaginative work, and it could be argued that his only real responsibility is to the imperatives of his artistic imagination: there are, after all, no "shoulds" in art.

David Blackman's response to Woodhead's review has crossed my desk after lingering forlornly in the in-box of the Age arts editor, so in the interest of discourse, I'll let him speak for himself.

Dear Mr. Woodhead:

Given the nature and substance of your review (26/2/07), I exercise the right of reply.

While obviously it is your job and prerogative to judge a play as you see fit, your observations re The Revisionist, appear agenda based.

In your review you state that what's important about this incident is what it says about us.

This may be true in your estimation; for others however, Helen's motivation and an examination of her psychological status are paramount. Other Australians were troubled by what this incident says about this country's tolerance of free speech. And there are those, (I consider myself as part of this collective), who are concerned as to how the overt Anti Semitism of this book was lost on so many people, especially the judges. There are a number of possibilities, each as valid as the other.

As the interested playwright, I reserve the right to pursue whichever theme is most appealing, or of most concern to me, and to convey this to interested audiences. And in doing so, this does not, in my estimation, preclude making any point about what the incident says about us.

My take on the story, and what I have tried to do in the play, is to explore the nature of Helen's anti-Semitism as expressed in her award winning book, and hold it up to each audience member for them to decide to what extent they find themselves swayed by her argument, agreeing or disagreeing with what she has to say. I wanted to explore what the incident says about us, by allowing each audience member to question their beliefs or have them challenged and insulted by Helen's so-called experience of growing up in a Ukrainian family. No matter what thematic approach is taken, it is important that the fraud is exposed, but more importantly, given my choice, that the outrage she committed is exposed as to how she misrepresented history through a blatantly Revisionist text, and was allowed to get away with it by elements of the literary establishment.

The sub plot dealing with the crimes of real life war criminal Karlis Ozols, links Australia's record of harbouring ex-Nazis from Eastern Europe with our capacity to celebrate a book which justifies war crimes against Jews. In the play and in real life, these war criminals who escaped justice were an inspiration for Helen. No one seemed to make too much of a fuss about that either. To my mind, there is a binary relationship here, a very troubling one, which also has serious implications for all Australians. My experience over several years of readings, workshops and now, this production, was that this is not lost on audiences. The play says something very troubling about a country which honours a book defending war criminals and has such a tawdry history of protecting them. Throughout my research, I encountered this evasion by sections of the media, of what she actually wrote, and an unwillingness, from so many quarters to condemn the piece for what it really was (Robert Manne excepted).This was the impetus for my story and clearly not what you wanted to see.

As far as dramaturgy, The Revisionist was nominated for the Wal Cherry in 2003 and won the Ross Trust Award as part of the Premier's Literary Prize in the same year. It has had strong dramaturgical input from the likes of Peter Matheson and other notable figures in the industry. The script has been developed, gone through numerous re-writes and says what I want it to say. It has been admirably served by the director and actors. (As stated in the program notes, it is loosely based on the Demidenko Affair). Your review is, I believe, limited by your preconceived ideas of what the play "should" be about. Perhaps, more importantly, it has done a great disservice to all those involved in this production.

Sincerely

David Blackman

A robust defence, sir. So, what are the boundaries of critical speculation? Did Cameron step outside his remit, or is his opinion fair enough? TN is curious to hear what others think. And Cameron, while you're circling this blog, feel free to defend yourself.