JUST ONE OF THE BEASTLY BOYS Author: MICHAEL VISONTAY Date: 14/03/1991 Publication: Sydney Morning Herald DAVID WENHAM'S flat in Darling Point is sprinkled with photos of an Indian guru and other signs of meditation. He sips three or four short blacks out of a tiny cup, speaks slowly and radiates calm. If it wasn't for the beard - a clumpy goatee that only gains shape around a can of beer - you wouldn't have a clue that he goes to Kings Cross every night and transforms into the most violent, ugly animal you could ever hope (not) to meet. The name of the animal is Brett, the eldest of three brothers and pivotal character in The Boys, the Griffin Theatre's production of Gordon Graham's portrait of violence and misogyny now playing at the Stables Theatre. In a script that other Australian commercial theatre companies considered too offensive and violent to accept, Wenham endows Brett with a brutality as frightening as it is familiar. Swearing, leering, spitting and sticking his hand inside his trousers, he delivers a memorable performance in an extraordinary play. Wenham, 25, has been acting professionally for about five years since completing a Bachelor of Performing Arts in 1986 at the Nepean College of Advanced Education. Like many rising actors, he has worked in a variety of theatrical roles -from likeable gang leaders to expectant fathers and in more classic plays, a judge (The Caucasian Chalk Circle) and a politician (The Crucible). But none have approached the intensity or extremity of this one. The Boys starts with Brett returning home to working-class surburbia after a year in jail for assault. He has a goatee, a carton of Foster's and unlimited menace. All he wants from his girlfriend is sex. She wants more; she wants affection. Seeing his brothers already under the female yoke, Brett struggles to reassert control and goads them into blaming their women for everything that's wrong with their world. When their anger reaches boiling point, they rape, torture and murder a young woman. Although many people have insisted that The Boys is based on the Anita Cobby case, Wenham echoes the playwright's denial; it's about all men and violence. "Not many people realise this, but Gordon (Graham) had the seed for the idea well before the Cobby thing occurred," he explains. It came from a family Graham knew in Perth, Wenham said. The cast was given access to transcripts of the Cobby case but Wenham says he deliberately didn't look at them. He already knew how to play Brett. He learned about him from three years living in Kingswood, one suburb this side of Penrith, while studying for his degree. Last year he found even stronger role models during a stint in jail, acting in a film made for the International Year of Literacy. Wenham played a prisoner and a lot of actors in the film were prisoners. "So a lot of the research had been done before the play. I knew the character, the way he spoke, moved and the way he thought." The playwright's ingenuity gives him plenty of dramatic ammunition. For example, the beer carton Brett brings on stage - a vehicle as demanding as it is inspired. By the end of the play, the carton of 24 cans is empty. The actors don't actually drink all the cans. "It's a bit of an illusion,"says Wenham. But they drink most of them. Wenham has to down about five each night. "I have to suppress the alcohol and not let it affect me. It's basically mind over matter." He does drink beer, though not Foster's. "I hate Foster's but the stage manager thought it would be the beer they drink." On the question of swearing, he points to another illusion. "The script is so cleverly constructed ... there are very few expletives," he says, "but you come out feeling that it is full of them. "I admire Gordon for that. He didn't try to use too many." Graham shows similar restraint with the petrol-head metaphor, with Brett mocking his younger brother Glen throughout the play for driving a small Japanese car instead of a real car - a large, Aussie-made eight-cylinder job. Ironically, Wenham has only just got his licence. "Until I got my P-plates, my girlfriend used to drive me around." The Boys is at the Stables Theatre, Nimrod Street, Kings Cross. Phone: 3613817.