The story of the play – CODGERS synopsis

Ageing, racism, sexual diversity, inclusion, acceptance - all wrapped up in peoples’ secrets…

Five senior Aussie men, four of them mates since war service, meet one morning each week in a gymnasium…they exercise together, chew the fat together about their families, laugh, tease and sing.  They solve the problems of the world, agreeing to disagree.

But some surprising and disturbing elements enter to test and challenge their comfortable relationships to one another and to the world around them. Secrets, differences and loss of trust threaten to destroy the long-established friendships.
 
JIMMY, the jokester, worries about having something to leave his grand-daughter; old LES has to cope with losing his marbles; conservative PATRICK suspects his mate KEITH of having an affair; and good-natured ribbing about old political sores becomes tense when a newcomer’s enthusiasm to join the group ruffles everyone’s feathers and exposes long-held prejudices.  ROD, the youngest of the troupe, struggles to manage the discord:

“There’s a difference between reminiscing and looking backwards.  I mean, being  backward-looking.  It’s when we hang on and don’t move on, that we look old – when we hang on too tightly to how things used to be.  Look at us.  Between us we’ve lived nearly five hundred years, nearly half a bloody millennium.  What have we got to be afraid of that we haven’t already faced?”

They begin to see that the vulnerability of one is the vulnerability of all - and commonality begins to re-assert itself.  Seeing each other and themselves in a different light: they learn that ‘difference’ is more a matter of point of view; that you ‘wouldn’t be dead for quids’; and, no matter what, that you gotta laugh!

“I think you are onto something quite special – a thoughtful comedy about the changing face of Australia.”
Wayne Harrison, director