Fr David Strong SJ, The Australian dictionary of Jesuit biography 1848-2015, Second Edition, 2017:
Playoust, Marc

Medical doctor, physician, deacon; born Sydney, NSW, 18 February 1934; died Rhynie, South Australia, 10 December 1972, aged 38.

Marc Playoust was educated at St Aloysius' College, Milson's Point, 1941-49, and entered the school of medicine at the University of Sydney. His facility for gaining academic honours accelerated as the course progressed and he graduated MB BS in 1956 with first-class honours and the university medal. His undergraduate record was the more impressive in that it was punctuated by an interest in student affairs which led to varying terms of office as the President of the Students' Representative Council and the National Union of Australian University Students and, subsequently, the Sydney University Medical Society.

His residency was spent at the Royal Prince Alfred hospital, where his period in the medical professorial unit was the commencement of an association with academic medicine that for a time appeared to represent the fulfillment of his most cherished hopes. His aptitude for research was quickly demonstrated during the period he spent in the Clinical Research Unit, and, anticipating a future need for a more thorough knowledge of biochemistry, he returned for a time to the Biochemistry Department at Sydney University. The succeeding two years were spent at Johns Hopkins and Harvard Medical Schools where he carried out studies on the physiology of intestinal absorption. In 1959 he became a member of the Royal Australian College of Physicians, and later a fellow.

Upon returning to Australia in 1964, Playoust joined the Department of Medicine in the University of Sydney and he was appointed honorary assistant physician at the University of Sydney and at its campus hospital. His enthusiasm, however, took him beyond these preoccupations to an active role in the Australian Society for Medical Research, in which he was both sustaining and creative.

While he was reticent about his accomplishments, he was held in awe by a large number of his colleagues. Playoust was incapable of giving his attention to any task without calling upon himself for a maximal effort. This talent tended to isolate him from his fellows, and it was therefore a source of much pleasure to his friends that he learned in later years to display his latent warmth and affection.

Playoust sought to belong to the community of man, which he achieved in part during his residency as a tutor in the University College at St John's. It was during this period that dormant spiritual forces reasserted themselves and he made his decision to become a priest. It was a decision that gave him great contentment.

He had wanted to join the Society since leaving St Aloysius' College, but his mother, strongly anti-catholic by conviction was always implacably opposed to this. He entered the Society at Loyola College, Watsonia, 1 March 1969, and studied theology at the Jesuit Theological College, Parkville, 1970-72, gaining a BD honours degree. He was a deacon when he was killed in a car accident along with William Holland less than a month before he was to have been ordained priest.

Playoust was a man of strong conviction, and forceful in his expression of them. He often showed himself remarkably open to the opinions of others, even of those with much less experience of life than he. He was something of a sage among his contemporary Jesuits, a real master of down-to-earth thinking. One could be sure he would always declare himself with all frankness. It was clear where one stood with him. Yet he would listen to others closely and keenly because he had a genuine interest in people and respected them.

In his daily life he was thoroughgoing, methodical, hardworking and strictly ordered in his routine, yet obviously glad of a chance to stop and converse, to give of himself, to help out, to share and to learn. He was as brilliant at theology as he was at medicine. He had his first theological essay published while still a novice.

There was a refreshing independence about Playoust. He was, in his way, something of a rebel, always amazingly articulate, often cheekily outspoken in a way that made a few people wary of him, but which caused most to admire him. He was nonetheless sensitive to misunderstanding and impatient with those who made insufficient effort to appreciate his standpoint. The strange result was that his radicalism was frequently declared with conservative bluntness.

He was an early riser, and preferred an early morning Mass to the evening one. But his eyes glinted at the mention of a party, and he was a most welcome addition to many a celebration. He possessed a lively sense of fun, a guttural and mischievously self-indulgent chuckle that was quite unique, and an out-and-out laugh that sought fresh degrees of unrestraint. He loved the outdoors, the summer sun, and the freedom of the countryside. In his earlier days he had done a good deal of caravanning along the east coast, and he enjoyed the memory of such things.

On his ordination card he had inscribed the words from Romans 11,33; 'O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways!'

While his untimely death caused sadness to many, all rejoiced at the privilege of knowing such an extraordinarily gifted and deeply affectionate person.

(Reproduced by permission of Fr David Strong SJ.)