Australian Drama
Australian playwrights use a variety of styles, techniques and conventions to present images on the stage that provoke and challenge their audiences.
Discuss with reference to your study and experience of the plays you have studied.
The Australian playwrights studied this year have used a variety of styles, techniques and conventions, presenting images which provoke and challenge audiences. The Removalists by David Williamson and No Sugar by Jack Davis, despite the different contexts, are concerned with power and status and the conflict which is created by contrasting cultural and social values. While Davis’ No Sugar is set in Western Australia in the 30’s and focuses on the discrimination and racism experienced by Aboriginals, The Removalists deals with Police corruption in the 70’s. Despite these different contexts, both plays manipulate a range of style, techniques and conventions to create images which effectively challenge and provoke their audiences.
Both plays combine a range of styles, techniques and conventions to create images which provoke and challenge the audience but the most significant dramatic technique is the deliberate and careful use of contrast in the spoken language. The dialogue in No Sugar provokes the audience right from the first scene with the starting mixture of “lingos’, “Koorawoorung! Nyoongahs corroboree’n to a wetjala’s brass band!” Here the audience is presented with an incongruous image of Aboriginals trying to do the impossible – adjust and assimilate harmoniously to the traditional music of the controlling culture. From the humorous slang of Jimmy, “Oh Jesus, me bloody leg” to the formal, platitude – style speech of Neville, “in this small corner of the Empire” (4.5) the audience is challenged by the evident differentiation of status, education and privilege. White language is formal and sanitised. Black language is comic, creative, angry and despairing, the humour challenging the audience to identify sympathetically with
Discuss with reference to your study and experience of the plays you have studied.
The Australian playwrights studied this year have used a variety of styles, techniques and conventions, presenting images which provoke and challenge audiences. The Removalists by David Williamson and No Sugar by Jack Davis, despite the different contexts, are concerned with power and status and the conflict which is created by contrasting cultural and social values. While Davis’ No Sugar is set in Western Australia in the 30’s and focuses on the discrimination and racism experienced by Aboriginals, The Removalists deals with Police corruption in the 70’s. Despite these different contexts, both plays manipulate a range of style, techniques and conventions to create images which effectively challenge and provoke their audiences.
Both plays combine a range of styles, techniques and conventions to create images which provoke and challenge the audience but the most significant dramatic technique is the deliberate and careful use of contrast in the spoken language. The dialogue in No Sugar provokes the audience right from the first scene with the starting mixture of “lingos’, “Koorawoorung! Nyoongahs corroboree’n to a wetjala’s brass band!” Here the audience is presented with an incongruous image of Aboriginals trying to do the impossible – adjust and assimilate harmoniously to the traditional music of the controlling culture. From the humorous slang of Jimmy, “Oh Jesus, me bloody leg” to the formal, platitude – style speech of Neville, “in this small corner of the Empire” (4.5) the audience is challenged by the evident differentiation of status, education and privilege. White language is formal and sanitised. Black language is comic, creative, angry and despairing, the humour challenging the audience to identify sympathetically with