No Sugar Play Essay

Australian Theatre Essay

“Compare how the plays you have studied use the development of tension to take their audience on a particular journey.”

Within Australia Theatre the 1960’s created an opportunity for marginalised groups in society to be heard as they explored ideas regarding issues of racism and multiculturalism, challenging the concept of Australia being an egalitarianism society. David Williamson’s controversial play ‘The Removalist’ written in 1971 and Jack Davis’ play ‘No sugar’ written in 1985, bring to the fore a variety of societal concerns, which were, predominate within their contexts. As a class, we further developed these ideas to expound the social concerns of corruption and violence within Australian authority due to

abuse of power and the police brutality faced my minorities. We used differing dramatic tensions to reflect their societies on our stage, confronting and evoking strong responses from the audience. This ultimately allowed us to push aside dominate hegemonic values, giving voice to the repressed values of each composer's respected context.

Through the use of dramatic tensioning in Davis’ ‘No Sugar’ we explored the struggles of an Aboriginal family trying to survive in callous conditions on an aboriginal reserve in the 1930s during the Great Depression.

They were controlled by apartheid-style policies and by using tension we depicted their struggles to survive in a hostile white society due to their cultural differences. We explored the marginalising of minorities by highlighting the Milimurra family’s integration of their own language into their dialogue, we explored their difficulty to maintain their cultural lifestyle because of their reduced access to cultural heritage due to the influence of mainstream white society. We emphasised this in Act 2 scene 6 by exploring the unique relationship to culture, land and lifestyle through the tension within their dialogue that was infused with their own native

slang:
BLUEY: Yokki! ( Shout of praise!)
JIMMY: Moorditji! (Good!)
JOE: Woolah! (Shout of praise!)
We decided to keep the indigenous terms to authenticate their experiences allowing the audience to experience the alienating effect of a foreign language allowing us to exacerbate how their cultural differences provide a means for estrangement from the white mainstream culture.

We further explored this idea in Neville’s monologue where we challenged the authenticity of Australia’s acceptance of multiculturalism, as it was set in the 1930’s we contextualised his presentation with a modern projector and PowerPoint to expound how these hypocritical ideologies are still faced in our society. This allowed us to manipulate the atmosphere through dramatic pauses creating a serious tense mood. As powerful characters enter from the left we staged Neville to enter from the left with strong sharp movements however at the climax of the monologue when he states “in that time some six thousand natives…disappeared and only one was left alive” bringing to the fore the hypocrisy of it all, his movements became sporadic as he began trembling in his voice then exiting to the right. It is through this juxtaposition that we explored the social concern of racial injustice as it evoked a strong response from the audience creating a sense of shock, as it was a clear reflection of their own society on stage. Moreover, this allowed us to expound how those in a position of power and authority treat ‘the other’ with contempt and do not provide humane opportunities to improve living conditions but rather how they abuse their political power, and like society ‘turns a blind eye’ to such injustices.

Analogously within Williamson’s play ‘The Removalist’ we explored police brutality and in specific the abuse of power utilised by authoritarian roles, highlighting the fluidity of power within relationships. By bringing to the fore the brash depiction of Australian ocker culture through slang and profanity we expounded how Williamson’s 1970’s Australian context pushed people into ‘primitive’ states. This can be seen when we used exaggerated stage fighting to explore the interpersonal conflict between Simmonds and Ross. By adding comedic elements to their fight their clash leads to the perpetuation and tolerance of violence making the plays most violent moment one of the most humorists. We followed Williamson’s visionary of “emotional peaks, violence, and releases, comedy. Never letting the audience rest in one genre” by doing this the play walks the thin line between satire and realism, prompting the audience to relax into a comedy then shocking them with horrific beatings. This uneasy tension between humour and savagery creates an unsettlement within the audience making us complicit in the violence and prompting the audience to question their own tolerance of it within society.

We further explored this police brutality through the corruption of police, specifically in the ability of Simmonds to corrupt Ross and control him through fear.

This is evident during the moments of physical comedy and absurdity, especially exemplified by Kenny's 'second death'. As Simmonds, Ross and Kenny resolve their conflict over a beer, Kenny dies. It is here where we see Simmonds's core, as Williamson’s expressed in an interview “not as a vile sadistic beast, but a puffed up toad who is a pathetic frightened little man inside.” This allowed us to through physicality, movement and idiosyncrasies to explore a power shift between Simmonds and Ross allowing us to express their vastly contrasting okra characteristics. As Ross began with emphasised frustrated and sporadic movements juxtaposed to Simmonds movements that were of a calm authoritative manner, after their encounter their demeanours shift into each other’s leaving the audience uncomfortably between realism and satire. We repeatedly prompted the audience to laugh in proximity to violence, making the play's most violent characters, Simmonds and Kenny, the most ‘amusing’. Williamson provides a critical criticism on the worst aspects of male, specifically okra, Australian behaviour within his 1970’s Australian society and through the use of dramatic tension we explored we were able to manipulate the dramatic elements of drama to evoke a response from the audience, ultimately allowing us to explore that the ideologies

that troubled their context is still ubiquitous in our Australian society.

In conclusion, it is through the ideologies regarding prejudiced views we were able to, like the playwrights of ‘No Sugar’ and ‘The removalist’ challenge the concept of Australia being an egalitarianism society. By bringing to the fore issues regarding racism and multiculturalism we were able to utilise dramatic tension to expound how it is still relevant in today's society, similarly walking the thin line between comedy and cruelty we showcased the variety of societal concerns each playwright had with corruption and violence within Australian authority due to abuse of power and the police brutality faced my minorities. Ultimately this allowed us to confront and evoke strong responses from the audience inducing them to reflect on our own societal issues that are still prevalent within our current Australian society.