Question Three. The way a play is staged can have a significant effect on the meanings made by the audience. To what extent have choices n the staging of No Sugar contributed to the meanings you have made concerning ethnicity and identity.
The post-colonialist play No Sugar, penned by playwright Jack Davis in nineteen eighty six, invites the audience to critique (and ultimately condemn) the ethnocentrism and ideologies supported by white Anglo-Saxon Christians in the early nineteen thirties in Western Australia. The play follows the Millimurra family, of the Nyoongah people, as they experience racism within the small town of Northam, and are forcefully moved to the Moore River Native Settlement by non-Indigenous officials. The playwright invites the audience to interrogate the central ideologies supported by these two conflicting ethnicities through the employment of theatrical devices (and staging conventions) performance piece.
Davis conveys representations of two opposing ethnicities in the play No Sugar through dichotomies and binary oppositions conveyed by theatrical devices. Binary oppositions reflect the dominant ideologies of a society, and encourage the audience to consider the treatment of Aboriginal Australians by Non-Indigenous Australians in the play No Sugar. Theatrical conventions used in the play invite the audience to make meanings concerning the ethnicity and identity of Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups.
Davis invites the audience to valorise the importance placed upon participation and community by the Nyoongah people, while condemning insincere spectacles favoured by Non-Indigenous Australians. The stage of No Sugar is designed for a dispersed setting, to represent an attempt to integrate the audience w...
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...on-Indigenous people’s inability to comprehend their errors regarding the treatment of Aboriginal people.
Davis employs theatrical devices to invite the reader to criticize and endorse certain aspects of the ethnicity and identity of the Non-Indigenous and Indigenous people in the play No Sugar. The post-colonial play presents dichotomies of the markers of ethnicity of each group, and the values each group endorse. The play invites the audience to condemn the ethnocentrism and refusal of Non-Indigenous people to integrate with the Indigenous people. It suggests that the Non-Indigenous people are unwilling to diversify and accept Nyoongahs into their (dominant) cultural identity, despite the Nyoongah characters attempts to integrate with them. Thus it is in these ways that the choices of staging have contributed to meanings made concerning ethnicity and identity.
Blackrock was first performed in 1995. The play explores the causes of violence by individuals as well as ideas surrounding mateship and gender. The representations of mateship, masculinity and violence portray Australian culture in Blackrock as dangerous, homophobic and one that is accustomed to gender inequality. Dramatic conventions are employed by Nicholas Enright to challenge the reader or viewer’s view towards mateship, reinforce the idea of masculinity and challenge the idea that Australian culture is safe.
The performance ‘Chasing the Lollyman’ by Debase productions succeeded in using the Dramatic Languages to create a Dramatic Meaning that comments on a social and political issue. This, along with the effective manipulation of the dramatic conventions, has allowed Debase to successfully recognised the Epic Theatre style. Chasing the Lollyman is one man show starring one of Queensland's most dynamic and funny Indigenous performers, Mark Sheppard. He shares many stories, a celebration of urban Indigenous identity and takes a satirical look at the media and popular culture. Playing a variety of characters, Mark pokes fun at everything from Neighbours (what would it be like if a Murri family moved into Ramsey street) to polities. The dramatic meaning of the performance is if Australia wants to become one, we need to learn to accept each other for their differences.
Stereotypes, which often is the foundation of racism, has negative effects on cultures all over the planet. These cultural generalizations are harmful and prove to be negative and untrue. The North American culture appears to be generally ethnocentric, which is clearly shown in this short piece. The short story “A Seat in the Garden”, a narrative by Thomas King, is a fictional piece which makes one realize how these interpretations are in many ways narrow-minded understandings of human experience. King’s piece touches the concept of stereotypes in a variety of ways. He speaks of the overall negative generalization of Aboriginal culture, the impact of the media regarding stereotypes, and how mainstream society continues to uphold these stereotypes.
Bangarra Dance Theatre’s phenomenon entitled Mathinna entails the awe-inspiring, yet historically enlightening journey of an Aboriginal girl who was taken from her home and forced to conform to the westernised norms of the 1800’s. In an era plagued by racism and prejudice, Mathinna emanates the themes of colonialism, and cultural intolerance. Following the viewing of this scintillating production it is undeniably clear that the architect of Mathinna, Stephen Page, has deliberately intended to shed light on the immoral practice of forcibly removing Indigenous children as well as address the issue of social and cultural erosion to emotionally move those of modern audiences. This essay serves to further elaborate on the cultural undertones of
The characters in Jack Davis' play "No Sugar" are characters that fit colonial stereotypes (both Aboriginals and Whites) although they seem to be exaggerated. Contrasting characters reveal Ideological ideas and attitudes through things like language, often through conflict.40
This powerful film takes us on a journey through the eyes and hearts of four young girls from the Yorta Yorta community. Cynthia, Julie, Gail and Kay shared a love of singing, before Kay was taken away by the government and placed in an institution to learn the ‘the white ways’. The four girls reunited as adults to embark on their own journey through Vietnam, singing as an all Aboriginal girl group
Deadly Unna, a novel written by Phillip Gwynne, delves deep into the society of an Australian town in the 1970s when racial prejudice of the Aboriginals was prevalent. Writing in the perspective of Gary ‘Blacky’ Black who is white, Gwynne makes use of many themes in the novel, such as dysfunctional families, friendship, racism and prejudice. However, the most prominent theme that the book focuses on is racism. The author does an excellent job in developing characters and symbols to contrast the relation between the Nungas, the Aboriginal population and the Goonyas, the white population, showing racism.
The Indigenous youth of Australia still face many challenges growing up in a world dominated by white Europeans. This essay will discuss the stereotypes and marginalisation that young Indigenous teenagers must face. After viewing Yolngu Boy and Black Chicks Talking, there will be examples from the two movies on the stereotypes, marginalisation, interdependent and the connection the characters of the movies have with the Aboriginal culture and the dominant white culture.
Characters in the play show a great difficult finding who they are due to the fact that they have never been given an opportunity to be anything more than just slaves; because of this we the audience sees how different characters relate to this problem: " Each Character has their own way of dealing with their self-identity issue..some look for lost love o...
The film helps to explain the ambiguity in the motives and actions of the government workers. The government workers and the missionaries both want to do good and help the Aborigines, but their actions are guided by naturally ingrained stereotypes and self interests. The whites view the natives and the Aborig...
... Through the use of story and characterization, Noyce accurately depicts the theme of racism as a prominent element of the film and also shows the audience the deep-seated attitudes towards the Aboriginal culture in Australia in the 1930s.The film convinces us that racism
Throughout Australian history a racist attitude towards Aboriginals has been a significant issue. From the moment the early settlers arrived on our shores and colonised, the Aboriginals have been fighting for the survival of their culture. The Aboriginals haven been take in and dominated to bring them in line with an idealistic European society. These themes have been put forward by Jack Davis in his stage play, No Sugar, the story of an Aboriginal family’s fight for survival during the Great Depression years. Admittedly Davis utilises his characters to confront the audience and take them out of their comfort zone, showing them the reality of Aboriginal treatment. This is an element of the marginalisation that Jack Davis uses through out the play this starts from the beginning where he discomforts the audience by using an open stage. One character that Davis uses through out the play is A.O. Neville, Davis uses him to portray the issue of power, this is a very important issue that is carried through out the play.
Werner, Craig, Thomas J. Taylor and Robert McClenaghan. Critical Survey of Drama, Second Revised Edition: James Baldwin. April 2003. .
Krasner, David. Resistance, Parody, and Double Consciousness in African American Theatre: 1895-1910. Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1997. Print.
In this essay Mura expresses his anger towards the Broadway production Miss Saigon. Mura “protest . . . [actor equality] against the producer’s casting . . . [Mura] felt disturbed that again a white actor, the British Jonathan Pryce, was playing