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

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

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