Examining the Work of Playwright Ray Lawler

Ladies and gentleman, the film Australian Rules is simply impossible to overlook as Australia’s entry into the international film everything that a proper ‘Australian’ film should, drama, romance, action and deceit. It portrays cultural differences that create segregation between the fabrics of society in a town that doesn’t possess the capacity to co-exist which is evident in urbanized Australia.

The play, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, journey’s through a longstanding sixteen-year seasonal love life of two Queensland cane cutters with two Melbourne barmaids during their five-month summer layoff seasons. Through the character of Olive, one of the barmaids, Lawler

It is quite a disturbing thought to think that this is the way that the Australian film industry presents itself to the rest of the world. It is movies like The Castle that give the rest of the world the impression that Australians are pathetic, uneducated, classless yobbos. This impression was

Set in the Australian summer of 1967, Michael Gow’s Away is an elaborate play which explores the ideas of self- discovery and change. Through the war affected nation, three families, each from different social classes, depart on an iconic Australian holiday to the beach. In the play, Gow utilises the characters to demonstrate that going away physically is intrinsically linked to their mental developments. With the help of references to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer night’s Dream, Away uses Gwen and Coral to show the significant psychological changes made by the characters during holidays to the coast. Tom throughout the play acts as a catalyst for the change in other characters and is associated with Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Michael Gow’s “Away” is an Australian play, set in the summer of 1967-68, in a time of great social and political change. “Away” tells the story of three families, each from different social classes, living in suburban Australia, as they each embark on their own holiday, attempting to escape their underlying personal issues. Immigrants Harry and Vic love their adopted country but are constantly faced with their son, Tom’s, terminal illness, while Jim and Gwen fret over their daughter Meg’s blossoming independence and her friendship with the socially unsuitable Tom, and Roy is unable to console a grief–stricken Coral over the death of their only son during the Vietnam war. Although each family is completely dissimilar, the theme of love remains

Australia is filled with many different aspects in which makes it the country it is today. I believe it is important to study texts that explore aspects of Australia by studying texts such as ‘The Club’, by David Williamson, a play written in 1977 about an Australian football club and movies such as “The Castle”, directed by Rob Stitch in 1997, about the daily life of an Australian family when their happiness is threatened when developers attempt to buy their house to expand the neighboring airport. Both these texts show us what Australian life was like in the past. By us looking at themes such as language, tradition and the mateship shown we are able to explore different aspects of Australia that make it what it is today.

“Away” is a historical play written in 1988 by Michael Gow. Away reflects to the central ideas, values and conflicts of Australia in 1967-68. The central ideas embrace outsiders, family conflicts and grief and loss which affected families in the play and in the time. Gow uses three main families to convey the message of the play. The use of language and stylistic devices influence the way Gow has been able to speak to the modern Australian audience. In the play, Gow is able to speak to the modern Australian audience with the clever, complex use of allusion. The modern audience would have to do research to understand the allusions in the play however on a superficial level the audience is still able to enjoy the central themes and ideas of the play.

Today I’ll be talking about the play “Blackrock” that I’ve been studying in class this term, the purpose of this speech is to make us think how Australian drama challenges us to think about Australian culture and identity, and the impacts it can have on us as person and as a community.

Through the use of poetic devices, the author has successfully encouraged the audience to explore their thoughts on Australian identity and to reflect on our nation’s history.

He himself paid a lot of attention to such a matter. In his essay entitled “Some Thoughts on Playwriting” (1941), Wilder argued that there are four principles which make drama very distinctive and different from the other arts. The most relevant of these principles of the dramatic genre is that “It is addressed to the group-mind;” 3 which means that drama orientates its message a very broad audience. Stresau affirms that it is not possible to exclude the fact that Thornton Wilder paid a lot of attention to the future in his work which “contains the man of twentieth century who, in the maelstrom of toppling orders, has frighteningly lost his orientation. Faced with the question of how to live, what is left for him but to trust … the promise that grows out of the unknowable?”

The overall dramatic meaning of this play has been successfully shown by the elements of drama. The

Wertenbaker’s play Our Country’s Good aimed to push the boundaries of theatre and deliver a political message as potent now as it was in the 80’s when the play was written. Thatcher was in power in the 1980’s and it was her attempt to abolish the arts that ironically inspired a huge swell in the writing of many political plays which drew attention to the dire situation Thatcher was leading Britain into. The main message Wertenbaker aimed to convey was the redemptive power of the arts, highlighting their ability to heal even the most broken society, like that of Botany Bay in 1789, or

The play presents complex notions about family bonds, based upon their shared cultural experiences and the way in which they reinforce their cultural Australian identity and help members of the family endure the physical hardship and social isolation. Jack Davis’ social realist drama, ‘No Sugar’ explores how the varying levels of family unity, rebellion and cultural identity depicted in different characters influences their survival. In this play, the term ‘survival’ operates on two continuums. It is conveyed as the physical sense of life and death through the play’s protagonist, Jimmy Munday, as well as the pursuit of happiness. This pursuit is predominantly reflected in the parallel yet contrasted lives of Mary and Billy Kimberley as well as Gran’s deteriorating health after losing family members. Although Davis articulates the endurance of the Indigenous Australians, he incorporates figures of white authority who seek to demolish the Indigenous race and culture. Set in the time frame of 1929 to 1934, ‘No Sugar’ presents a critique of the conventional colonial British views of that era; and their effect on the preservation of Indigenous spirit and culture.

As well as emphasise on the faults within the stereotype, the use of recognisable characters in a production of The Removalists allows for an effective comment on the faults within Australian society. Through the use of stereotyped characters, the play provides a deeper insight into the serious personal and societal issues within the Australian community, without the distraction of character complexity. These themes, which are explored through stereotypes, are violence, abuse of authority, and sexism and sexuality.

The Queensland Theatre Company’s rendition of ‘The Wider Earth’ was a highly captivating piece of theatre, which recounted the scientific visionary, Charles Darwin’s voyage on the HMS beagle. Through the extensive manipulation of dramatic languages, in which ritualistic movement, characterisation, tension of relationship, and symbolism were all employed in order to achieve the company’s artistic director, Sam Strong’s aims to have “the cast beautifully transform the various historical and fictional characters into three dimensional human beings.”