The theatrical styles and conventions used in particular Australian plays reflect significant issues in Australian society in which they were created. In the two plays, Gary’s House and The Seven Stages of Grieving (Seven Stages) the playwrights have used certain devices and forms such as symbolism and ritual, multi-media, sound and. The plays explore family values, depression and survival in the modern Australian society.
Seven Stages composed by Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailmen started back in 1993. The Seven Stages takes us on a journey with an optimistic ending. It also invests Aboriginal history with appropriate emotional connections and responses. The whole sense of the grief and the family, the gathering of a community and the passing on of an elder. The play was, and is, particularly appealing to a diverse audience for its unique structure consisting of short scenes, combined in a collage form. The play has a journey essence, as the sole actor performs a series of monologues, to reveal history of Aboriginal People, from “genocide” to “reconciliation.”
In the opening scenes of Seven Stages the play begins off with an enormous block of ice dripping on to a grave, providing both sound of tears dropping and a symbol of cold heartedness melting. In scene 3, the burning of eucalyptus leaves smoke as Mailmen asks permission to speak of the dead in order to express her grief. Their photographs are projected behind her as she tells her story. The conventions of symbols and rituals help create the style of storytelling in, which raises the issues of dispossession and loss of land, language and children which connect with the stories of family members. The emotional impact comes as often from what is not said as what is spoken. The silences in Scenes 1 and 2 create potent meanings. This is not a simple society but one of injustices. A complex invitation to experience something of the depth of Aboriginal grieving.
The Term Paper on Applying the Four Frames and Eight Stages to Create a Plan to Manage Organizational Change
The final project is a written response to the application of the concepts learned in the course, relating to a theoretical developmental perception of a change management plan. Greater emphasis lies on the application of these presented ideas on a personal learning level. A selected organization that has gone, or is undergoing change was the focal point of this assignment. The documented research ...
The Seven Stages reflect political issues at hand. It ultimately stresses the need for rights, using theatre as a tool to connect these issues to society. Delicate sound effects and graphics are used to evoke both traditional and recognisable contemporary family life. In the end at scene 22, the word “reconciliation,” comically referred as first as wreck, con, silly, nation is packed in the suitcase, while we are reminded it is not something you read or write but something that you do. Finally, it is places at the audience’s feet, a gift, a promise, and the end stage of grieving. The dramatic elements and the content discuss the issues that affect the Aboriginal people, Aboriginal history and everything that comes with that in order to create society to be aware and hopefully question itself.
In the text Gary’s House by Debra Oswald has accepted the theme of “The Australian Dream.” We see the characters struggling to achieve their dream.
The play is the story of a group of working class dysfunctionals finding one another and building their own idea of a family. Throughout the years the traditional idea of the Australian Dream has been defined into having a home of one’s own and filled with those they love. Gary’s House accepts this theme as the misfits whom society has rejected, build a home and a family.
The play begins with Gary, a 40 something year old man who has had a traumatic childhood. His mother died when he was younger and his father wouldn’t or couldn’t look after him. As a result young Gary went from foster home to foster home, separated from his sister and experienced a loveless unstable upbringing. Now and adult, Gary is still searching and striving to achieve the family he never had. With his pregnant 19 year old girlfriend, Sue-Anne, Gary has inherited a block of land and is trying to build a house on it. His very own Australian Dream. As he quotes, “this house, and Sue-Anne and the baby. This is my last chance, I know that.” This statement highlights the three most important thins to him which are integral parts of his dream.
The Essay on The American Dream Mildred Family Life
The American Dream is the dream of living life to the fullest even if it means taking stupid chances to learn from them. In addition, it means to try keeping a good family atmosphere in the house. In both Raisin in the Sun and Mildred Pierce, these and other ideas of an " American Dream" are being displayed in many occasions. In the two books, a central idea is kept of living life to the fullest. ...
The set design in Gary’s House forms the central motif of the play. The play opens with a building site on a remote bush block, which is symbolically constructed throughout the course of the play. The audience comes to appreciate a symbol that building this house is the source of Gary’s passion and drive and becomes a symbol for the action of the play. When Gary confesses to Dave that Sue-Anne has “torn my heart out,” the house is subsequently neglected with his death. Yet in Act 2, when Christine finds strength and shares that she us “filling up with good feelings” the house progresses quickly to a finished structure. Oswald has used word symbols and motifs to reinforce the “dreams” and concerns facing the Australian society from the era of the 1970’s to the modern day.
In the Seven Stages and Gary’s house, both challenges people on intellectual and emotional levels. The characters celebrating who they are as people. For audiences to come on a journey with them and see the world through their eyes for a little while. The effect of both is a highly memorable piece of theatre that goes beyond the obvious political and social messages, leaving the audiences with the impression that a vast human “dream” continues to be carried out in our mind set.
