Australian playwrights use dramatic forms and conventions to present themes issues and characters that are uniquely
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"Australian playwrights use dramatic forms and conventions to present themes, issues and characters that are uniquely Australian."
Through using dramatic forms and conventions Australian playwrights present themes, issues and characters that are uniquely Australian. This is evident in Jack Davis' "No Sugar" and Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman's "The Seven Stages Of Grieving".
In the period play "No Sugar"; set in the 1920's but written in the 1980's, Jack Davis makes use of the dramatic form of social realism in order to portray the lack of justice and the hardship that Aboriginal people have endured. This form assists in presenting themes, issues and characters that are uniquely Australian through making use of experiences that Aboriginal people actually lived through in authentic settings, placed in a particular time frame.
The separate settings on the one stage is a dramatic convention that represents the theme of division between the Anglo Europeans and Australia's indigenous peoples. This theme is uniquely Australian as it deals with an issue that did, and in some cases still does exist in our culture, between our people. This dramatic conventions simplistic use of distinctive settings instead of scenery changes helps to portray the theme of the closeness of the Aboriginal family. Despite any adversity placed upon them by the Australian government nothing succeeds in unsettling the bonds of the Munday/Millimara family. An example of these ties is shown when Sam and Jimmy drunkenly fight (pp29-33) but soon after Sam is trying to settle Jimmy down when they are in jail to avoid a harsher sentence, "Stop it Gnoolya, steady down, steady down...