In this dramatic ending, Olunde takes on his father’s role as the king’s horseman and sacrifices himself. It may be surprising for some readers/audiences, as Olunde seems to be a more “modern” young man, who has studied in Europe and is capable of critical thinking regarding both of the societies he was a part of. Nevertheless, he understands how important this is to his people. His father is no longer a patriarchal figure, no longer an emblem of power. The Nigerian people need someone who can embody the strength and vitality of their society, and Olunde is aware, given his nuanced understanding of the colonial system, that he is the only one who can do this. 2.9 SUMMARY Death and the King's Horseman is a play by Wole Soyinka in which Elesin postpones his ceremonially dictated death. Elesin, the recently deceased king's horseman, is meant to kill himself in order to follow his monarch into the afterlife. Elesin postpones his death by requesting a night of pleasure with a beautiful woman, and later by allowing the white district officer to imprison him to prevent his suicide. Elesin's son, Olunde, returns to the village and, shamed by his father's actions, kills himself in hopes of fulfilling his father's duty. Upon seeing his son's body, Elesin commits suicide out of shame and guilt. 2.10 KEYWORDS Abandon - throw away Prowess - expertise Ceremony - ritual Hurl - throw Orchestra - pop group Sacred - holy Strangle - stifle Colonialist - a person who supports the practice of gaining political control over other countries and occupying them with settlers. Conquest - invasion Hypnotic -mesmerizing 2.11 LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. Examine Cultural Criticism in Wole Soyinka's Death and the King’s Horseman 51 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
___________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ 2. Inspect on Western Cultural Beliefs in Wole Soyinka’s Death and King’s Horseman ___________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ 3. Contrapuntal Significations in Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman ___________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ 2.12 UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Questions Short Questions 1. What is the message of Death and the King’s Horseman? 2. Does Wole Soyinka’s play Death and the King’s Horseman fit into Aristotle’s views of tragedy how or how not? 3. What type of play is Death and the King’s Horseman? 4. What do Simon and Jane plan to do with the sacred robes? 5. Why does Elesin stop himself from dying? Long Questions 1. Who is expected to commit ritual suicide in the play, \"Death and the King’s Horseman\"? 2. Justify how the play, \"Death and the King’s Horseman\" is based on a historical event. 3. Explain who prevented from committing ritual suicide by the British colonial powers in the play, \"Death and the King’s Horseman\" . 4. Describe briefly Elesin, as the king’s chief horseman. 5. Discuss Simon and Jane are the typical example for foolishness of native belief. B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. The play Death and the King's Horse man is based on true events from _____ a. 1946 b. 1964 c. 1980 d. 1960 52 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
2. Which country colonized Nigeria? a. Britain b. France c. Belgium d. The U.S. 3. How many acts are there in the play, Death and the King's Horse man? a. 5 b. 4 c. 3 d. 2 4. The first animal Elesin is compared to by the praise-singer is the ____ a. Cockerel b. Horse c. Dog d. Zebra 5. Where does the first act of Death and the King's Horse man take place? a. The Party b. The Marketplace c. England d. Elesin's Home Answers 1-a, 2-a, 3-a, 4-a, 5-b 53 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
2.13 REFERENCES Reference books Fanon Frantz (1967ii). Toward the African Revolution, New York: Grove Press.[6] Fish Stanley (1997). “Multiculturalism does not exist”, Critical Inquiry, Vol. 23, p. 378. Msiska Mpalive -Hangston (2007). Postcolonial Identity in Wole Soyinka, Amsterdam: Rodopi. Soyinka Wole (1976). Myth, Literature and the African World, New York: Cambridge University Press. Textbook references Soyinka Wole (1975). Death and the King’s Horseman, New York: W.W. Norton and Company. Websites https://online.ucpress.edu/representations/article- abstract/doi/10.2307/2902887/67290/Cultural-Criticism-in-Wole-Soyinka-s-Death- and-the?redirectedFrom=PDF http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-deathkingshorsemen/#gsc.tab=0 https://stageagent.com/shows/play/10241/death-and-the-kings-horseman https://media.neliti.com/media/publications/265268-western-cultural-beliefs-in-wole- soyinka-edb9f137.pdf 54 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
UNIT - 3 MANJULA PADMANABHAN:HARVEST STRUCTURE 3.0 Learning Objectives 3.1 Introduction to the Author 3.2 Introduction to the Play 3.3 Analysis 3.4 Characters 3.5 Influence of Cyber Culture 3.6 Themes 3.7 Summary 3.8 Keywords 3.9 Learning Activity 3.10Unit End Questions 3.11 References 3.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, you will be able to: Examine Manjula Padmanabhan’s works Identify the influence of Cyber Culture Analyse the play in detail 3.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE AUTHOR Manjula Padmanabhan (born 1953) is a playwright, journalist, comic strip artist, and children’s book author. Born in Delhi to a diplomat family in 1953, she went to boarding school in her teenage years. After college, her determination to make her own way in life led to works in publishing and media-related fields. She won the Greek Onassis Award for her play Harvest. An award-winning film Deham was made by Govind Nihalani based on the play. She has written one more powerful play, Lights Out! (1984), Hidden Fires is a series of monologues. The Artist’s Model (1995) and Sextet are her other works.(1996). She has also authored a collection of short stories, called Kleptomania. Her most recent book, published in 2008, is Escape. Apart from writing newspaper columns she created comic strips. She created Suki, an Indian comic character, which was serialized as a strip in the Sunday Observer. Before 1997 (the year 55 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
her play Harvest was staged) she was better known as cartoonist and had a daily cartoon strip in The Pioneer newspaper. As playwright 1984 - “Lights Out” 2003. Harvest. London: Aurora Metro Press. As Author and Illustrator 2013. Three Virgins and Other Stories New Delhi, India: Zubaan Books. 2011. I am different! Can you find me? Watertown, Mass: Charles bridge Pub. 2005. Unprincess New Delhi: Puffin Books. 1986. A Visit to the City Market New Delhi: National Book Trust As Illustrator Baig, Tara Ali, and Manjula Padmanabhan. 1979. Indrani and the enchanted jungle. New Delhi: Thomson Press (India) Ltd. Maithily Jagannathan and Manjula Padmanabhan. 1984. Droopy dragon. New Delhi: Thomson Press. Comic Strips 2005. Double talk. New Delhi: Penguin Books. Matthan, Ayesha (2009-01-03). “Is it the great escape?”. The Hindu. Retrieved 2009- 08-14. Moddie, Mandira (2005-08-28). “Antics of Suki”. The Hindu. Retrieved 2009-08-14. 3.2 INTRODUCTION TO THE PLAY Harvest is a play by Manjula Padmanabhan set in the near future that deals with organ selling in India. Aurora Metro Books published the play in 2003. It’s a critique on the commodification of the body in third-world countries. Manjula Padmanabhan, a 21st-century woman, being a technocrat herself, uses the techniques and tools of the modern world in her most celebrated play, Harvest (1996). Though Harvest is not, as obvious, the first play Padmanabhan wrote, her fame as a playwright rests on it. Padmanabhan drew the attention of the world when Harvest won the Onassis cash-rich award for the theatre at Athens (Greece) out of more than a hundred entries. The play confronts us with a futuristic Bombay of the year 2010. Om Prakash, a jobless Indian agrees to sell unspecified organs through Inter Planta Services, Inc to a rich person in first- world for a small fortune. InterPlanta and the recipients are obsessed with maintaining Om’s health and invasively control the lives of Om, his mother Ma, and wife Jaya in their one-room 56 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
apartment. The recipient, Ginni, periodically looks in on them via a videophone and treats them condescendingly. Om’s diseased brother Jeetu is taken to give organs instead of Om. Harvest won the 1997 Onassis Prize as the best new international play. In the screenplay Harvest, by Manjula Padmanabhan, many global borders arise in which organ selling occurs in India in the near future, 2010. This screenplay deals with the first and third world countries. In India, there are more developed places than others. With people still suffering and finding a way to support their families with food and shelter they will do almost anything to make a living. The main character, Om Prakash loses his job while living in a one-bedroom apartment with his family and decides to sell unspecified organs through a company called, InterPlanta Services Inc. “I went because I lost my job in the company. And why did I lose it? Because I am a clerk and nobody needs clerks anymore! There are no new jobs now…there’s nothing left for people like us! Don’t you know that? There’s us and the street gangs and the rich.” (pg 62) In scene 4 (pg 61) The Guards take Jeetu instead of Om to do the eye surgery. Once the procedure is over his eyes will be donated and he will be left wearing a pair of goggles that look like a pair of imitation eyes. Om expresses to Jaya that since they don’t care about Om and his family, the less fortunate that they are going to operate on Jeetu even though they made a mistake and took the wrong person. In this scene, Om acts very cold-hearted and seems to only care about the money he is going to be receiving. On the other hand, Jaya is very anxious and upset about what is taking place. When the Guards bring Jeetu back, he comes in white silk pyjamas and his head all wrapped up in bandages. “I won’t listen! Because listening brings acceptace. And I will never accept, I will never live with this…”(64) Now that Jeetu is not able to see, he feels trapped and is built up with a lot of anger. “Why? Because I’m in a place beyond death. I’m in a place worse than death. ( 66). If Jeetu feels this way rightfully so, then why does Om say that he is selfish? Is Om only worried about the money he is going to be receiving from this procedure? Even though the family received money and were able to live a much better life through organ donation, many problems were created between each other. This is a perfect example of how money doesn’t buy happiness. Harvest is a play written by Manjula Padmanabhan focusing geographically on Mumbai, India. We see the character, Om, signing up as an organ donor for Ginni who an American woman is simply because there is no more jobs in India. Ginni pays him to lead and live a healthy life, so when it is time for doing an organ, there is no difficulty or problem in doing so. This play feels nice in the beginning because it seems as after signing up as organ donor, leading a happy and healthy life is guaranteed and certained, but what lies underneath is when Om and his small family starts to enjoy their new lifestyles, they also start to deny the consequences. 57 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
This play reminds the reader about a Brothel mainly because it is takes place in India, although this time it is Mumbai and not Calcutta. This play also has a prostitute and revolves around poor financial situations resorting to doing very unfortunate jobs to keep their funds up. We see the family go through wonderful meals which can seem as space-age because the family is taking off at the beginning of the play with good promise. But as the play furthers itself, we see the promise becoming dark and uneasy. By seeing the financial situations of Om and his wife Jaya, we can appreciate money as a necessity to life. In this play, we see Om pretty much selling his life in order to obtain the top dollar for this family, well at least in India it was considered top dollar. Jaya was evidently distressed about Om’s decision on signing himself to Ginni because the family is already on an off and on a troubled relationship because Jaya is having a secret relationship with Om’s younger brother Jeetu. Jeetu works as the prostitute mentioned earlier, Ma is Om’s mother who also lives in the house who favors Om more so than the others. Work itself is not even hard either. For the family, Ginni operates their services by dictating to Interplanta, which is the company that supplies them with food and services such as a toilet and shower that Om and his family received as newly rich people. This obviously made a foreshadow of his death. Personally, I wanted to just skip right to the point where Om was going to die because it was so clear that if he wasn’t going to die…then this play would be more interesting. I believe that this simplicity had been effective because it relates to this week’s theme of ‘problem with food.’ Om Prakash is an embittered, petty, unemployed youth who keeps the pretension of caring for his whole family His new life with his family often surrounded around the luxury of food and the shelter with services they are not used to. The problem with this is that we as people simply take food and shelter for granted. I do not remember how many numerous times I have complained about how hungry I am or if my sister had used all the hot water in the shower, but as another dystopian play, Harvest showcases the morality and ethical views of our society . As a result, Om’s carelessness left his family in turmoil. But…but but but…the tables had turned when Jeetu has gotten sick. This is the point where I was like. Wait. Hold on…oh shit, so that means Om is probably going to donate his organs to Jeetu, but he can’t because he had signed to Ginni. We see Jeetu been taking away from the picture as well as the Donor and Jaya is left alone to fend for herself. In the end, it is evident that the body serves as the major theme. Manjula did a great job on portraying the body’s importance to our society as well as in this play. What I believe was effective is how easy Om was able to sign to Ginni because it shows how uncaring and what his body means to him, in order to get the riches. Kinda makes sense now why the title is Harvest because our body is like food, we can harvest it whenever in cases we need it as Ginni had portrayed it in this play. 58 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Apart from its futuristic approach (as the play is set in 2010 Mumbai) the play also shows how the financially strong groups/agents use the modern electronic technology to control and govern the financially weak sections of society in the world at the risk of hell like life as is found in Padmanabhan’s another play, The Mating Game (2003). Though the gist of the play, Harvest can be given in three lines, its presentation, characters, their behaviour, action and the space occupied the screen contact module speak of the value and possession electronic devices are going to have to the life. The story of the play centres on Om, who signs up to be an organ donor for an American organ receiver named Ginny. Ginny provides all the facilities to make and keep Om”s body parts hygienic. Gradually the electronic contact module takes possession of all the characters in the play. Om, Ma and Jeetu except Jaya, Om”s wife who, as Durgesh Ravande says, represent the conflict between technological adventures and human relationship in life. (163) Jaya appears as the last hope of emotional value in the fire when a legal moral and bioethical debates about organ sales and transplants have been overcome when the trade in human organ is fully institutionalized and smoothly operated by the rapacious forces of global capitalism (Shital Pravinchalra, 8). When the play opens, Ma Jaya are seen waiting for Om who is about to come after job-hunting. Apart from the usual retorting and differences between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in- law, one notes their concern for Om”s getting job. Though the ever-growing use of electronic devices like computer has turned Om jobless, his sixty-year-old mother seems to be addicted to another electronic domestic device-television. She appears to be less concerned about her son and daughter-in-law. One feels that she believes more in the celluloid world than the real world where one finds difficult to feed only four members in the family. Ma retorts her daughter-in-law Jaya when the latter asks to leave her alone. MA. Alone, alone! Have you seen your neighbours? Ten in that room; And harmonious as a TV show! But you? An empty room would be too crowded for you. (Padmanabhan’s Harvest, 218) One begins to feel the influence of technology more when Om comes back and begins to describe how he has been selected for a different kind of job. He narrates the non-human instructions at the time of his selection procedure. There begins the commanding influence of the machines in human life. Om narrates: OM. We were standing all together in that line. And the line went on and on -not just on one floor, but slanting up, forever. All in iron bars and grills. It was like being in a cage shaped like a tunnel. All around, up, turn, sideways, there were men slowly moving. All the time, I couldn’t understand it. 59 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Somewhere there must be a place to stop, to write a form. Another question? But no. Just forward, forward. One person fainted but the others pushed him along. And at the corners, a sort of pipe was kept. 3.3 ANALYSIS The play is set in the future, at a time when multinational companies have gone to the Third World not for software, minerals or fabric, but to harvest organs for their rich customers in America. It’s about India and the gritty Third World reality. Set in the imminent future, Harvest imagines a grisly pact between the first and third worlds, in which desperate people can sell their body parts to wealthy clients in return for food, water, shelter and riches for themselves and their families. As such, it is a play about how the “first” world cannibalizes the “third” world to fulfill its own desires. The play confronts us with a futuristic Bombay of the year 2010. Om Prakash, a jobless Indian, agrees to sell unspecified organs through InterPlanta Services, Inc. [a multinational corporation] to a rich person in first-world for a small fortune. InterPlanta and the recipients are obsessed with maintaining Om’s health and invasively control the lives of Om, his mother Ma, and his wife Jaya in their one-room apartment. The recipient, Ginni, periodically looks in on them via videophone and treats them condescendingly. Om’s diseased brother Jeetu is taken to give organs instead of Om. In Harvest, Om, a just-laid-off breadwinner [(of an employer) To dismiss (workers) from employment, e.g. at a time of low business volume, often with a severance package.] for a struggling Indian family living in a cramped Bombay tenement, decides to sell his organs to a shadowy company called Interplanta in hopes of reversing his financial plight. Om’s family is monitored around the clock, receiving frequent video phone-type inquiries and directives from the supposed organ recipient, an icy young blonde named Ginni. Om’s mother falls into a stupor, constantly absorbed by programs on the TV provided by Interplanta. The family’s lives continue to go awry. The play may be set in the future, but it reflects contemporary conditions as well. India, one-third the size of the United States, has three times the population and almost 30 percent of its employable labor force is out of work, and the country’s biggest problems are overpopulation and inadequate education. The story, centers on Om who had recently become jobless. Joblessness, desperation, cynicism are the defining national sentiment. Om, a just-laid-off breadwinner for a struggling Indian family living in a cramped Bombay tenement, decides to sell his organs to a shadowy company called Interplanta in hopes of reversing his financial plight. The family portrait is an archetypal picture of dissolution and decay. It is into this world of disorder that Inter Planta Services brings 60 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
apparent order and respectability when Om signs up to be an organ donor for an American woman named Ginni because there are no other jobs available for him in Mumbai. As the family’s life becomes more comfortable, their relationships become more strained than they ever were in their poverty, and eventually the whole family is at risk of losing not only body parts but their souls and identities as well. The corporation, personified as three anonymous, masked guards dressed all in white, gradually takes over every aspect of their lives. Guards arrive to make his home into a germ-free zone. Om’s family is monitored around the clock, receiving frequent video phone-type inquiries and directives from the supposed organ recipient, an icy young blonde named Ginni. Ginni pays him to lead a “clean” and “healthy” life so she can harvest healthy organs whenever she needs them. Ginni begins to control every aspect of Om’s life, from when and what he eats to whom he sees and how he uses the bathroom. In fact, Ginni comes to control the entire family until the end of the play. There occurs a radical change to their dingy room, and it acquires an air of sophistication. The most important installation, however, is the contact module placed at the centre of the room to facilitate communication between the receiver and the donor. The contact module and the apparent order brought in by Inter Planta seem to create turmoil in personal relationships. The donor and his family is kept under the constant gaze of the receiver as the module can rotate round to face each corner and can flicker to life at any moment. Ginny compares Om’s flat to a “human goldfish bowl” (Harvest 43) which she can observe and amuse herself with. The concept of the design is to allow a watchman to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) inmates of an institution without their being able to tell whether they are being watched or not. Thus, the inmates of the Third world are trapped under the unrelenting gaze of the First world. This total deprivation of privacy can be interpreted as the ultimate form of surveillance. Om’s diseased brother, Jeetu, is taken to give organs instead of Om, and the recipient, Ginni, turns out to not be what she initially seemed. In a final act of defiance, the seeds of rebellion flower in a “checkmate” ploy by Om’s wife, Jaya. Om’s younger brother has abandoned the family homestead [The dwelling house and its adjoining land] and earns his upkeep as a bi-sexual sex worker, Om’s mother has been frayed [(of a person’s nerves or temper) showing the effects of strain] by years of want and penniless living. So much so, she sees nothing amiss with her son’s trade-off, [an exchange where you give up one thing in order to get something else that you also desire.] as long as she gets her long-desired television set, her fridge, her microwave and all the other things that money can buy. 61 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Om, on his part, is too smitten by the beautiful blonde — his buyer from across the seven seas — that keeps staring down at him from the television screen and drives him queasy [sick/unsettled] with her tantalizingly delivered sermons. When Jeetu, his brother returns unexpectedly, he is taken as the donor. Om can’t accept this. He leaves to get back his position as the donor. Jaya, his wife is left alone. She was seduced into selling her body parts, for use by the rich westerners. Jaya, the sensitive young wife seems to have somehow managed to retain her not-for-sale soul despite the overarching gloom. 3.4 CHARACTERS Om Prakash He is the main protagonist of the play. We see the character, Om, signing up as an organ donor for Ginni who an American woman is simply because there are no more jobs in India. Ginni pays him to lead and live a healthy life, so when it is time for doing an organ, there is no difficulty or problem in doing so. This play feels nice in the beginning because it seems as after signing up as organ donor, leading a happy and healthy life is guaranteed and certained, but what lies underneath is when Om and his small family starts to enjoy their new lifestyles, they also start to deny the consequences. By seeing the financial situations of Om and his wife Jaya, we can appreciate money as a necessity to life. In this play, we see Om pretty much selling his life in order to obtain the top dollar for this family, well at least in India it was considered top dollar. Jaya was evidently distressed about Om’s decision on signing himself to Ginni because the family is already on an off and on a troubled relationship because Jaya is having a secret relationship with Om’s younger brother Jeetu. Jeetu works as the prostitute mentioned earlier, Ma is Om’s mother who also lives in the house who favors Om more so than the others. It can be said that it was so easy for Om to be able to sign to Ginni because it shows how uncaring and what his body means to him, in order to get the riches. Kinda makes sense now why the title is Harvest because our body is like food, we can harvest it whenever in cases we need it as Ginni had portrayed it in this play. Om’s insistence that his role in the selection procedure was entirely passive allows Padmanabhan to critique the liberal discourse of free will and choice that advocates organ markets on the basis of individual autonomy. She suggests that it is precisely this discourse which creates the economic structure of millennial capitalism in which the selling of organs becomes an ‘option’ for the disenfranchised third-world individual. As Om’s final reaction makes clear, his judgement has been severely impaired by the lure of unlimited wealth. When 62 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
the reality of what he has done hits him, he is terrified: ‘How could I have done this to myself? What sort of fool am I?’ Character of Jaya Jaya appears as the last hope of emotional value in the fire when a legal moral and bio-ethical debates about organ sales and transplants have been overcome when the trade in human organ is fully institutionalized and smoothly operated by the rapacious forces of global capitalism. She is 19 years old. Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ in The Narrative Reader by Martin McQuillan, 2000). Therefore, by offering us the opinions of women about the ongoing rape, Padmanabhan re-directs the ‘gaze’ as emanating from men, towards a situation where it is elicited from women, the sympathetic observers. Secondly, by not directly showing the assault, Padmanabhan carefully avoids any titillation that such scenes may provide the audience or readers. The assault is occurring in the background (both backstage and at the back of our minds) and is able to keep the sense of unease alive and imminent. As such, rather than ‘witness’ the rape and experience a sense of ‘escape’ in the immediacy of it, one is made to ‘think’ about it and its repercussions. There is no ‘catharsis’ offered here, but sheer irresolution, resting the burden of action on the spectator/audience’s shoulders. She is a very assertive female character, although women’s resistance is not the central concern of this play. It is a dystopian play about the trade in human organs and the commodification of the third world body that such a trade is predicated upon. Here, it is through the character of Jaya that Padmanabhan voices a possible resistance. There are suggestions of a discord in her relationship with her husband. However, Jaya does not seem resigned to submit to her fate. She openly expresses herself in front her husband’s brother Jeetu (with whom, it is suggested, she has been having a liaison): “What do you know of my needs, my desires? …… A woman wants more than just satisfaction.”(96). Although her illicit relationship with Jeetu is not condoned by the playwright, we are nevertheless given an insight into what miseries a woman’s life can be reduced to, if she does not find a legitimate outlet for her sexual desires. It is not just direct interference with the woman’s body, but also cultural dictates that can stifle her physical existence. However, it is towards the end that we get a firm assertion by Jaya to be master of herself and her own body. When Virgil, an American man, tries to gain control over her body, so that he can make her bear his child, she refuses to negotiate with him. She is determined to lay down her own conditions. If Virgil wants her body, he must come to her in person. She insists, “I know Jaya resists Virgil’s advances and retains her own dignity in one swift stroke. While Virgil weighs his options, Jaya threatens to reclaim her own body through suicide. One is reminded of the French feminist Helene Cixous’ words about how a female physiology as a 63 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
source of expression, can be empowering and enabling: “Women must write through their bodies, they must invent the impregnable language that will wreck partitions, classes and rhetorics, regulations and codes, they must submerge, cut through, get beyond the ultimate reserve discourse…” Jaya certainly uses her own body to write her own fate, if nothing else, and thus, to voice resistance. Donna Haraway, in ‘A Manifesto for Cyborgs’ talks about how, in today’s world of technological advancement, women can voice resistance through an analysis of their situation in inter-national migrations and the increasing rate of male unemployment. Padmanabhan takes the argument a step further by suggesting that a reaction to commodification of women’s body might not necessarily lead to compromised situations like exploitative women-headed households but also to a more assertive control by the women over their body. For, even in the face of her husband’s unemployment, and the consequent poverty in the family, Jaya refuses to ‘migrate’ to a foreign land and asserts her power through her control over her body. Ginni She is the American woman who had paid Om to receive his organ through transplantation. Throughout the play, the characters on stage are seen talking to the image of a beautiful woman called Ginni, the alleged buyer of Om’s organs. The other main character is the module in the room which seems to have materialized from some futuristic thriller; Ginni (genie), the American lady, appears on it now and then like some Big Sister to see whether the Prakash family is following the rules. They lead antiseptic lives, eating multicolored pills instead of food, not mixing with others, and God forbid, getting a cold. Ginny is careful, however, to provide the donors with plenty of comforts to compensate them for their efforts. Ginny reminds the family that by pampering them so, she is only fulfilling her own contractual obligations. Ginny’s casual sentence serves as a jolting and disturbing reminder that receivers and donors hardly trade in equivalents: Ginny provides ‘things’ for which the donors pay her back in their own lives. In fact, Ginny’s continual gifts amount to little more than mere investment. Her presence on the screen is invisible. She communicates with the donor family only through the contact module. She is thus never physically present on the stage, a fact that is highly significant because Padmanabhan’s chosen genre – theatre – is explicitly concerned with a tangible, embodied and physical presence on stage. Yet throughout the play, Ginny is only ever visible in two-dimensions, on the screen of the contact module. The only embodied performers on the stage are the racially and visually distinct bodies of the third-world donors. 64 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
3.5 INFLUENCE OF CYBERCULTURE Cyberculture’s influence in our lives and its possible threat to human physical identity is well documented in Harvest. American Virgil, posing as Ginni, seduces and controls the Prakash family. He uses gadgets like the “Contact Module” or the “Video Couch” to disperse identity through “cybernetic circuits”. Both the receiver and the donor assume new identities in the digital arena. Harvest highlights important questions about “digitization” of identities and separation from the physical form. Can a body “vacated” of its owner be claimed by another? How is identity determined if cyberspace could disguise one’s gender, class or race to divest them of their unique markers? Problematization of identity in cyberspace is pivotal to the discourse of post colonialism. For marginalized bodies identity politics and suffering is rooted in the physical body. In Harvest, first world exploits the third world via wireless communication and unlimited money. Jaya sustains a postcolonial resistance to such capitalist domination. She claims her body, evocative of her dignity, through the corporeal limitation of death − the postcolonial other’s triumph in the colonizer’s world of coercion and control. The play “Harvest” contains political and social arrangements. Padmanabhan writes about a futuristic live in the year 2010, when legal, moral and bioethical debates about organ sales and transplants have been overcome. The title “Harvest” relates to human organs which are taken from people in the Third World within a fully institutionalized trade with body parts. The scientific technology has advanced far enough to enable the prolongation of human life by body-transplants. Om, a young Indian man suffering from poorness and unemployment, sells the rights to his body parts to a buyer from the Western world. In change for organs Om can improve the living standard of his family with enough food and household goods: a toilet, a shower and television, later a mini-gym and luxury items. Now they consume exciting technological products like the contact module. This science fiction module enables the family to communicate with the receivers. Two opposite groups come into conflict in the play: on the one hand Om’s impoverished family consisting of his mother (Ma), his brother Jeetu and his wife Jaya, on the other hand the receivers Ginni and Virgil, from Northern America and the company InterPlanta Services, represented by three aggressive guards. These characters present the contemporary global distribution of power, because Western companies dominate citizens in Third World countries by economic relations. Ginni, a beautiful, young, computer animated woman, wants to longer her life by living in bodies of other humans. Finally, Om’s brother Jeetu is taken against his will as a donor due to Ginni’s decision. This stresses the disrespect for donors. After all, Om prefers to be a donor and decides to submit to the power of the receivers although they don’t offer a self-determined life. In the end Jaya and Virgil, who is another receiver, fight via the contact module. Virgil lives now in Jeetu’s body and wants to impregnate Jaya virtually. She 65 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
denies but demands real closeness and trust. This means that Virgil should risk something for her and accept his mortality. However, Virgil wants to push through ruthlessly followed by Jaya’s threatening with suicide. The resistance of Jaya warns the reader or the audience that one has to act or to govern instead of being governed like Om, Ma and Jeetu. Although the family members have the same enemies, they don’t start a common initiative against them. A consensus among the family could weaken the power position of the receivers and the guards, but the selfish relatives always argue. The receivers and the guards don’t respect the dignity of the donors and treat them as anonymous group, more as goods than as human beings. Ginni equips the donor’s household with sanitary stuff and food for holding the organs healthy. The inhuman and brutal treatment becomes obvious when the guards catch Jeetu instead of Om as donor: JEETU (as he runs) You fools! Can’t you see I’m not your man? GUARD 1 (dodging around the others) Always the same story - no one wants to pay their dues. Come on! It’s hopeless to run away. (Catches Jeetu) There - there! (as Jeetu struggles) I’ve got you now! JAYA Don’t hurt him - don’t hurt him - oh he’s sick! Please! GUARD 1 Resistance is useless. (Starts to drag Jeetu kicking and struggling) we’ll have you knocked out in a second. (Padmanabhan 58) Every individual interest was excluded in the name of the General Will. (42) Private life and psychic privileges are totally ignored by the receivers. They keep the family under surveillance through the contact module. The guards of the organisation InterPlanta Services function like an army for them. Nevertheless, the deal with organs is seen as a chance by Ma and Om to improve their life. Ma, who is bored by real life, doesn’t protest against the danger for his sons and watches the whole day TV. Finally, she orders a TV coach and stops having contact with anybody. Padmanabhan reviews the problems that globalisation brings. While Third World countries have difficulties with misery, poverty and violence, Western nations are wealthy, use modern technologies and live with pleasure. Nevertheless, this point is simplified, because the reality is more complex. In Padmanabhan’s play the commoditization of organs is a metaphor for socio-economic exchange. Nowadays numerous people in the Third World, also children, work for Western companies under bad conditions. That is a significant reason, why “Harvest” shows a scenario of neo-colonialism, even neo-cannibalism, where people from India are exploited by superior Western science fiction humans. It seems that Om makes a voluntary decision to be a donor, but he decides under pressure of unemployment, starvation and poorness. Maybe he even feels responsible for his mother and his wife, who both don’t work and haven’t a 66 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
regular income. The family doesn’t care about an individual way within their cultural identity but assimilates into the Western living standard. They don’t analyze the benefit of TV or the contract with InterPlanta Services. Instead, they live in affluence what is a common wish in most economically underdeveloped nations. Whereas utopian fiction describes happiness within an ideal or perfect place or state or any visionary system of political and social perfection, in dystopian fiction the reader is confronted with a creation of a horrible or degraded society. The ‘roots of all evil’ exist, because it is a dystopian play. It shows a negative picture of the future. Under pressure of unemployment and his bad living conditions Om decides to sell his body parts. He is not the only one who wants to be a donor. Many Indians apply for this “job” and Om is chosen through a long and strict procedure. we as individuals have a relationship with material things like property and money. As a result, many people are greedy and cannot imagine a life without these things. In “Harvest” the meaning of money and property is very strong, what emphasizes its dystopian character. Especially Ma develops greed for property and consumption. In conclusion, “Harvest” demonstrates the contrast between impoverished India and wealthy West. This dystopian play bases on political and social arrangements that are against human dignity. The organ market in “Harvest” functions like a new slave trade where nobody of the donors has the possibility of a free choice. ‘Roots of all evil’ in terms of Fredric Jameson like the greed for property and unemployment are an important part of the plot. Padmanabhan wants her readers and the audience to get aware of problems that globalisation and capitalism bring. She criticizes the exploitation of people in Third World countries by First World employers. Apart from this Padmanabhan shows the pressure applied to donors, furthermore the surveillance and violence that is used against the donor family. As a result, the family members lose control over themselves. Finally, this loss of control of one’s life happens not only in the Third World but also in Western societies. Sometimes people in responsible positions exert a lot of pressure in order to accelerate decisions or to manipulate others. Therefore, everybody has to be careful when deciding important matters in life. Open communication with other people, enough information, support and education is necessary to avoid exploitation and mutilation of vulnerable human beings. 3.6 THEMES Harvest and the Evils of Globalization Globalization is evil because it does not foster the humanity of things in the world. What it drives towards is for the greater benefit of the developed or the First World countries. Khor opines that: The reasons for the changing perception of and attitude towards globalization are many. Among the important factors is the lack of tangible benefits to most developing countries 67 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
from opening their economies, despite the well-publicized claims of export and income gains. The economic losses and social dislocation that are being caused to many developing countries by rapid financial and trade liberalization, the growing inequalities of wealth and opportunities arising from globalization; and the perception that environmental, social and cultural problems have been made worse by the workings of the global free-market economy and the soaring degree of attack by elements of terrorism are some of what have characterized globalization today. It means developing nations have faced more problems than ever as a result of the phenomenon of globalization. Neocolonial intervention It is into this world of disorder that Inter Planta Services brings apparent order and respectability. Om is hired to donate the healthy organs of his body when required by the receiver. There occurs a radical change to their dingy room, and it acquires an air of sophistication. The most important installation, however, is the contact module placed at the centre of the room to facilitate communication between the receiver and the donor. The contact module and the apparent order brought in by Inter Planta seem to create turmoil in personal relationships. Since Inter Planta needs only the services of the bachelors, Om is forced to conceal the fact that he is married and hence Jaya masquerades as his sister. Om and his family members appear to be unable to question the complete hijacking of their personal lives by Inter Planta. It is worth noting that while the receiver can see Om, his family members and all other aspects of his life, the donor Om, gets to see only the face of the receiver and her sugary voice(that too deceptive). The donor and his family is kept under the constant gaze of the receiver as the module can rotate round to face each corner and can flicker to life at any moment. Ginni (Virgil) informs Jaya that the contact module had spied on them, “Always I listened in to you, Zhaya. I heard every word in the room- even when the Module was off, it recorded.” Constant gaze of colonies The contact module thus seems to become a sort of demigod. It does not fail to remind Om that the slightest trace of dishonesty on his part can be detected. It induces a feeling of helplessness in the family. They are powerless to resist even as it begins to encroach upon their private lives. “Every sneeze, every belch” (Harvest 94) is noticed. The situation becomes unbearable when Ginni demands an accurate report of every sneeze and every smile. She compares Om’s flat to a “human goldfish bowl” (Harvest 43) which she can observe and amuse herself with. Panopticon To this vision of powerlessness, we could associate Jeremy Bentham’s concept of ‘Panopticon’ as “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind”. French philosopher Michael Foucault looks at this as the paradigm of a sophisticated mechanism of observation and surveillance, as 68 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
the ultimate surveillance system. This architectural Panopticon is a circular edifice with a tower at the centre that ensures constant observation of the inmates in the isolated cells of the outer ring, by a supervisor in the tower at the centre. The supervisor remains invisible to the inmates. The concept of the design is to allow a watchman to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) inmates of an institution without their being able to tell whether they are being watched or not. Bentham himself described the Panopticon as “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.” Foucault terms this system of observation which renders the invisible power at the centre as ‘panoptic’. This could be read along with Antonio Gramsci’s concept of ‘Cultural Hegemony’ (control through consensus). Contemporary social critics often assert that technology has allowed for the operation of panoptic structures invisibly throughout society. The Panopticon creates a consciousness of permanent visibility as a form of power, where no bars, chains, and heavy locks are necessary for domination any more. Manjula Padmanabhan’s living room is reminiscent of the panoptic mechanism. Panoptic power relation in family The victory of panoptic surveillance technique is evident when Om discourages Jaya’s decision to nurse Jeetu back to health after Jeetu’s return to home from a miserable existence on the pavements. Om sees this as a display of sentimentality, a weakness which he knows Ginni will disapprove of. It is apparent that Om is prepared to renounce familial ties even without Ginni asking him to do so. Michel Foucault described the implications of ‘Panopticism’ in his 1975 work Discipline & Punish The Birth of the Prison – “the major effect of the Panopticon is to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power”. Om is, without his conscious knowledge, being made the tool for power. A miniature version of the panoptic system can be perceived in Om’s mother’s total absorption in the fantasy world. She willingly shuts herself off from all outward manifestations of life. She is unmoved even as she sees her son Jeetu being taken away by the guards for an organ transplant by mistake. The Super Deluxe Video Couch she orders for herself is representative of her self-imposed withdrawal. Om’s mother’s renunciation of the world is complete, unhesitating and unquestioning. She chooses for herself electronic annihilation. Jeetu in turn is also not able to resist the phoney allurements offered by the screen image of Ginni, who is later described as nothing but a “computer-animated wet dream” (Harvest 95). Actually, the receiver was an old man, Virgil, who had deliberately misled Om Prakash and his family, by projecting the animated image of the seductive and lovely Ginny.jeetu donates his organs willingly and is destroyed. Amongst all these characters, the only one who is able to resist the inhuman situation is Jaya. She realizes that she has lost every member of her family- Om Prakash, her husband; Ma, her mother-in-law; and Jeetu, her brother-in-law. Now it’s her turn, but she decides enough is enough and says that if she is pushed against her will, she will kill herself, as she has nothing 69 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
to lose, but in the process, she will defeat the designs of the rich receiver. It is evident that she cannot resist the first world power structure through nothing but death when she says, “I’ve discovered a new definition for winning, winning by losing. I win if you lose. If you want to play games with people, you should be careful not to push them off the board. You pushed me too far. Now there’s nothing left for me to lose. (Harvest 101)… I am not willing to caretake my body for your sake! The only thing I have left which is still mine is death. My death and my pride.” (Harvest 101). Silence Silence is the other aspect of language that is prominent in these plays. It is a well-documented fact that society’s linguistic registers like religion, political rhetoric, legal discourse, science and literature of mass reach like poetry and theatre lack contributions by women. While women’s silence in the public sphere can be explained to a certain extent by their subordinate position relative to men, silence in everyday life is a little more complicated. Gal, in her essay on problems in the connection between language and gender, notes that silence has more meanings than just powerlessness. She gives instances like a confession to a priest, therapist or an officer of the law, where silence is a strategy of resistance to the oppressive power. Conversely, it can be a weapon used by the powerful, seen in such phrases as “strong silent type”. The power comes from emotional distance or unavailability and this kind of behaviour is usually seen only in men (426). It is interesting that all the above manifestations of silence, powerlessness (Frieda), power (male characters) and subversion (Naina, Jaya) can be observed in these plays. Padmanabhan uses it further as a route to escapism when the world becomes too hard to handle for the women living in it. Padmanabhan’s plays are realistic in style and content. They are realistic to the extent that they portray the lives of common people through incidents dramatized in a believable manner but realism in the conventional sense is circumvented by the fact that the issues discussed are totally women-centric and told from their point of view. In Light’s Out the reactions of women to rape i.e of repugnance and horror at the crime, are given cognizance and all other attempts to treat it differently are rejected. Harvest puts the spotlight on the effect of organ sale on women and their struggle to mitigate the repercussions. Recognizable settings, characters and events reaccentuate the newness of the material on stage. It is typified by juxtaposing and maintain continuity of incidents from scene to scene and references to popular culture like newspaper reading, tea, gossip sessions, job hunting, cooking and childcare. This makes the audience forget the difference between the stage and themselves and end up caring about it as much as their own lives. 70 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
3.7 SUMMARY Manjula Padmanabhan’s futuristic play Harvest (1997) which takes for its theme the purchase and sale of human organs The play is set in a Mumbai chawl in the year 2010. In a cramped one room tenement, reside four members: Om Prakash, the tense and jobless clerk, his wife Jaya, who has succumbed to the tense life of privation and insecurity, his old mother, the frustrated, ill-natured and satiric figure and his younger brother Jeetu who works surreptitiously as a gigolo. Om is dismissed from his petty clerical job and hence the family is thrown into economic and emotional disarray. Om and Jaya are only maintaining the semblance of a meaningful marital relationship. Jaya is carrying on a clandestine affair with her brother-in-law Jeetu. Mother’s love extends only to the eldest son, Om, the breadwinner. She is also jealous of her Daughter-in-law. These four characters are locked in a loveless relationship, claustrophobically confines within the four walls of a one- room apartment Neocolonial intervention It is into this world of disorder that Inter Planta Services brings apparent order and respectability. Om is hired to donate the healthy organs of his body when required by the receiver. There occurs a radical change to their dingy room, and it acquires an air of sophistication. The most important installation, however, is the contact module placed at the centre of the room to facilitate communication between the receiver and the donor. The contact module and the apparent order brought in by Inter Planta seem to create turmoil in personal relationships. Since Inter Planta needs only the services of the bachelors, Om is forced to conceal the fact that he is married and hence Jaya masquerades as his sister. Om and his family members appear to be unable to question the complete hijacking of their personal lives by Inter Planta. It is worth noting that while the receiver can see Om, his family members and all other aspects of his life, the donor Om, gets to see only the face of the receiver and her sugary voice(that too deceptive). The donor and his family is kept under the constant gaze of the receiver as the module can rotate round to face each corner and can flicker to life at any moment. 71 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
3.8 KEYWORDS Institutionalisation-consumerism Foreshadow-predict Morality-ethics Cannibalize-reduce the sales of (one of its own products) as a consequence of introducing another similar product Apocalypse-catastrophe Geopolitical- relating to politics, especially international relations, as influenced by geographical factors. Commoditization-objectification Anthropologist- anthropologists are people that practice anthropology, which is the study of humanity. Basically, they want to figure out what makes humans human. Irresistible-appealing 3.9 LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. Examine Padmanabhan’s \"Harvest\" and Utopia, Dystopia and Justice ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 2. Analyse the Plot, Characterization and Setting in Manjula Padmanabhan’ s Plays ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 3. Discuss Cyberculture’s influence ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 3.10 UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Questions Short Questions 1. What is the main theme of this play? 2. How does the writer bring about the feminist context of the play? 3. How is a fictitious context brought out of the play Harvest? 72 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
4. How do you bring about the concept of globalization in The Harvest? 5. Why is globalization considered to be an evil in the play? Long Questions 1. Explain the setting of the play 'Harvest' 2. Elucidate how the machine world governs the human world. 3. Describe how one such family fall victim to the flesh market controlled by the Western world. 4. Explain how Majula Padmabhan's \"Harvest\" presents battle war between machine and man. 5. Describe how the play, \"Harvest\" shows the futuristic picture of modern times B. Multiple Choice Questions 1.Harvest is a _____ play by Manjula Padmanabhan a. Innovative b. Modern c. Novelistic d. Futuristic 2. Harvest is a futuristic play by Manjula Padmanabhan about _____ a. child b. lady c. organ-selling in India d. old man 3. Harvest was first published in ___ a. 1997 b. 1998 c. 1996 d. 1999 4. The play takes place in a future _____ in 2010 a. Bombay b. Delhi c. Calcutta 73 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
d. USA 5. In which Indian drama would you come across Om and Jaya? a. The Lion and the Jewel b. Harvest c. Peacock d. Grandma Answers 1-d, 2-c, 3-a, 4-a, 5-b 3.11 REFERENCES Reference books Pravinchandra, Shital. “The Third-World Body Commodified: Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest.” Web. 11 Oct. 2015. Ramachandran, Ayesha. “New World, No World: Seeking Utopia in Padmanabhan’s Harvest.” Theatre Research International. M K Naik and Syamala A Narayan, Indian English Literature 1980 – 2000, A critical Survey. (New Delhi, Pen Craft International )201. Rajkumar, K. (2012) Socio-Political Realities in Harvest: A Brief Study of Manjula Padmanabhan‟s Critique, Purna: RHI. Mahmul. Textbook references Padmanabhan, Manjula. Harvest. London: Aurora Metro Press. 2003. Print Websites https://public.wsu.edu/~converse/Harvest7/pages/49.html http://goodluckmystudents.blogspot.com/2019/09/notes-for-harvest-not-edited.html http://ir.unishivaji.ac.in:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/1983/7/07_Chapter%202.pdf https://www.grin.com/document/340770 74 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
UNIT - 4 INTRODUCTION TO AUSTRALIAN THEATRE STRUCTURE 4.0 Learning Objectives 4.1 Introduction 4.2 A Brief History of Australian Contemporary Theatre 4.3 Theatre Today 4.4 Summary 4.5 Keywords 4.6 Learning Activity 4.7 Unit End Questions 4.8 References 4.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, you will be able to: Understand Australian Theatre & Drama Interpret Australian Contemporary Theatre Examine contemporary Theatres 4.1 INTRODUCTION Theatre of Australia refers to the history of the performing arts in Australia, or produced by Australians. There are theatrical and dramatic aspects to a number of Indigenous Australian ceremonies such as the corroboree. During its colonial period, Australian theatrical arts were generally linked to the broader traditions of English literature and to British and Irish theatre. Australian literature and theatrical artists (including Aboriginal as well as Anglo- Celtic and multicultural migrant Australians) have over the last two centuries introduced the culture of Australia and the character of a new continent to the world stage. Individuals who have contributed to theatre in Australia and internationally include Sir Robert Helpmann, Dame Joan Sutherland, Barry Humphries, David Williamson, Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis, Jim Sharman, Tim Minchin and Baz Luhrmann. Notable theatrical institutions include the Sydney Opera House, and the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney. 75 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Figure 4.1 WR Thomas, A South Australian Corroboree, 1864, Art Gallery of South Australia The traditional ceremonial dances of indigenous Australians performed at corroborees comprise theatrical aspects. At a corroboree Aborigines interact with the Dreamtime through dance, music and costume and many ceremonies act out events from the Dreamtime.[1] Corroboree in many areas have developed and adapted, integrating new themes and stories since European occupation of Australia began. Academic Maryrose Casey writes that ‘Australian Aboriginal cultures are probably the most performance-based in the world – in the sense that explicit, choreographed performances were used for a vast range of social purposes from education, through to spiritual practices, arranging marriage alliances, to judicial and diplomatic functions. Casey suggests that ‘corroboree’ could also be called ‘aboriginal theatre’. European theatrical traditions came to Australia with European settlement commencing in 1788 with the First Fleet. The first production, The Recruiting Officer written by George Farquhar in 1706, was performed in 1789 by convicts.[4] The extraordinary circumstances of the foundation of Australian theatre was recounted in the 1988 play Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker - the participants were prisoners watched by sadistic guards and the leading lady was under threat of the death penalty. The play is based on Thomas Keneally‘s novel The Playmaker. The Theatre Royal, Hobart opened in 1837 and is the oldest still-operating theatre in Australia. Noël Coward called it a Dream Theatre and Laurence Olivier came to its defence when it was threatened with demolition in the 1940s.[5] The Queen’s Theatre, Adelaide opened with Shakespeare in 1841 and is today the oldest theatre on the mainland. The Melbourne 76 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Athenaeum was founded in 1839 as the Melbourne Mechanics’ Institute, and its theatre in its present form was created in 1921. The Australian gold rushes beginning in the 1850s provided funds for the construction of grand theatres in the Victorian style. A theatre was built on the present site of Melbourne’s Princess Theatre in 1854. Playwrights active early in Australia include Arthur Adams, Musette Morrell, Malcolm Afford, Walter J Turner, Charles Haddon Chambers and Louis Esson. Musicals were written by Alfred Wheeler, Arlene Sauer, Edmund Duggan ,Opera were composed by Moritz Heuzenroeder, Arthur Chanter. Australian theatre has a long and distinguished history. It is a history which was influenced by the two great western powers, the United States and Britain. The influence of the British tradition on Australian theatre should not be underestimated. British born entrepreneurs were the fathers of Australian theatre. Despite the shadow of the two great powers, Australian theatre had its own peculiar characteristics. It grew to be a unique institution for a unique land. Australian theatre began a year after the establishment of Sydney as a penal colony in 1788. In 1789, a play was performed to celebrate the birthday of King George of England. The play was called “The Recruiting Officer “ and was presented by a cast of convicts. It concerned the recruitment of men for the army, in a small town, and was a comedy. It was performed in bleak surroundings, in a convict’s hut, and observed by an audience of around sixty. Most of the audience were officers of the garrison. The Governor also attended Whether convicts should be permitted to participate in or observe theatrical entertainment was a matter for debate in the early years of the colony. Several considerations influenced this debate. Firstly, the purpose of a penal colony was punishment. Theatre, a frivolous exercise, was designed for pleasure. Pleasure was not appropriate for those undergoing punishment and could corrupt the convicts. Secondly, theatre by its very nature caused disorder. It was associated with indolence, wantonness and rioting. This was particularly the case when the audience, as convicts, had a predisposition towards these traits. In 1794 ,it seemed that the corrupting influence of theatre upon convicts was confirmed. The Lieutenant Governor, King, had hoped that allowing theatrical entertainment would distract the convicts and residents of the colony from other, idle, more destructive pursuits such as gambling or drinking. Unfortunately, the behaviour of the audience was so unruly that the performance was interrupted. This confirmed the fears of the more conservative rulers of the colony 77 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Another attempt was made to establish a theatrical presence in Sydney in 1796. Robert Sidaway, a baker, opened a theatre in Bell Row, (now Bligh Street). Entry was gained by paying either a shilling, or the equivalent in flour, meat or spirits. Unfortunately, whilst the audience watched such edifying entertainment as “The Revenge”, less respectable citizens would rob their unattended residences. In 1798 the continual theft from the patrons in terms of burglary and pick pocketing led to the closure of the theatre. This was a convict colony after all. In1828 another attempt at establishing a Sydney theatre was attempted. Barnett Levey, a Sydney merchant applied for a theatre license from Governor Darling in that year. He was refused. The next year the Governor allowed him to hold concerts and balls at his Royal Hotel. Levey tried for a theatrical license again in 1832, and applied to the new Governor, Bourke. Bourke was more liberal than his predecessor. Levey was granted a license and in 1833 opened the Theatre Royal in Sydney. Levey almost bankrupted himself in the process. In 1838 a man called Joseph Wyatt opened the Royal Victoria Theatre in Pitt Street. Theatre in Sydney can be said to date from the establishment of these two theatres. Theatre came to Victoria a little later. In 1841, a bar man named Hodges, persuaded his employer to build a theatre in Melbourne. Hodges called the theatre, The Pavilion. He called it this to circumvent the penal law. Hodges applied for a license to operate as a theatre but was refused. He did gain permission to hold concerts and balls at the Pavilion. Hodges and his associates presented several amusements which were not considered suitable by the authorities. They presented a concert that was judged tasteless and rude. After ignoring a warning about repeating the performance, Hodges was gaoled. In 1842 a group of gentlemen reapplied for a theatrical license for the Pavilion. They proposed to produce a benefit for the Melbourne Hospital. A license was granted for twelve months from 1842, and The Pavilion , also known as the Theatre Royal, was in operation again. The building was rickety and knowledgeable patrons brought their own umbrellas, to avoid getting wet. The roof leaked and the wooden building swayed in the wind. Plays such as “Rob Roy” and “The Widow’s Victim” were performed during this period. They were produced under the management of George Buckingham. But the theatre was not well patronised and fell into financial difficulties. When the licence expired in 1843 the magistrates refused to renew it In April that year, Councilor J T Smith applied for a licence to build a theatre which would cater to a better class of patrons than those who attended The Pavilion. His licence was granted, 78 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
and he built what was known as the Queen’s Theatre, on the southwest corner of Queen Street and Little Bourke Street. It was through Councilor Smith that George Coppin, regarded as the father of Victorian theatre, came to visit Melbourne. By the mid-1840s theatre had truly arrived in Victoria. Theatre audiences had in the 1840s been rowdy, riotous and ill behaved. There were brawls in the stalls, members of the audience frequently leapt on stage in the middle of performances and the performers themselves often misbehaved. All this behaviour combined, reinforced the stereotype of theatre as an activity which encouraged immoral activity. The rowdy behaviour was typical of audiences of the period. Performers often used the stage to ad lib indelicate jokes, or to poke fun at members of the upper classes. This type of behaviour was unacceptable to the middle and upper classes. As the middle class grew in number in Australia, with the arrival of free settlers and pastoralists, they brought with them a conservative morality. This morality was influenced by evangelicalism and the general cultural milieu of the Victorian era. This group of people generally saw theatre as a medium by which a morally uplifting message could be widely communicated. Theatre could be used to educate, intellectually stimulate or provide a moral or Christian message. Those that held this attitude supported the production of Opera, Drama, morality plays, and Shakespeare. This kind of theatre was generally regarded as “legitimate theatre.” Parallel to this attitude was a belief in theatre as a medium designed purely for entertainment. Popular theatre such as pantomime, circus, minstrel shows and vaudeville came to represent this tradition. Both schools of thought influenced the development of theatre in Australia in the nineteenth century. Just as two attitudes grew, so too did the two means of expressing them. Popular and legitimate theatre arose simultaneously during the nineteenth century in Australia. Historian Richard Waterhouse refers to this development as the “bifurcation of Australian Theatre.” In the 1850s there was an increase in the amount of Shakespeare and Opera being performed. The gold rush of the 1850s also led to an increase in popular theatre production. The influx of gold seekers, primarily young men, into the colonies lead to a demand for more earthy, frivolous entertainment. This demand was met by a number of touring companies, many of whom brought the minstrel tradition to Australia 79 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
During the 1850s and 1860s, touring minstrel companies became a fixture of the provincial gold mining towns. During this period a number of American minstrel companies toured Australia. The companies drew miners to their performances in both city and country. The patrons showed their appreciation for the shows by showering the stage with gold. The minstrels performed in black face and sang Stephen Foster songs. They performed in the traditional manner with end men and interlocutor. Similar to the funny man and straight man of a modern comedy duo. Their repertoire was not controversial at this stage. However, they played on the prejudices of the day. The mining communities were known for their anti-Asian sentiments. The minstrel companies played on these sentiments. For example, they often used derogatory Asian impersonations as part of their repertoire. Their representations of African American culture also relied on stereotypes. In addition, the companies often included light operetta as part of their programme. Audiences of popular and legitimate theatre in the northern hemisphere were quite distinct entities. The legitimate theatre was generally patronized by the middle and upper classes in the United States and Britain. In these same countries the popular theatre was patronized by the working classes or lower working classes and characterised by bawdiness and satire. The situation in Australia was different. There was considerable cross over between the audiences of popular and legitimate theatre. People from all walks of life had attended both kinds of theatre because of limited choice. Entertainment in 19th Century Australia was scarce and people, regardless of wealth or social standing were keen to experience it. A small population, especially in the early years of the colony, also contributed to this cross over. The content of the material presented on stage reflected this broad appeal. The minstrels were never overly ribald, although music hall entertainment which was not very successful in Australia, tended to that direction. The managers of the minstrel troupes discouraged content that was either too risqué or controversial. In the later period the vaudeville theatre owners also employed this strategy. In this manner they maximized their possible crossover appeal. The lack of proper theatre buildings in the country also contributed to the cross over . Often Opera, Drama and variety would share the same stage. Primarily because there were few specialised opera houses or music halls available. For example, in 1855 The Olympic Theatre in Melbourne opened with the Wizard Jacob’s tricks, and was followed by the drama In the 1870s and 1880s theatre was growing in popularity in both Sydney and Melbourne. A wide variety of productions were being performed in both cities. 80 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
In 1874 J C Williamson and his wife Maggie Moore made their first appearances in Australia. Sydney in 1879 saw the first sanctioned performances of HMS Pinafore. At the end of the 1880s Ibsen’s The Dolls House was presented at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne. By the late 1880s the minstrel companies were becoming less popular and being replaced by vaudeville and variety companies. Graduates from the minstrel troupes soon became fixtures in the variety theatres. In this manner the appeal of minstrelsy and the influence of it on Australian popular theatre was preserved. Irving Sayles and Charlie Pope, men who had begun their careers with a minstrel troupe, soon became regulars at the Tivoli vaudeville theatre. All this activity lead to the creation of new theatres. In 1872, George Coppin rebuilt the New Theatre Royal on the site of the old one at Bourke Street. By 1886, Melbourne had five major theatres. These included The Princess, Alexandra, Theatre Royal, The Bijou and the Opera House. The city also had a wide range of other venues which presented entertainment. In 1893 Harry Rickards took a lease on the Garrick Theatre in Sydney and presented variety acts. Drawing heavily on the minstrel tradition. The first part of his programmes was usually a minstrel style show, the second part was more traditional vaudeville fare. His Tivoli theatre circuit soon became a legend in the country. . By the 1900s many aspects of the Australian theatre had become entrenched. The wide appeal of both legitimate and popular theatre, the influence of minstrel tradition, and the cultural influence of the theatre had been established. The minstrel tradition was maintained by the inclusion of blackface routines in many variety and vaudeville turns. In 1910, The Referee newspaper published an article discussing the creation of new theatres in Sydney. The article distinguished between “theatres” and such places as the Tivoli, and the National Amphitheatre. These two being variety halls associated with the “popular” form of entertainment. The distinction suggested that there was still a stigma attached to the popular type of theatre. The article stated that by the end of 1910 the city of Sydney expected to be hosting twenty houses of public amusement. Included in this were picture theatres. It was a large number for a small city of only 600 thousand people. It indicated the popularity of theatre in Australian life. In 1910, theatre in Australia was still being influenced by Victorian ideas of what was moral and appropriate. The theatre experience was more formal than it had been previously, and the entertainment more family oriented. The theatre managers had changed the shows to appeal to a wider, more diverse audience. By 1910, technology was beginning to encroach on the traditional theatrical sphere. Moving pictures were becoming more popular and would eventually push out the traditional theatre. They particularly ate into the audience of the popular theatre. By the last third of the twentieth 81 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
century, vaudeville or variety in Australia was dead. Its place taken by cinema and films. In 1910 nobody involved in the industry would have dreamed that this was possible. 4.2 A BRIEF HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN CONTEMPORARY THEATRE Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander drama holds an important place in Australian literature. As a body of work, these texts express unique and specific cultural heritages. Over the last forty years, there have been hundreds of productions of plays by Indigenous writers. Many have toured extensively across Australia and the world. Some, such as Jane Harrison’s Stolen (1997), Andrea James’ Yanagai! Yanagai! (2003) and Tammy Anderson’s I Don’t Wanna Play House (2000) have been in continuous production for up to ten years. Contemporary Indigenous theatre is produced for multiple and various audiences; sometimes for specific or general Indigenous communities, and sometimes for both Indigenous and nonindigenous communities. There are numerous Indigenous theatre companies focused on producing a wide variety of work. There are: companies that produce public performances of traditional songs, dances, music and stories; companies that develop new work drawing on traditional and contemporary practices; and companies that focus on producing theatre that serves the specific interests of their communities. Others produce work that provides avenues for Indigenous theatre artists to explore the different possibilities at the leading edge of contemporary performing arts. Not surprisingly, the representation of Indigenous people and stories has featured strongly and consistently in a theatrical tradition that dates back thousands of years before white occupation. In Australia, where Indigenous Australians had been marginalized and presented as a lost and dying people incapable of surviving in the modern world, Indigenous artists claimed performance spaces to demonstrate the humanity, history and survival of Indigenous Australians. In the 1960s and 1970s, when Indigenous theatrical works occupied a prominent place on Australian stages, writers and performers created work that blended Aboriginal performance traditions with European stage conventions in both form and content. Traditional Indigenous performance works alternate rhythmically between speech and silence, between the past and the present and between performance and story. Within these innovations of form, writers such as Kevin Gilbert, Robert Merritt, Gerry Bostock and Jack Davis individually and collectively brought contemporary Indigenous stories into the foreground of Australian mainstream culture. In doing so, they were instrumental in raising public awareness of issues affecting Indigenous people. The first plays by Indigenous Australian playwrights to be commercially produced were primarily concerned with contemporary issues of survival. In the 1970s Gilbert, Merritt and Bostock presented a range of contexts and problems confronting Indigenous Australians. Gilbert’s play The Cherry Pickers (1968) was the first play by an Indigenous playwright to achieve any profile within the 82 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
mainstream environment. The text presented non-Indigenous Australians with one of the first examples of Aboriginal-English written by an Aboriginal person as standard language use. Merritt’s The Cake Man was the next play to gain critical recognition when it was performed in 1975. Both Gilbert and Merritt are of the Wiradjuri people. Here Comes the Nigger (1976) by Bostock, from the Bundjalung, followed these plays. Merritt, Gilbert and Bostock all present moments of the daily reality and humanity of modern Aboriginal life drawn from their own experiences. Their ground breaking work was followed by a broad range of plays focusing on further elements of Indigenous life and history. In the 1980s, Bob Maza from Murray Island in the Torres Strait, playfully explored the tensions surrounding Indigenous land rights in his first performance text, Mereki (1986). His next play The Keepers (1988) uses naturalistic and non- naturalistic elements to explore the destruction of the Boandik peoples in South Australia. From Western Australia, Noongar writers such as Jack Davis combined stories of contemporary Aboriginal life and history with visual and physical elements that drew on traditional practices. The presence of the past, often in the form of a traditionally marked dancer, moved through, observed and accentuated the present. These types of physical elements were often combined with visual art that represented the story of the land and its people in traditional ways. In The Dreamers (1982) which tells the story of the contemporary Wallitch family, an Aboriginal traditional dancer moving to sound of the didjerridu links the present struggles to the spiritual past. In Kullark (1979) the re-enactment of historical events literally cuts through a giant image of Waargul the Rainbow Serpent (the creator spirit of the peoples of southwest WA). Taking an entirely different approach to telling Indigenous stories through a different performance style is Jimmy Chi’s Bran Nue Dae (1990) from Kimberly. The play is the story of a young Aboriginal man’s journey from Perth back to his homeland at Djarinjin (Lombardian). Bran Nue Dae blends rock opera, comedy, song, dance and romance to describe how a young Aboriginal man’s journey across WA becomes a search for identity, love and security. Indigenous women writers have also demonstrated a breadth of different approaches in their work. Eva Johnson, a member of the Mulak people, wrote plays throughout the 1980s and the 1990s. Her texts focus on the Indigenous individual’s struggle to overcome colonial subjection. Her plays include Tjindarella, Murras, Mimini’s Voices and What Do They Call Me? A recurring theme in Johnson’s work is the impact of government policies on Indigenous Australian women and children. Jane Harrison, a descendent of the Muruwari people, contributed the seminal work Stolen that introduced many non-Indigenous Australians to the impact of the policies of child removal. This layering of form and content in performance, drawing from both the present and the past, has continued in contemporary productions by Indigenous artists in various ways. Jane Harrison’s second Ilbijerri commission, Rainbow’s End, was inspired by Elders’ reminiscences of life on the Flats and the establishment of Rumbalara, the Aboriginal housing estate at Mooroopna. Cathy Craigie’s Murri Love focuses on the joys and tensions of friendships and relationships. One of the powerful voices that have 83 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
emerged over the last decade is Dallas Winmar from Western Australia. Her works Aliwa and Yibiyung both explore the struggles of Aboriginal people labelled by the government as half caste. Yibiyung is based on her grandmother’s life under the Protection Acts. In the 1990s and 2000s many texts by Indigenous writers concentrated on the individual experience, pushing the frame of representation even further. One of the major developments in recent years has been a strong focus on the telling of individual stories, often as monologues directly addressed to the audience. A number of young women performers embraced this form including Ningali Lawford with her show Ningali (1994), Deborah Mailman in The 7 Stages of Grieving (1996 – co-authored by Wesley Enoch) and Leah Purcell in Box the Pony (1997). Tammy Anderson’s, I Don’t Wanna Play House is a semi-autobiographical monodrama which tells the story of the writer’s childhood. Anderson, like the other Indigenous women playwrights utilises the monodrama form as a powerful vehicle for talking back. These texts are largely biographical and tell individual and collective stories using many of the elements that have marked Indigenous playwriting and performance: storytelling, music and song, shifts in style and time and the use of Aboriginal languages in the text. These texts for and by women are one more expression of the many innovative performance styles Indigenous Australians have consistently drawn on to tell their stories in ways that respect both the past and the present. At the same time, a number of men, such as John Harding, Roger Bennett and Richard Frankland, were writing plays focused on the struggles and choices faced by Indigenous men. Other work explores themes perceived as specifically Indigenous as well as more general themes. Work such as Jimmy Chi’s Corrugation Road (1995), focuses on the experience of mental illness. Ningali and Kelton Pell’s Solid (2000) explores the ways in which Aboriginal people relate to each other. Since 2000, the publication of plays by Indigenous writers has steadily increased in range and number. Two collections of Indigenous plays published by Currency Press provide broader access to this important work. Blak Inside (2002) includes Frankland’s Conversations with the Dead and John Harding’s Enuff as well as Belonging by Tracey Rigney. Contemporary Indigenous Plays (2007) includes a number of the most adventurous and exciting texts by Indigenous playwrights in recent years. The texts in this collection include Vivienne Cleven’s outrageously funny Bitin’ Back that follows life for an Aboriginal family in a small country town transforming daily struggles into farce that challenges assumptions and stereotypes. Two leading Aboriginal theatre practitioners and storytellers in Australia at the moment are Wesley Enoch, now Artistic Director of Queensland Theatre Company and David Milroy. Both have done much to secure a place for Indigenous works in mainstream Australian theatre. Wesley Enoch’s writing credits include The 7 Stages of Grieving (1996 - co-authored with Deborah Mailman) and Black Medea (2005), both of which he also directed, and The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table (2007), winner of the 2005 Patrick White Playwrights’ Award. While Wesley has moved into mainstream theatre, David has maintained his commitment to the Indigenous theatre sector, primarily through Yirra Yaakin, and continues to tell the unique 84 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
stories of Western Australia. His play, Windmill Baby, winner of the Patrick White Award 2003, inspired by the people round Fitzroy Crossing and set in the Kimberly, engages with the spiritual connection between life and the earth. Milroy created a wonderful female character in Maymay, an old woman who has unfinished business. In the second decade of the twenty-first century, Indigenous theatre continues to embrace its rich traditions but to also engage fellow Australians in another side of the story. Cumulatively, the plays and performance texts produced over the last fifty years have changed the understanding of Indigenous Australians and their cultures. The breadth of individual voices represented and expressed within Indigenous Australian playwriting defies any kind of generalization. They come from all over Australia, from Koori, Murri, Nunga and Noongar writers, from men and women, from urban and rural communities and individuals. Together, they represent the unexpected and intangible elements and variety of contemporary Indigenous Australian cultures. 4.3 THEATRE TODAY Theatre in Australia today includes a diverse range of performances of different scale and contexts. Commercial theatres like the Lyric, Capitol and Theatre Royal in Sydney and the Regent, Princess, Her Majesty’s and Comedy in Melbourne, and other major venues in these and other cities, host Australian productions of popular musicals and other large-scale events. Resident professional theatre companies in Sydney (Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir, Griffin, Ensemble), Melbourne (Melbourne Theatre Company, Malthouse), Brisbane (Queensland Theatre, La Boite), Perth (Black Swan), Adelaide (State Theatre Company of South Australia), and some other cities on a smaller-scale, produce mainstage seasons of Australian and international plays and, occasionally, musicals. Some professional companies focus on particular genres like classical theatre (Bell Shakespeare), theatre for young people (Windmill, Barking Gecko, Patch, Arena, Monkey Baa), music theatre (The Production Company, Harvest Rain) or circus and physical theatre (Circa, Circus Oz). Other companies specialised in areas such as artists with disability (Back to Back), Indigenous artists (see below) or specific communities (Urban Theatre Projects, Big hart). Performing arts centres across the country like the Sydney Opera House, Arts Centre Melbourne, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Adelaide Festival Centre produce, present or host Australian and international theatre productions of various kinds. Venues in smaller cities like the Theatre Royal Hobart, The Arts Centre Gold Coast, Darwin Entertainment Centre or Geelong Performing Arts Centre, or outside the CBD of major cities like Frankston Arts Centre, Riverside Theatre Parramatta or Sunnybank Performing Arts Centre, also present 85 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
seasons of touring productions. Non-traditional spaces Carriage works in Sydney and Arts House in Melbourne have a focus on contemporary and experimental works. Independent and fringe theatre is fostered by venues such as La Mama and Theatre Works in Melbourne and the Old Fitz in Sydney. Opera companies include Opera Australia which performs major seasons in Sydney and Melbourne, and West Australian Opera, Opera Queensland, State Opera of South Australia and Victorian Opera based in individual states. Sydney’s Pinch gut Opera, for baroque and early classical works, and Sydney Chamber Opera, for twentieth century and contemporary works, perform opera in chamber settings. The national Helpmann Awards are the major live performance awards in Australia. Major cities also have their own theatre awards, such as the Sydney Theatre Awards, Melbourne’s Green Room Awards and Brisbane’s Matilda Awards. Publishers of Australian playscripts include the non-profit Australian Script Centre, Currency Press, Play lab Press and Full Dress Publishing. 4.4 SUMMARY Theatre of Australia refers to the history of the performing arts in Australia, or produced by Australians. There are theatrical and dramatic aspects to a number of Indigenous Australian ceremonies such as the corroboree. During its colonial period, Australian theatrical arts were generally linked to the broader traditions of English literature and to British and Irish theatre. Australian literature and theatrical artists (including Aboriginal as well as Anglo- Celtic and multicultural migrant Australians) have over the last two centuries introduced the culture of Australia and the character of a new continent to the world stage. Individuals who have contributed to theatre in Australia and internationally include Sir Robert Helpmann, Dame Joan Sutherland, Barry Humphries, David Williamson, Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis, Jim Sharman, Tim Minchin and Baz Luhrmann. Notable theatrical institutions include the Sydney Opera House, and the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney. 4.5 KEYWORDS Indolence- laziness 86 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Wanton-motiveless Riot-uprising Predisposition-tendency convict-offender predecessor-forerunner circumvent-avoid indelicate-improper bifurcation-division legitimate-rightful 4.6 LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. Examine the uniqueness of Australian theatres ___________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ 2. Analyze Australian theatres ___________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ 3. Interpret Australian culture ___________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ 4.7 UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Questions Short Questions 1. What makes Australian Theatre unique? 2. How have different cultures influenced Australia? 3. Explain the origin of Australian Theatre 4. What was the first theatre in Australia? 5. What is the equivalent of Broadway in Australia? Long Questions 1. Discuss how Australian theatre had its own peculiar characteristics. 2. Make an important note on the corrupting influence of theatre upon convicts. 87 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
3. Discuss the establishment of a theatrical presence in Sydney in 1796. 4. Explain how the Australian theatre was not well patronised and fell into financial difficulties. 5. Bring out the 'Canadian voice’ through Canadian Theatre B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. If Australian theatre does not have a unitary identity, it certainly has persistent __________features. a. structural b. logical c. sensica d. enlightening 2. The popular culture theatre industry in Australia lay outside the priority interests of academics and professional historians. Much of what was known about the industry prior to the ___________. a. 1930s b. 1940s c. 1960s d. 1950s 3. The state of drama in Australia in the ____________ century was not anything to write home about but it was not anything very much at 'home' in England a. nineteenth b. seventeenth c. sixteenth d. eighteenth 4. The latter half of the century saw great dramatic and theatrical activity in _________. a. Europe b. London c. England 88 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
d. Netherland 5. In Australia what ruled the stage were conventional melodrama and light comedies and ____________plays just like in England. a. domestic b. tragic c. conventional d. traditional Answers 1-a, 2-a, 3-a, 4-a, 5-a 4.8 REFERENCES Reference books Green H.M. An Outline of Australian Literature Whitcombe and Tombs Sydney 1930. Hadgraft Cecil Australian Literature Heinemann London I960. Jose Arthur w. The Romantic Nineties, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1933. Miller E. Morris, Australian Literature 2 vols, M.U.P. Melbourne, 1940. Textbook references Green H.M., A History of Australian Literature, Angus and Robertson Sydney 1961. Websites https://theconversation.com/global/topics/australian-theatre-11752 https://www.theguardian.com/stage/australian-theatre https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/mar/22/a-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel- australian-theatres-launch-2021-seasons-as-the-rest-of-the-world-stays-dark https://aussietheatre.com.au/ 89 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
UNIT - 5 JACK DAVIS: NO SUGAR STRUCTURE 5.0 Learning Objectives 5.1 Introduction to the Author 5.2 Analysis 5.3 Themes in the play 5.4 Summary 5.5 Keywords 5.6 Learning Activities 5.7 Unit End Questions 5.8 References 5.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, you will be able to: Understand the concepts of Jack Davis Identify the themes of the play Analyze the play in detail 5.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE AUTHOR Jack Leonard Davis AM, BEM (11 March 1917 – 17 March 2000) was an Australian 20th- century Aboriginal playwright, poet and Indigenous activist. Academic Adam Shoemaker, who has covered much of Jack Davis’ work and Aboriginal literature, has claimed he was one of “Australia’s most influential Aboriginal authors”. He was born in Perth, Western Australia, where he spent most of his life and later died. He identified with the Western Australian Nyoongah tribe, also spelt Noongar, and he included some of this language into his plays. In conjunction with Davis’ use of his native language, academics have inferred that his work includes themes of Aboriginality and Aboriginalism. These literary concepts are used to communicate the relationship between cultures. While known for his literary work, Jack Davis did not focus on writing until his fifties. His writing centered around the Aboriginal experience in relation to the settlement of white Australians. His collection of poems The First Born was his first work to be published and also made him the second Aboriginal to have published poetry by 1970, after Kath Walker, also known by her Aboriginal name Oodgeroo Noonuccal. He later focused his writing on plays, starting with Kullark, which was first performed in 1979. His plays were recognised 90 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
internationally and were performed in Canada and England. His work and contribution was later recognised by the Order of the British Empire (BEM) in 1976, the Order of Australia Award in 1985 and two honorary doctorates from the University of Western Australia and Murdoch University. His work today is now included in many Australian school syllabuses for children to read and discuss. His mother, whose name is not on record and father, William Davis, also known as “Bill”, were both taken from their parents as they were considered by the government to be “castes”. Under the Australian policy passed in 1890, children who had both a full blood Aboriginal parent and a non-Aboriginal parent were considered half-castes. His parents went to work for white families and never acquired an education, making them illiterate. His mother was seven years old when she went to work for the Stretch family as a servant in Broome, Western Australia. His mother recalls that while they treated her well, she never felt part of the family. Her employers never educated his mother with their other children, and she would be left to do domestic housework as they went to school. His father was eight years old when he went off to work and took the surname of his boss “Davis” because he did not like his father’s last name “Sung” who was a Sikh man. Jack Davis’ father and mother met in Northam, Western Australia and were married soon after. During their marriage, they had six daughters and five sons. William Davis worked mostly in the timber industry as a log chopper and found it hard to support eleven children on his income. However, his love of hunting and the bush allowed him to still provide meat for the family. Jack Davis’ father died in 1933 after making his way home from a hunting accident. He was walking through a paddock in the early evening and was attacked by a bull. This left the family with no financial income, leading to the family selling up and moving out of Yarloop, a less remote area. After Jack Davis and his brother Harold went home to Yarloop after working at Moore River Native Settlement, his brother Harold went to fight in World War II. Davis pursued many labor-intensive jobs before he committed to writing, this included being a stockman, a horse trainer, a drover, a mill worker, a driver in various methods of transportation and a kangaroo hunter. In 1970, at the time of publishing his first collection of poems The First Born, he dedicated himself to literature. He became the Manager of the Aboriginal Advancement Council Centre in Perth from 1969 -1973. He then transitioned into becoming an editor at the Aboriginal Publications Foundation from 1973 to 1979 which published a periodical magazine called Identity that focused on recognising Aboriginal literature. 91 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Jack Davis began his writing career by publishing a collection of poems called The First Born in 1970. He later published his second collection of poetry called Jagardoo in 1978. After publishing two collections of poetry, he began to focus on playwriting, publishing a total of five plays and two children’s plays: Plays: Kullark, 1979 The Dreamers, 1981 No Sugar, 1985 Barungin, 1989 In Our Town, 1990 Children’s plays: Honey Spot, 1987 Moorli and the Leprechaun, 1994 Davis also wrote a monodrama called Wahngin Country, however, he never finished it. Academic Bob Hodge, who wrote the peer reviewed journal Jack Davis and the Emergence of Aboriginal Writing in 1994 stated Davis was interested in “White History” and how it omitted the Aboriginal history and their perspective. According to Academics, Jack Davis wanted to offer an alternative narrative that included the Aboriginal story. Davis found the most effective format was through transforming the Indigenous tradition of oral story telling into written plays and performance. Themes in his work encapsulate the history and discrimination of Aboriginal people, including the first contact with white settlers. Academic Adam Shoemaker has described his work as always alluding to the history of Aboriginals even when his plays are not mentioning the past. Davis’ play Kullark, translated to “home” is often considered by academics as a documentary, detailing the beginning of white settlement in Western Australia in 1829. Kullark, published in 1979 translates to “home” in the Nyoongah language. The meaning of the play Is interpreted by academics as a protest, criticizing the colonial recorded history of the 1829 white settlement in Western Australia. The play documents the history and first contact between Aboriginals and white settlers from the authors perspective using an Aboriginal family that have been effected by the history Davis is attempting to divulge. Davis uses a chronological and documentary like structure to present the play. He includes details such as the white settlers trading poisoned white flour and the massacres at Pinjarra in 1834. Academics have inferred that Davis includes the details of these events to give Aboriginal people a voice and a known history that have been previously 92 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
omitted. Kullark was Davis’ first play to begin that journey of historical story telling The Dreamers was first performed in 1972 and published in 1981. The play centres its narrative around the memory of three Aboriginal men who worked at Moore River Native Settlement. Davis wrote that he aimed to confront white and black audiences with a truthful and uncompromising picture of urban Aboriginal life. Davis’ play No Sugar was first published in 1986 and achieved great acclaim; receiving the Australian writers Guild Award (AWGIE) for best stage play, the year it was published. The play was set in the 1930s during the Great Depression and tells the story of an Aboriginal family that is removed from their home and forced to work on the Moore River Native Settlement. An article by the Sydney Morning Herald writes that the play is a rejection of white assimilation and the degradation of Aboriginal lives and culture. The Play includes many references of the Nyoongah language. Academics such as Bob Hodge consider this an attempt to validate the importance of Aboriginal culture, while also communicating the feelings of isolation when people cannot understand their own language and cultural customs. No Sugar is currently in the Victorian High School Syllabus for students who are in the English as an Additional Language (EAL) course for the Higher School Certificate (HSC). However, as mentioned in the Sydney Morning Herald, there is debate over whether the themes and inclusion of the Nyoongah language are too complex for students who are trying to learn the fundamentals of the English. Davis’ play Barungin was published in 1989 and translates to “Smell the Wind” in the Nyoongah language. The play focuses on the high incarceration rate of Aboriginals and the large number of deaths of Aboriginals in custody. During the year the play was published, Aboriginals accounted to ten percent of the national average of people in jail. Furthermore, the play is set in Western Australia where the incarceration rate of Aboriginals was thirty-five percent. Academics refer to the concepts Aboriginality and Aboriginalism when analysing Davis’ work. According to academics, Davis’s work encapsulates these themes by constructing Western thought in his work and using the Nyoongah native language as a form of Aboriginal empowerment. Academic Bob Hodge, states that Aboriginalism is much like Orientalism, where White society sees those of different race and culture as ‘the other’. The concept is portrayed as white society needing to fix those cultural differences, which is referenced in Davis’ plays. Academics have said that Davis and other Aboriginal writers such as Ooderoo Noonuccal from the sixties and seventies used literature as a form of activism against these ideals and as a powerful form of communication to write their own history. 93 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Aboriginality encompasses the response to Aboriginalism and the reaction of Indigenous writers in reclaiming their culture and history. It is seen as a protest against white imperialism and assimilation policies that dominated the beginning of white settlement in Australia. The concept, Aboriginality, within literature also includes proposals of how both white and Indigenous people can move forward. This concept was introduced in the 1960s when Aboriginal literature was first published, proposing a new way forward. Academics have analysed Davis’ work through the lens of Aboriginality as he uses the Western form of communication to connect to a white audience. Plays are seen as a Western form of communication, as Aboriginal history has revealed that Indigenous Australians told stories through oral communication, more commonly known as ‘Dreamtime‘ By including these Aboriginal overtones, academics believe he is trying to show a white audience another form of history through a communication method they know. Kullark, Davis’ first play in 1979 is used as an example by academics to show that Davis is confronting the issue of Aboriginalism Davis provides a historical and chronological account in Kullark including Aboriginals where they previously were not. According to academics, Davis believed that white historians were unwilling to write the Aboriginal history and this, he felt, was necessary to record Aboriginal history in the Western way. His purpose for writing was for people to know Aboriginals were omitted from white history, and to then provide the Aboriginal account. His goal, however, was for future generations to reflect and read history which included both Aboriginal and non- Aboriginal people. Aboriginality encompasses the response and reaction of Indigenous writers in reclaiming their culture and history. It is seen as a protest against white imperialism and assimilation policies that dominated the beginning of white settlement in Australia. The concept ‘Aboriginality’ within literature also includes proposals of how both white and Indigenous people can move forward. According to academics the theme of survival is reoccurring in Davis’ work as it refers to the first settlement of white people and the long battle Aboriginal people have had to fight for their existence, land, culture, history and rights. Academics reveal the empowerment that Aboriginals feel when they see themselves on the stage acting in Davis’s plays, symbolising their ability to reclaim their sense of worth Davis’ life and history was a driving force and influence on his literary work. Davis’s experience on Moore River Native Settlement has shaped both his play Kullark, No Sugar and The Dreamers. In Davis’ play No Sugar he recreates the experience using different characters and detailing the large quantity of Aboriginals taken to Moore River Native Settlement. Similarly, the Western Australian ‘Protector of Aboriginals’ A.O Neville who sent Davis and his brother to the Moore River Native Settlement features in his plays Kullark, No Sugar and The Dreamers. Davis uses Neville’s speeches in his plays to portray the government’s perspective on Aboriginals. Additionally, According to academics, Davis tries 94 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
to demonstrate how the government believed they were doing the right thing for Aboriginal people but neglected to see the Aboriginal perspective and the pain and suffering that was the result. Academics infer that Davis evokes an understanding of the European mindset, yet shows how that attitude also shaped the way Aboriginal people see themselves. According to academics, Davis’ plays were not meant to be a place of conflict or a vent of anger but a place of clarity, empowerment and understanding. His childhood in Yarloop has been featured in his poetry. His poem “Magpie” was influenced by his walk home from school through the jarrah forests and the wildlife. 5.2 ANALYSIS Jack Davis was born in Perth, Australia, but raised in the city of Yarloop and on the Moore River Native Settlement, which serves as one of the settings for his play, No Sugar. Davis’s first language was English, but he began to learn the language of his Aboriginal ancestors while living on a Reservation as an adult. Davis then became interested in politics, advocacy, and activism, serving as director of the Aboriginal Centre in Perth, and chairman of the Aboriginal Lands Trust, in addition to founding the Aboriginal Writers, Oral Literature, and Dramatists Association. Davis was a lifelong poet, memoirist, and playwright, although he did not publish his first work, The First Born and Other Poems, until 1970. He went on to publish a dozen other works, including his 1991 memoir A Boy’s Life, and the three plays in his First Born trilogy, which documents Aboriginal Australian life over the course of the 20th century: No Sugar (1985), The Dreamers (1982), and Barungin (Smell the Wind) (1989). The play begins in 1930 in the city of Northam, on the Government Well Aboriginal Reserve, where the Millimurra-Munday family, comprising Jimmy, Sam, Milly, Gran, Joe, Cissie, and David live. Australia, like the rest of the world, is suffering from the Great Depression, and so work and money are scarce. The Millimurra-Mundays survive on limited government rations, meat they’ve caught themselves, and a little money that Sam, Jimmy, and Joe earn doing odd jobs around town. The Millimurra-Mundays have to deal with various problems, including diminishing ration allotments, Jimmy’s imprisonment for public drunkenness, and Cissie’s poor health. Although they struggle to stay afloat, each member of the family looks out for everyone else and makes compromises for the wellbeing of the group. As the Millimurra-Munday family attempts to make ends meet, the audience is given insight into the bureaucratic plots of Neville, Miss Dunn, the Sergeant, and the Constable, who frequently talk on the telephone as they make plans to relocate the Northam Aboriginal community to the Moore River Native Settlement. Although the Millimurra-Munday family and their neighbors will be the most affected by this move, they have no say in the decision. 95 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Instead, one day the Sergeant and the Constable arrive at their encampment and announce that they must uproot their lives. Jimmy and Gran fight back, but it is a losing battle. In the end, the whole family makes the move. Moore River is run by Mr. Neal and his wife, Matron Neal, who runs the local hospital. Matron Neal genuinely cares about the wellbeing of Moore River’s indigenous population, but Mr. Neal is more interested in his own quality of life, and in taking out anger, aggression, and lust on the Aboriginal Australians under his “care.” The Millimurra-Mundays arrive at Moore River and are immediately inspected by Matron Neal. The family, and dozens of other Aboriginal families, were sent to Moore River because they supposedly had scabies. However, upon examining the group, the Matron determines they’re perfectly healthy. Unfortunately, they will still be forced to stay in Moore River, clearing space in Northam for white families and white recreation, which was Neville’s plan all along. The Millimurra-Mundays make a new life in Moore River. Joe meets and falls in love with another girl living at the camp, Mary. She eventually becomes pregnant, and Joe convinces her to elope with him back to Northam, where they can live independently. They illegally escape Moore River, and live freely and happily for several months, but are eventually recaptured by the Sergeant and Constable. Mary is sent back to Moore River, and Joe is sent to prison. Back in Moore River, the Millimurra-Mundays care for Mary and adopt her into their family. When Neal whips her for rejecting his offer to work at the hospital (where she suspects he would attempt to sexually harass or assault her), Milly and Gran tend to her wounds. She eventually delivers her baby, and Gran is the one who tends to her and ties the knot on the baby’s umbilical cord. On Australia Day, 1934, Neville comes to Moore River to deliver a speech. Jimmy and his extended family are unimpressed with the speech, which seems to suggest that Aboriginal Australians should be grateful for their white colonizers. Jimmy and others parody a hymn that Neville sings, and Neville stops the event to chastise Jimmy. Jimmy fights back, but he has a weak heart and cannot handle the exertion. He becomes overexcited and dies. Joe is released from prison and meets his new son, who he names “Jimmy” after his uncle. He asks Neal for permission to leave Moore River, which he finally grants. The play ends as Joe, Mary, and their baby leave Moore River for a second time. Act 1, Scene 1 The physical stage is decorated to represent a huge swatch of Western Australia. On one side is the town of Northam and Government Well Aboriginal Reserve, where the Millimurra- Munday family lives. On the other side is the Moore River Native Settlement, where the family is eventually forcibly relocated. Facades, signage, or furniture represent other locations, such 96 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
as Perth and the Western Australia Historical society. The play begins in 1930 at Government Well, as Sam, Joe, Gran, Milly, David, and Cissie eat breakfast and prepare for the day. Gran and Milly wash clothes. Jimmy sharpens an axe “bush fashion.” Joe struggles to read from the Western Mail newspaper. It is a centenary edition, celebration 100 years of colonization, and describes a parade of white men, “commemorating the pioneers,” carrying “with them…a reminder of the dangers they faced, in the shape of three lorries…carrying Aborigines” who were dancing to a brass band. The whole family listens as Joe reads. Sam and Jimmy are upset by the idea that Aboriginal men and women would volunteer to dance to the music of white Australians in a celebration of white settlement. Jimmy criticizes the “stupid bloody blackfellas.” Jimmy argues that the wetjalas (white people) are only marching because “them bastards took our country and them blackfellas dancing for ‘em.” Milly responds that had Jimmy been at the celebration he would have danced too, but he disagrees. Milly makes David and Cissie stop playing cricket and get ready for school. She gives them two pence each to buy an apple for lunch, but Cissie complains that the grocer gives her and her siblings “little shriveled ones,” while white children receive “big fat ones.” Hearing this, Joe gives his siblings an additional thrippence. Milly notices that David‘s shirt is inside out which, he explains, is because it is dirty on the other side. She makes him change and then sends David and Cissie to school. Milly tells Joe and Sam they’ll have to catch meat for dinner, and then exits the stage with Gran. Joe continues to read the paper to Sam. The paper describes “Australia’s present condition of hopeful optimistic prosperity.” Sam is unimpressed. Sam and Joe leave to catch some rabbits. The setup of the stage does its best to portray the vastness of Western Australia. However, the Millimurra-Munday family and other Aboriginal people are only allowed to inhabit small corners of the state. The play begins in 1930, the second year of the worldwide Great Depression, which destroyed the economies of many nations and led to devastating unemployment in Australia. Joe is barely able to read the newspaper, as he only went to school for a few years. This is just one form of government oppression—preventing Aboriginal people from learning to read and obtain information about their own country. The centenary celebrates the establishment of the Swan River Colony, which would go on to be the city of Perth. Ironically, Aboriginal men and women, whose ancestors were killed to make way for the white Australian colonizers, are made to participate in a parade celebrating their own oppression. Jimmy believes the white marchers understand that Australia was founded only because the country’s indigenous inhabitants were first subjugated. 97 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Cricket is a British sport, and just one way that British and Western culture has made its way into the Millimurra-Munday family’s lives. The children do suffer from the racism of the grocer who privileges white children over Aboriginal ones. Milly is constantly taking care of her family’s wellbeing, be it their appearance or their next meal. She is the center of the family and the woman who guarantees life runs smoothly for everyone. Sam recognizes that in the midst of an economic depression, and especially as an Aboriginal family, there is little opportunity for “optimistic prosperity.” Act 1, Scene 2: On the street in Northam, Sergeant Carrol interrupts Frank as he rolls a cigarette. Although Frank is camping out with a group of other white men, the Sergeant has seen Frank hanging out with the Aboriginal Millimurra-Munday family. Frank points out that socializing with them is not against the law, but the Sergeant suggests that Frank has been supplying Aboriginal men with alcohol, which is a crime. Jimmy was discovered drunk, and the Sergeant suggests that Frank bought him alcohol. The Sergeant warns Frank that, although Jimmy only received a warning, next time he’s going to jail, and his supplier will be punished. The Sergeant suggests Frank leaves town, but he doesn’t want to go. He’s looked for work all over the area and found nothing, and he can’t afford to return home to his family. Taking pity on him, the Sergeant gives Frank a few cigarettes, before warning him that “natives best left to keep to themselves.” He says, “I got nothin’ against ‘em, but I know exactly what they’re like.” Frank exits the stage, and the Sergeant enters the police station. Across the stage, Miss Dunn and Neville sit at their desks in Perth. They share an office with a sign on the door that reads “Government of Western Australia, Fisheries, Forestry, Wildlife and Aborigines.” Miss Dunn makes a personal phone call. She is trying to sell her brother’s motorcycle. He has been unsuccessfully looking for work, and after failing to find employment in Perth is now in Southwest Australia. Neville remarks that unemployment is at thirty per cent, so it is unsurprising he hasn’t found a job. Neville has Miss Dunn call the Sergeant. As they wait for the call to connect, Neville dictates a note to a superior in the government. He reports that the Department is short on money, and suggests no longer including meat in the rations supplied to the Aboriginal community. He compares the two shillings and fourpence per week spent on the rations compared to the seven shillings per week paid in welfare to white workers. 98 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Sergeant Carroll returns Neville‘s call, interrupting his dictation. Neville reports that he has had trouble finding a new location to serve as a reserve for Northam‘s Aboriginal population. A man has protested the proposed site because he “claims he wouldn’t be able to go out and leave his wife home alone at night.” Neville tells the Sergeant to recommend a new site “well away from any residences.” Gran and Milly arrive at the Northam police station to collect their rations, interrupting the Sergeant‘s call. He and Neville hang up, and the Sergeant turns his attention to the two women. As he speaks to them, Miss Dunn and Neville have an overlapping conversation in Perth, Neville continuing to dictate a letter to the Minister. He reports of eighty Aboriginal women who left their settlement to work in domestic service. Thirty returned pregnant. Back in Northam, the Sergeant gives Milly and Gran their rations: flour, sugar, meat, fat drippings for cooking, and cream of tartar. The Sergeant jokes that life is easier now that Gran doesn’t have to grind her own flour out of jam and wattle seeds. Gran says she preferred it. The Sergeant says she still could if she wanted, but Gran points out that the “wetjala cut all the trees down.” Milly is upset when she realizes that soap has been cut from the rations. The Sergeant says she can buy some, and when she asks what money she will use, he tells her she has “three healthy men bludging off you, too lazy to work.” Milly points out there is little work, and what work the men find is poorly compensated. Milly and Gran leave, mocking the Sergeant and cackling. He returns to work. In his office, Neville finishes his letter and dictates a thank you note to Mr. Neal for hosting him at the Moore River Native Settlement. While Neville compliments Neal’s hospitality, he criticizes the “dirty little noses” of the Aboriginal children. He believes “if you provide the native the basic accouterments of civilization you’re half way to civilizing him,” and suggests giving each child a handkerchief. He has a plan on how to provide handkerchiefs, even though the entire Government is short on money. In his letter, Neville announces he will be sending limited supplies of toilet paper to the Settlement, and that it is Neal‘s job to teach the Aboriginal people under his care how to use it. Neville suggests “If you can successfully inculcate such basic but essential details of civilized living you will have helped them along the road to taking their place in Australian society.” The lives of Aboriginal Australians are heavily regulated. They are not allowed to drink alcohol, ostensibly for their own good, but this mindset assumes Aboriginal people are unable to take care of themselves in the same way as white Australians, who are allowed to purchase and drink alcohol. 99 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Jimmy’s drunkenness should only affect himself, but because it is illegal for him to buy or consume alcohol as an Aboriginal man, his drinking has become a legal issue. The Sergeant makes it clear that he is not only doing his legal duty in persecuting Jimmy and others, but he also has a personal grudge against Aboriginal people. By saying “I know exactly what they’re like” he suggests that he thinks they are somehow worse or less deserving than white Australians. The fact that Aboriginal people are lumped in with Fisheries, Forestry, and Wildlife demonstrates that the government does not see them as people, but as a natural resource to be managed. When Aboriginal characters struggle to find work, they are chastised for not trying hard enough or for being lazy. However, when a white character struggles to find work, other white characters are sympathetic. Neville’s job is to ensure the health and wellbeing of the Aboriginal population of Western Australia, but as a cost-saving measure he is willing to deprive them of the food they need to survive. Although the economy is struggling, the government manages to pay unemployed white Australians almost three times as much as they agree to spend on Aboriginal people. One man’s individual racism—his claim that Aboriginal men are dangerous sexual predators— has influenced government policy. Northam’s Aboriginal population is being relocated not because it is better for the Aboriginal community, but because the white community cannot tolerate them and wants their land. Neville emotionlessly reports the rape of over eighty Aboriginal women at the hands of their white employers, demonstrating that he does not care about their wellbeing at all. He is not shocked or disgusted and makes no effort to find a solution to what is clearly an epidemic of sexual violence. Jam and wattle seeds came from an indigenous Australian plant whose population was devastated by white colonizers. The destruction of this food source was the result of governmental neglect and a racist dismissal of the needs of the Aboriginal population. Although there is a nationwide (and worldwide) economic depression at the time, the Sergeant acts as though Sam, Jimmy, and Joe being unable to find work is their fault. As offensive as this is, Milly and Gran find comfort in each other and are able to laugh off the Sergeant’s racism. Neville is interested in “civilizing” the Aboriginals of Australia, which he sees as making them appear more Western, and therefore more white. He is uninterested in actually improving their lives (earlier in this act he cut rations for soap, which would actually clean children) and is instead interested in the appearance of cleanliness, not the actual cleanliness of the children. 100 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
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