INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION

The present study is a modest attempt to explore power politics and interpersonal relationships in the select plays of Australian playwright . Power politics influences the human life as it shapes cultures and establishes new social and religious constructs. There are two key words- Power Politics and Interpersonal Relationships, involved in the title which signifies how the power politics influences the human relationships. These are the two sides of the coin. They are very much related to each other in every context. The exploration of human relations in the context of the term power perceives us several important dimensions of the social relations. The social status always relies on the power. Power is a complex social interaction between those who command and those who obey.

These discourses, from various disciplines, in common, speak about the role of ‘power’ in the human life. Every human being has the power at his/her level, and with the help of this power he/she dominates others. Power depends upon the relationship between two persons, groups in society. Power politics and changing human relations have remained a matter of concern in ancient and modem academics. The literature cannot be separated from the frame of society and culture; therefore, literature cannot be isolated from the of power. This philosophical ideology always reflects in the literary works. The concept of power is much debated in academics and has remained an area of interest for the philosophers.

The present research work intends to adopt this perspective of power politics and evaluate its influence over the human relations. The

1 said statement can be illustrated with the analysis of the select plays of David Williamson, renowned, contemporary Australian playwright. Thus, the study needs to place David Williamson in the Australian literary tradition of drama.

Review of Australian Drama in Brief:

The rise of drama in Australia is generally associated with the establishment of British colonies in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the history of Australian literature, first author F.C. Brewer in his book The Drama and The Music New South Wales (1892) surveys the development of Australian drama and rightly points out that the British colonies in Australia formed Australian theatrical arts as an extension to English Literature and to British and Irish theatre traditions. Since, the inception of Australian literature, theatrical artists introduced the culture of Australia to the world stage. In Australia, the idea of theatre performance depends on the self-consciousness of society and theatre. For the convenience of the study of tradition of Australian drama, some historians such as Elizabeth Webby, Terry Sturm, and Leslie Rees give three periodizations of Australian drama. Phase 1:1788-1900 The first phase of Australian drama started in 1788. David Bum migrated from Scotland to Tasmania in 1826, known as the first author of Australian drama. He wrote eight plays over two decades. His first collection of plays published at Hobart in 1842. His famous plays are The Bushrangers (1829) and Sydney Delivered (1845). The play Bushrangers deals with the themes of convictism and bushranging and emphasizes on factional conflict between Tasmanian officialdom and free-settlers. He was also a journalist and polemicist on political, military as well as

2 literary matters. He wrote number of historical works and described characters with three narratives - An Excursion to Port Arthur, Vindication of Van Diemen’s Land and Narrative of an Overland Journey to Macquarie Harbour.

The first play of George Farquhar, The Recruiting Officer, is another significant play belonging to the first period. It was performed for sixty audiences at Port Jackson, on 4 June 1789, in the presence of Governor Phillip and the officers of the garrison.

Most of the early plays are modeled on the popular English plays, for instance - H. C. O. Flaherty’s Life in Sydney or The Ran Dan Club (1843) was modeled on the popular English play Tom and Jerry or Life in London. James Tucker’s Jemmy Green in Australia written at Port Macquarie in 1845 was modeled on the same English play.

During 1830s and 1840s, the local songs, ballads, recitations, comic satires were included in the performances. Edward Geoghegan was a significant Australian dramatist of this period. He was a convict, so his plays were submitted to the public either anonymously or under the names of the actors or managers. He wrote nine plays and performed at the Royal Victoria in the 1840s. His famous play, The Currency Lass, presents the story of a native girl who is very talented and makes arrangements for a marriage very skillfully.

After the 1840s, in a true sense, Australian drama begins with the performance of Bum’s plays - Negro Vengeance and A Tale of the Barbados. In the later 1840s and early 1850s Francis Belfield, a Melbourne actor wrote three plays viz. Retribution or The Drunkard’s

3 Curse, Rebel Chief and Zisca the Avenger. They were performed by Queen’s Theatre Company.

Pantomime, a popular Victorian form as it deals with local or topical allusions, allows Australian dramatic tradition to celebrate their culture. Pantomime is a mixture of romance and realism. For example, John Lazar’s Grand Easter Pantomime, which expresses the local scene, background, people, society of Sydney, was performed at the Royal Victoria in Sydney, in 1846 for the first time. Another example, The Christmas Pantomime, was performed at the Royal Victoria in Sydney, in 1844, that presents a new panorama of 253 feet long, a short way of showing the various points of a voyage from Greenwich to New South Wales.

One of the major contributing factors in Australian drama was discover of the gold. In the early 1850s, the gold was discovered in New South Wales and Victoria, which gave a new direction to Australian drama. The gold was also discovered in townships like Ballarat, Bendigo and Bathurst as well as the main cities like Melbourne and Sydney. The sudden growth in population affects theatre constructions in the initial stage. As a result, in 1850, two theatres were constructed in Melbourne and Sydney with seating arrangement of three thousand audiences, which were Melbourne’s ‘Royal Theatre’ and Sydney’s ‘Prince of Wales Theatre’ respectively.

The overseas touring companies and visiting stars affected on Australia’s prosperity. There were two effects on the Australian dramatic convention. The first was many people of overseas companies and stars came to Australia to judge the competitiveness between managements,

4 and the second result was a positive development in the professional acting and stage direction.

Australian and Anglo-Australian melodrama flourished through the works of Alfred Dampier and George Darrell. The themes of Australian melodramas such as convictism, bushranging and gold discovery were the victims of concentration in competing with other drama. The most important writers of 1850s were Garnet Walch, Alfred Dampier, George Darrell, and Walter Cooper.

The most prominent dramatist who initiated the tradition of melodrama in Australia was Walter Cooper. His earlier plays - Kodadad and His Brothers, Colonial Experience and A New Crime or Andsome Enerys Mares Nest performed in the late 1860s and include operatic burlesque, a comedy, and a farce, respectively. The play, Colonial Experience, was a Sydney based domestic comedy of intrigue. It is known as the victory of loyalty and goodness of heart over city-bred acquisitiveness.

George Darrell was one of the best Anglo-Australian melodramatists of this period. His play, The Sunny South (1883), explores the colonial life, bushranging, goldfield’s excitement, and related themes. It staged fifteen hundred performances in Sydney and Melbourne during 1883 to 1891. The play was also performed in London and America and touring productions in Australia and New Zealand.

Another famous playwright of this phase was Alfred Dampier. He was a reputed author, co-author, adaptor, producer and actor of the Australian melodrama. His first successful stage adaptation of His Natural Life in 1886 gave him popularity through a decade. In this period,

5 he produced more than dozen of plays. The later phase included contemporary urban melodramas such as Thomas Somer’s Voice of the Night (1886), Marvellous Melbourne (1889) and The Great City (1891). In this period, there was American influence on Australian melodrama in the plays of Cooper, as well as Darrell, but it was strong in Dampier’s work.

In the late 1860s and 1870s, Marcus Clarke was prominent literary figure whose works reveal the difficulties and problems faced by the talented playwrights in the increasing time. He wrote twenty odd plays and fragments. His dramatic writings were the experimentation with the available forms and sense of frustration.

The period 1870s to 1890s is known as the golden era of Australian theatre. The period was noted for the rise of local melodrama, it reveals that Australian theatre has its root in pantomime. Pantomime depended for its effect on the liveliness of its local allusions, events, personalities, and a framework of fantasy in which tensions were always happily resolved. The most prolific authors of pantomime were W. M. Akhurst and Garnet Walch in 1850s at Melbourne.

The major causes of decline of Australian melodrama were the dominance of large-scale overseas theatrical interest; development of the film industry in early 20th century; and beginning of non-commercial theatre under the guidance of theoretical and practical inspiration of Louis Esson.

6 Phase II: 1900 - 1960

The period during 1900-1960 is considered as a second phase of Australian drama which is popularly known as postcolonial or nationalist period. It has uneven development as it witnesses the rise of new dramatic methods and the beginning of commercial theatre. It was a revolt against the established theatrical practice. This literary period begins with the plays of Louis Esson in the early 20th century and ends with a note of the major achievement of Ray Lawler’s Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1955).

Derivativeness is one of the main characteristic features of Australian drama. Australian dramatists derive the literary and dramatic practices from the parent culture that is English culture. The most significant concept handled in this time by local dramatists is national identity. The major themes in this phase were an actual conflicts and tensions in Australian society. The tragic conflict is a significant element in the 20th century Australian drama as it is reflected in the works of Louis Esson, and women writers like Katharine Susannah Prichard and Betty Roland.

There was an overseas impact on the development of Australian drama in the 20th century. This period witnessed the emergence of various movements and theatres such as an increase of Repertory Movement and Little Theatre, Authors theatre and Arts theatre, establishment of New Theatre Movement in 1930s, Verse drama in 1940s, beginning of Professional Theatre in 1950s and the Realism and Naturalism in the writing of dramas. Commercial theatre originated in the 19th century but

7 in true sense developed in 20th century. The innovations in this modern theatre are derived from cinema, radio, and television.

The Repertory Movement is a reaction to the commercial theatre managements. Repertory introduced to Australian audiences by Ibsen, Shaw, and Chekhov. The Adelaide Repertory Theatre began in 1908 and decided to produce one Australian play every year. Melbourne Repertory Theatre produced thirteen Australian plays out of Sixty-five plays in 1911 to 1917. Sydney Repertory Theatre produced three Australian plays out of twenty-four productions, in association with the commercial management of J. and N. Tait during 1921 to 1924. Another producer Dorris Fitton whose Independent Theatre performed Eighty Australian plays during 1930 to 1972.

The rise of Little theatre groups in 1930s and 1940s is known as the New Theatre Movement. Australian Performing Group was associated with the La Mama and Pram Factory Theatre in Melbourne in the late 1960s and 1970s. The New theatre Movement performed the contemporary work of non-Australian writers. Louis Esson, Vance Palmer, Sydney Tomholt, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Betty Roland, Douglas Stewart, Patrick White and Hal Porter were famous Australian playwrights in the second phase and others like Summer Locke-Elliott, Ray Lawler and Alan Seymour became expatriates.

Louis Esson (1878-1943) was the most innovative and prolific playwright belongs to second phase. He wrote fourteen plays in the 1910 and late 1920s. Among them, nine were actually performed. Esson’s plays challenge the convention of melodrama and social comedy of the late 19th century. His works were considered as the emergence of new

8 subjects and themes. His first full length play The Time is Not Yet Ripe presents a satirical political comedy. It discusses the Australian political hypocrisy, egotism and power politics.

Another playwright in this phase was Vance Palmer (1885-1959) whose best play The Black Horse (1923) deals with a tragic situation of country life. His other play Hail Tomorrow, written in 1943-45 and published in 1947, is a historical play based on the Queensland Shearers Strike of 1891-92.

Sydney Tomholt (1884-1974) was contemporary playwright of Esson. His play Bleak Dawn (1936) depicts a condition of a divorced woman in Australia. The play sets in the poor suburban area, in Australia and reflects a conflict in the mind of a woman.

The well known woman playwright who wrote realistic plays in Australia in 1950’s was Katharine Susannah Prichard (1883-1969). Her famous play Brumby Innes won the playwright’s competition under the Triad Magazine in 1927. The play presents sexual relations and racism in Australia.

Betty Roland (1903-1996) was a famous woman playwright of this period. Her play The Touch of Silk (1928) studies manners and morality of the bourgeois society in the Australia’s rural township. The major aim of the play is to introduce the town and control the conventional values and attitudes in the society.

Douglas Stewart (1913-1985) was a prominent figure who wrote a verse drama in this phase. He penned five plays and staged two plays during 1939 and 1947. He described the Australian history and legend

9 Barr, baiasaheb kiiasdekar librart SHIVAJJ UNIVERSITY, KOLHAPUR, through his works. He was influenced by Australian writers like Brennan, Norman, Lindsay, Slessor, and Fitzgerald and British writers like Eliot and Yeats.

Alan Seymour was another major playwright of this period. His play The One Day of the Year (1961) is based on the domestic problems. It is a study of conflict between the generations in the Australian Society. It reveals the class consciousness between the working class (father) and university educated (son).

In the late 1950, the Sydney bom playwright Peter Kenna (1930- 1987) came on the horizon of Australian drama who known as the contemporary writer of David Williamson. He wrote twelve plays. He is well-known for his theme of power. Most of his plays deal with power, violence, human relations and scenario of Australia around 1970. In his first play The Slaughter of St. Teresa's Day, published in 1972, Kenna uses violence as a weapon to achieve power. He also shows traditional and modem use of power in society. In tradition, power has been practiced to control the whole society for the betterment of public life but in the modem period the same power is being exercised for individuals and private life. In such kind of plays in order to upgrade the socio­ economic status, the protagonist always try to corrupt the public property which consequently increases economic position and individual status in the society. Another play Listen Closely discusses the generation gap between the working class father and university educated son. The playwright very skillfully explores the discrepancy on power ideology between father and son within the family as well as in the society.

10 Phase III: Drama since 1960

After 1960 drama became a well-known form in comparison with Fiction, Poetry and the other arts in Australia. The genre of drama was developed and established with a new tradition. Many dramatists have the influence of English writers. Until the early 1960s, only nationalism is presented through the plays.

European theatre movements like Expressionism, Symbolism, Brechtian theatre, Absurdist theatre used in Australia in 1960s through the works of modem playwrights including Patrick White, Jack Hibberd, David Williamson, Alexander Buzo, John Romeril, Barry Oakley, Dorothy Hewett, Michael Boddy, Robert Ellis, Ron Bair, and Bill Reed.

Betty BurstalFs ‘Coffee House Theatre’ known as the cafe La Mama was established in Melbourne in 1967. Williamson and Buzo were influenced by the Pinter and Albee, Hibberd by Beckett and Brecht and Romeril, Hewett, Blair and Louis Nowra by August Strindberg. In the 1950s, the impact of American playwrights such as Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams was significant in Australian Naturalism.

In modem Australian drama, Naturalism is discussed by two famous substantial playwrights David Williamson and Peter Kenna in 1960s and 1970s. They presented the power politics, conflicts and social issues through the creation of characters and situations. Williamson’s is a significant example of this. The play is about violence in Australian society. Williamson and Kenna formed expressionism in Australian drama and theatre. They present the changing behavior and circumstances in the younger generation of Australia. Patrick White, Hal Porter, John Romeril, Jack Hibberd, Alexander Buzo, Dorothy Hewett,

li Peter Kenna and Alma de Groen are contemporary writers of David Williamson.

Patrick White a well-known dramatist and novelist of Australian fiction who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973 wrote four plays in 1961 to 1964. The Ham Funeral shows the history of time, space and social issues concerned with the social behavior of Australian life. His works present the colonial and postcolonial life and struggle in Australia.

Another playwright, Hal Porter also writes about Australian life and power struggle. His play, The Tower (1964) is a most unusual historical play which sets in Tasmania. It is about the society’s obsession with violence which is inherited and lives of the people controlled by power.

John Romeril is another famous playwright in this phase. He has written over forty plays including I don’t Know Who To Feel Sorry For, Chicago Chicago, and The Floating World. His play The Floating World (1985) depicts the relationship between oppressors and oppressed class in the business community that is ruling class and working class. Working class male oppresses women and Asians immigrants on the basis of sex and race.

Jack Hibberd is also a prominent playwright in this phase who wrote more than forty plays. He explores positive and negative impacts of power on human relationships. Hibberd’s first play White With Wire Wheels (1967) is known as proto-feminist revenge play. It explores the lifestyle of young generations, their economic conditions, and stereotypical behavior and speech. It satirizes the male behavior and presents how male dominates the female in the society. Another play

12 Peggy Sue (1975) deals with exploitation of three romantic young women. It reflects the economic as well as gender power in the society. His famous play A Stretch of the Imagination (1972) is very significant in New Wave Australian drama. He challenges the methods of traditional theatre in Australia. It is about the myths and culture in the past and the present.

Alexander Buzo produces mature plays on the professional stage around 1970s. His study of theatre is based on the rejection of naturalism and nationalist feeling. It expresses local realities. Norm and Ahmed was a prominent work which depicts the confrontation between Australian and foreigner.

Contribution of women playwrights is remarkable in this phase. Dorothy Hewett is famous woman playwright in contemporary Australian drama whose works represent three main themes such as women’s experience in Australian life, myths and legends in social life and study of human behavior. Her most famous naturalistic play This Old Man Comes Rolling Home (1966) deals with the environment of working class family of Redfem in Sydney.

Alma de Groen is a woman playwright who wrote the plays in the late 1960s. Her famous plays are The Sweatproof Boy and The Joss Adams Show. She shows ordinary domestic life in Australian society of late 19th century through her works of art.

Many theatre companies established in the modem period in Australia. In the beginning, cafe La Mama Theatre Company, Pram Factory theatre, and Australian Performing Group were producing the play. Australia’s first theatre, Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC), was

13 established in 1968. The State Theatre of Australia was established in 1965. Queensland Theatre Company (QTC) was established in 1970. In New South Wales, Old Tote Theatre was started in 1973. Sydney Theatre Company emerged in 1980, and it was the famous company in the late 1990s with the capability of 20000 audiences of the play while Nimrod Theatre Company was established in 1970.

Thus, the Australian drama has a very significant place in the World Dramatic tradition. In Phase I, 19th century, melodrama has a simple and easy understanding for the public having happy endings that have projected integrated families and equal distribution of property and wealth, which was performed and celebrated in melodramatic theatre. The Phase II began in early 20th century in which dramatists challenge the audience by asking questions of Australian myths and social practices. In this period, the theatre shows the male-female stereotypes, class conflicts and urban/rural tensions, etc. In the third Phase, the modem playwrights invented the new theatre techniques such as Expressionism, Symbolism, and Absurdist theatre. The modem playwrights discuss the themes like human relations, power, violence, racism, political, economic, legal, educational institutions as well as family institution in Australian society. As Australian playwrights reflect the Australian society and culture through their works. This survey of Australian dramatic tradition is helpful to understand David Williamson’s contribution to Australian dramatic tradition in particular and World dramatic tradition in general.

Life and works of David Williamson:

David Keith Williamson is one of Australia’s well-known playwrights in Melbourne bom on 19th February, 1942 and brought up in

14 Baimsdale, Victoria. His father Edwin Keith David Williamson was a bank employee in the suburb of Bentleigh till 1954, and then he became a branch manager of the bank at Victorian country town of Baimsdale. He is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering from Monash University in 1964. He completed P.G. degree in psychology at Melbourne University and had worked at General Motors Holden for one year. In 1966, he joined Swinburne Institute of Technology to work as a lecturer in thermodynamics and social psychology until 1973. His first written but unpublished script The Indecent Exposure of Anthony East was performed by The Tin Alley Players, the graduate theatre company of the university in August 1968.

He was a writer as well as an actor with La Mama Company and Australian Performing Group in 1970-72 and the member of the Australia Council for Arts in 1972-75. He was the commissioner of the Australian Broadcasting Commission in 1978-79 as well as the President of the Australian Writers Guild in 1979-1993. He has received many honors and awards. He won the ‘British George Divine Award’ in 1971. In 1972, he got ‘Australian writers Guild Awgie Award’ for the best stage play and best script with The Removalists. He was appointed as an officer of the ‘Order of Australia’ in 1983. He won ‘Human Right and Equal Opportunity Commission Drama Award’ for . He has chosen to deliver the inaugural lecture on Andrew Olle Media. He received ‘JC Williamson Award’ in 2005. He is the recipient of the ‘Australian Film Institute Award’ for Best Screen plays and adaptation for Don’s party, Gallipoli, and Babibo in 1977, 1981, 1981 and 2009 respectively. He was nominated as a Senior Australian of the year in 2012.

15 His plays (1970) and The Removalists (1971) give him national and international acclamation. He received the ‘Commonwealth Literary Grant’ in 1971 of seven thousand dollars for working as a fulltime writer. He has written forty three plays and some of them are adapted into a film. He has also written screenplays and teleplays.

He also wrote the screenplay for the T.V. series such as (1984), (1988), Dog’s Head Bay (1999), and On The Beach (2000). Some films are based on his plays such as The Coming of Stork (1970), The Removalists (1975), Don’s party (1976), (1980), (1980), (1987), (1987), (1996), etc.

He has written naturalistic plays as he has depicted the middle class Australian society in his plays. They focus on politics, loyalty and family relations in contemporarily urban or aristocratic Australia particularly Melbourne and Sydney. His some famous plays are The Coming of Stork The Removalists, The Department, The Club, , , Travelling North, Handful of Friends, The Perfectionist, Emerald City, Brilliant Lies and .

The Coming of Stork (1970) presents a sexual conflict among young male and female graduates sharing a house. It is an outrageous comedy. Dead White Males expresses the satirical approach to postmodernism and university values. It is a debate about a postmodernism versus liberal humanism. The Department deals with his personal experiences at Monash University in Mechanical Engineering department with its emphasis on education system. Don’s Party was

16 about the election night in 1969 and changed environment and behavior of the people. The Perfectionist depicts the system of modem marriage and changes in relationships. The play Travelling North shows a moving journey from home to other places of old age and discusses the whole life.

The play The Removalists, published in 1971, is about the violence and the abuse of power and authority. It is supposed to be a microcosm of 1970s Australian society. This play reveals how policemen use their power and dominate others and is about police corruption. It expresses the number of issues about Australian society and including those regarding police bmtality and corruption, domestic violence, law and order, and anti-authoritarianism.

The play Jugglers Three (1972), a black comedy, presents the marital tensions through depiction of violence, corruption, and relationships in the family and social context. In Australia, male- female relationship rests on a frightening sub-stratum of violence. Australian culture belongs to Judeo-Christian culture that is fundamentally anti­ woman. Aggressive masculinity isolates woman in their social rcles as a sexual object. The play is about Judeo-Christian society, women identity problem, man-woman relationship, corruption in education and police department, violence created through situations and verbal expressions.

The Club published in 1978, a satirical play, explores the clashes between human loyalties versus materialistic gain is inspired by the backroom dealing and antics of the Victorian League’s Collingwcod. The play satirically shows the self interest and double dealing underlying the politics of any ostensibly democratic institution. The Club explores the

17 conflict that exists to commercialism within Australian football Club where the Club is seen as a satire of a professional football Club, who are under pressure of a group of people trying to gain the upper hand. The power plays a significant role in these plays, as it shows uses and abuses of power and power struggles and its effect on human life. Most of the plays are based on the power struggles involving the characters. The play also reflects commitment, passion, glory, jealousy, greed, money and power.

Williamson’s plays have been performed by Melbourne Theatre Company, Old Tote Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company, The Nimrod Theatre Company and South Australian Theatre Company in Australia, London, The Kennedy Centre, Washington, on Broadway, in Berlin and Los Angeles. His first play was performed at La Mama Company at Melbourne.

Katharine Brisbane in the article The Australian has commented on David Williamson “His genius has been to define for us in advance of our own recognition, the qualities which makeup the Australian character” (29). According to Fiona McFarlance, “Audiences love him, partly because he comes at elitist worlds with a sharp eye and a bias toward everyman.” (8)

A Review of Relevant Literature:

David Williamson, a significant Australian playwright who is discussed extensively in the Australian dramatic tradition. He explores the multilayered reality of the Australian society. Many critics try to examine his plays from different perspectives. As far as the researcher’s knowledge is concerned, very few critics try to examine the select plays

18 in this perspective. The book David Williamson: A Writer’s Career (1996) by Brian Kieman accounts Williamson’s remarkable career, draws on his early writings, unpublished drafts, letters and journal entries which gives us significant commentary on his literary work. Another text written by his wife Kristin Williamson entitled David Williamson: Behind the Scenes (2009) shows the biographical details which modify the understanding of his fiction. Katharine Brisbane’s David Williamson: A Celebration is an essay collection which probes into the literary achievements of the playwright. The book David Williamson’s The Club: A Critical Introduction is written by Peter Fitzpatrick which discusses the critical assessment of the play The Club.

Australian Playwrights Monograph Series of David Williamson edited by Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt presents life and career of David Williamson and a critical study of his plays. In an interview with David Williamson, Candida Baker reveals his personal life as well as dramatic career and how his real life is very much related to his works of art.

There are many significant articles and research papers devoted to analyze his literary enterprise with different perspectives. These articles can be used to support the central research argument made in this dissertation. Very few critics have tried to analyze his plays in the light of power politics and interpersonal relationships, but they are fragmentary in nature and inadequately supported. So, it is worthwhile to discuss these ideas in the select plays which are helpful to draw the specific research findings that can be generalized in the area of Australian literature and particularized fictional world of David Williamson.

19 Hypothesis of the Study:

It is assumed that the plays of David Williamson deal with Power Politics and Interpersonal Relationships in terms of love, marriage, man- woman relationships, and certain professional relationships.

Significance of the Topic:

Though, the present study deals with the select plays of a single playwright, it has a wider significance in the context of tradition of Australian drama. The theme of power politics and its role in the formation of the social relations reflected in the select plays is the most attended theme of Australian playwrights. Therefore, the study of these plays is also helpful to understand the themes of Australian drama in general and themes of David Williamson in particular. As far as the knowledge of the researcher, the select plays are not examined thoroughly from this perspective in the academic research previously. Therefore, the present research work is a modest attempt to explore the different dimensions of the Australian society and its reflection in the select plays.

Scope and Limitations of the study:

David Williamson is a prolific playwright, who has penned forty three plays and adopted near about twenty four plays into screen plays. His writing depicts the kaleidoscopic thematic concerns. The society, culture and the contemporary issues always remain preferred in his literary creations. The study of his fictional writing explained the nature of literature in general and Australian literature in particular. It is impossible to examine all the features of his writings or all his works. The

20 scope of the study is limited one as it undertakes the analysis of the select plays.

Objectives of the study:

In the light of the above discussion, following are the specific aim and objectives of the study. The aim of the study is to analyze and understand the select plays of David Williamson with reference to the theoretical framework of power politics and interpersonal relationships.

Objectives:

-To prepare an eclectic theoretical frame of power politics and interpersonal relationships in order to understand their reflections in the literary art.

-To analyze the select plays in the light of the theoretical frame prepared.

-To make a significant statement on the select plays of David Williamson, and to draw a generalized statement in the connection of power politics, and human relations examined in the plays.

Methodology:

A close reading of primary and secondary sources has undertaken in order to throw light on Williamson’s concern with power and interpersonal relationships. Analytical, Interpretative, and Evaluative methods are used for the present research work.

21 Chapter Scheme:

Introduction:

A) A Brief Review of Australian Drama B) Life and Works of David Williamson C) Review of Relevant Literature D) Hypothesis E) Methodology F) Chapter Scheme

Chapter I

Power Politics and Interpersonal Relationships: A Theoretical Frame

Chapter II

The Removalists: Power, Authority and Punishment

Chapter III

Jugglers Three: Economic Power Relations and Social Status

Chapter IV

The Club: Positional Power and Professional Relations

Chapter V

Conclusion

In the subsequent chapter an attempt will be made to prepare a theoretical frame of Power Politics and Interpersonal Relationships in the light of the discourses written in the different disciplines. A review of the definitions and opinions are considered useful to have a clear understanding of the terms.

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