Summary Of The Play 'Black Is The New White'

Intro:
‘Black is the New White’ was the recent Sydney Theatre company Production written by Nikkiah Lui, Directed by Paige Rattray and performed as part of the Queensland Theatre company 2018 season. The performance skilfully demonstrated contemporary Australian drama through fusing an eclectic mix of styles including Heightened Realism, Farce and Comedy and the inclusion of a narrator. Inspired by her own experiences as an Indigenous Australian, Nikkiah Lui has crafted a funny and warm story highlighting the themes of family relationships and rivalries, privilege and power and identity. The director has achieved great success in managing the elements of drama, particularly character, tension and symbol along with the electric style to bring …show more content…
In ‘black is the new white’ the Characters aside from Charlotte, Joan and Francis, were very stereotypical rather than fully developed 3 dimensional characters. And in key moments for the central characters did represent ‘real’ people in ‘real’ situations of the time period. Just like what Stanislavsky thought was necessary when playing a character in realism, he wanted characters that were to portray believable, natural people on stage. The costumes each character wore were realistic and gave a believable description of who the character was. For example Charlotte’s Sister Rose a young fashion designer wore clothes, modern very beautiful clothing that are high fashion. The dialogue, or actual words that the central characters spoke and the language they used was, in most part, Realistic. This is show by how they use every day Modern day language. The key themes and identity throughout the play were solely based around Family relationships, Rivalries, the questioning of privilege and people’s power. Rivalry can be seen between the two main families the Gibson’s, and the smith’s, mainly between the two fathers. Who cannot get along due to their years in the public eye as of their status as politicians. The questioning of privilege is done by Charlotte towards her father on the law he created that was meant to help aboriginal …show more content…
Some of these symbols would go unnoticed if you were not looking for them, as it would have seemed like everyday life of a normal family. Or have been dismissed as a simple prop or gesture; These choices made by the director was critical to the final product. The name of the play ‘Black is the New White’ is a symbol as we normally typically, socialise wealth and success with whiteness, but the Gibson family is not white, but black and they are successful and are wealthy. Then perhaps black is the new white, with the character rose stating “Dose that mean Francis is the new black?”. And another symbol was that Dennison, mispronounced his wife’s name throughout the entire performance. The fact that alcohol is also present in every scene is a symbol, of them trying to forget something or drowning sorrow or more complicated issues that arose through the play. Ray the father of Charlotte always had a spot he went back to, and that was the couch his ‘throne’ while Joan’s most prominent stage position and stage action was the kitchen and handling of the props e.g. Suitcases, food, etc. Consequently, it is true that the extravagant and judicious use of symbols in the production of ‘Black is the New White’ is a testimony to the magnificent direction of Paige