Life Without Me Dramatic Forms, Performance Styles, Techniques, Conventions and Images

Australian Drama and Theatre: Rubric

This topic explores, theoretically and experientially, the traditional and contemporary practices of Australian drama and theatre and the various ways in which artistic, cultural, social, political and personal issues and concerns are reflected in different contexts. Students investigate how different Australian practitioners use dramatic forms, performance styles, techniques and conventions to convey ideas and influence the ways in which audiences understand and respond to ideas and images presented in the theatre.

Dramatic Form: Life Without Me is a play with a traditional linear structurePerformance Styles: The performance style of Life Without Me is Absurd comedy juxtaposed with RealismConventions: In the MLC Rowley Street production, character doubling of Nigel occurredTechniques: There are a variety of techniques in the play – such as

o Juxtaposition: the fact of two things are seen or placed close together with contrasting effect: e.g. the juxtaposition of two images.

o TensionThe textual devices can be: verbal or visual.Verbal humour Verbal humour exists in the words of the dialogue. e.g.

o Jokes – Roy: My son ran into a tree 2 weeks ago. John: Is he OK? Roy: No, he’s an idiot.

o Connotations – Mrs Spence: Adequate. We like to supply adequate rooms. (Negative connotations)

o Wit – Mrs Spence: Yes, Its very private because there’s almost no one here. (Wit = clever dialogue)

o Hyperbole – Alice: (reaction to the plant) I was being asphyxiated…its fronds like some deformed… hand. (Extreme exaggeration)

o Verbal irony – Nigel: We’re booked up, full. (Ironic – they’re empty).o Innuendo – Mrs Spence: I’d love a sausage. (Sexual innuendo)

Verbal Images The words spoken create images in the audience’s mind, e.g.

o John: “I’m like a rat in a maze”o Mrs Spence: “When you leave a hotel…you leave bits of paper, hairpins

and buttons…little scraps of yourself”Visual Images Visual images can exist in the text or be added through directorial choices. Many of the textual images are physical, visual elements of the set and act as metaphors.

Visual Images in the text

o Revolving dooro Elevatoro The fish tanko Reception desk and Registero

o Revolving door: the revolving door is a visual image/metaphor for the way we get stuck in a rut. Everyone in the hotel enters through the revolving door; their lives are stuck in a revolving pattern in some way and they become stuck in the hotel until they find meaning in a meaningless contemporary life.

o Elevator: the elevator is a visual image/metaphor for the unpredictable nature of life. Sometimes the lift works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes things work in life and sometimes they don't.

The fish tank – the goldfish bowl is a metaphor for the emptiness/meaninglessness of life; the tank is empty – we are running on empty; – we are just acting out life in a goldfish bowl: “two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year” lyrics, Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here

Reception desk and Register –highlights the metaphor/ issue that life is absurd. You go to reception to register in or check out. It reminds us of the Book of Reckoning, which is the book in Christian doctrine where all of a person’s sins and good deeds are recorded. On Judgement Day, each man will be judged against the deeds in their book and thus go to either Heaven or Hell. In the play, the characters are in their own hell living in a rat race. “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave” The Eagles, Hotel California

Visual Images in the text The director (Lisa Jinga) of the Rowley Street production 2014, made the directorial choice to include additional visual and auditory symbols to assist the audience understand that once inside the hotel, characters enter an absurd situation where they can never leave. For example,

Visual Images: Props and set designed by the directoro A luggage trolley remained on the set throughout. It had old items such as an old steamer

trunk, leather suit case, wooden tennis racket, hat box covered in cobwebs on it to suggest again that the hotel guests were stuck in the hotel, a metaphor for being stuck in a rut.

o An ornate, old-fashioned lift had 2 topiary pot plants that were upside down – absurdo A hanging light bulb that flickered on and off to remind us that the hotel is dysfunctionalo A table with the top on a slant so everything put on the table slid offo A reception bell/buzzer so when the bell was rung it roared like a lion and frightened guestso A birdcage where an eagle is on top of the cage and a cat is trapped inside – reversing

the usual expectationo A set of clocks which instead of world time zones has different time zones inside the

hotel e.g. ‘lobby, kitchen, lift etc.’o A hat stand whose rungs bend down when a coat or hat are put on them so they slip

off. Objects do not function as they should; life doesn't go as planned.

Absurdism techniques (from the intro notes I gave you).1. Find examples in the play (maybe 3 each) of techniques such as;

Use of visual symbols (e.g. the revolving door) Events or dialogue that are illogical (not finding your way out on the street) Cyclic or repetitive events (being blown through the revolving door) Metaphors – e.g. metaphor of the fish tank – (we are just acting out life in a

goldfish bowl). Look up the lyrics to Pink Floyd’s Wish you were Here. What are the pertinent lines in this song that relate to the concept?

Dialogue that blurs rather than clarifies meaning in the communication between the characters

Questions that never get answered or get answered with other questions, e.g. “This is a hotel isn’t it?’

Oxymorons – Look up the lyrics to Hotel California by the Eagles. “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave” How do these lyrics relate to the play?