David
In his play The Club, David Williamson presents numerous Australian attitudes of the 1970s. However, many of these attitudes are still relevant and fairly accurate representations of Australian attitudes in the 1990s, although some of course have changed somewhat over the time since the play was written nearly twenty years ago. Tradition plays a very important part in The Club. Each of the characters of course has his own ideas and attitudes towards tradition, but there are some which are more or less universal throughout the play. In The Club, tradition is mainly presented as the opposite to progress and success; that is, to achieve success in today's world, tradition must be abandoned. For example, Laurie (the coach) blames an old Club tradition for his failure to win a premiership, "You and your cronies wouldn't let me buy players." Jock (the vice-president) replies, "We were upholding an old tradition. It was wrong, but we believed in it." Then in the next line, Laurie accuses Jock of supporting the rest of the committee in upholding the tradition not because he believed in it himself, but because he didn't want Laurie to succeed, "They might have believed in it but the reason why you woul
Power is also explored extensively in The Club; much of the play is based on power struggles between the characters. For example, all of the characters in The Club except Ted are of the belief that it is unacceptable for a man to commit acts of physical violence against a woman. Competitiveness is also an important attitude in the play -- one which is shared by all the characters, to at least some extent. However, Gerry (the administrator) and Jock's plans for next year not only include the dropping of some Club traditions, but also extensive commercialisation as wealthy entrepreneurs are recruited for sponsorship money which will be used to buy more players. ------------------------------------------------------------------------**Bibliography**Websites : www. As mentioned earlier, the power struggle between Laurie and Jock is evidenced by Laurie's accusation that Jock supported the committee's traditional approach only to stop Laurie from succeeding. The fact that the Club has not been particularly successful recently and has not won a premiership for nineteen years only strengthens the characters' competitive attitudes and desire for victory. " Other characters, like Jock and Gerry, lack loyalty to other people but are loyal to the Club as a whole. For example when trying to avert a players' strike, Jock claims that former Club heroes would be disgusted by the idea, "I want to turn all those photographs around so they don't have to look down on this shameful scene. Some of the attitudes expressed, especially those regarding the commercialisation of sport, are even more relevant today than when the play was written, while others, such as tradition, are still equally relevant in the Australian society of the 1990s. However the two players, Danny (the team Captain) and Geoff, do not really become involved in these power struggles except when they aid Laurie at the end of the play. " However, it is later revealed that Jock supports the buying of players and a coach who has not played for the Club, both of which are against traditions, to ensure that the Club wins a premiership next season. Williamson's portrayal reflects many Australian attitudes of the 1990s very accurately, even though the play was written nearly twenty years ago. " However Jock's attitude in this case is highly hypocritical as he has admittedly bashed his own wife.
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Acceptance Essays
