Reg Cribb has written a very sophisticated and engaging play called The Return which was published in 2003. In The Return he uses complex characters and high intensity drama to represent groups of people and different ideas within our community. Cribb was motivated to write this play by an incident which he witnessed on a Perth train. He saw two young men psychologically torturing a young female law student and the play mirrors this incident becoming a microcosm of the ills in society on larger scale. The characterisation of Steve throughout the play makes him a complex character who develops in the course of events and backs up the fact that ex-convicts are constantly judged by members in our society. Cribb also employs setting in a very …show more content…
Steve starts off talking in an aggressive way with negative remarks towards Trev and then he has a dig at Trev saying, ‘Shut ya whingein’. ‘You’ll have a cold beer down ya gullet soon’. Then not long after this he also says to Trev, ‘You are a seriously fucked-up individual’, this remark highlights the aggressiveness and antisocial behaviour that Steve is first represented with and his desire to show himself as superior to Trev. The language he uses is very harsh and scathing which resembles that of a thug. Here the audience is confronted by this statement and begin to think negatively about Steve. Just before Steve tells Trev to ‘shut ya whingein’ a young female boards the train, she is greeted with this behaviour and does her best to not get involved as sexual harassment is prevalent in today’s society. This shows how she has judged him already by his actions and has made the assumption he is from the lower class. The way Steve is presented at the start by use of characterisation gives us the view that he is a thug from the lower class who cannot control his behaviour which our society constantly judges him for, however we soon find out that Steve has an important story behind his …show more content…
Lisa and the other characters on the train have made judgements on Steve based on the fact they can see in his behaviour he is from a lower socio economic area. Despite the negative vibes shown towards Steve, through characterisation he develops positively and connections start to emerge with the other characters on the train. Especially Lisa who becomes more sympathetic to him and interestingly she engages with him in conversation. This is evident when he says to Lisa, ‘Ya know, Lisa, you’d be better off hangin’ with me. I’d protect ya. I mean I’d really protect ya.’ And then a couple of lines later Lisa says to Steve, ‘Look, let’s… have that dance now.’ This shows that Steve has gained the trust of Lisa as she is now making the first move because she has accepted Steve for who he is. Over the course of the play the other characters get more comfortable around Steve but still there is tension between all of them. This represents the amount of judgement that goes on in our society, as soon as someone from a lower socio economic background enters the picture we instantly look down on them and turn a blind eye even though we don’t know their full story. Cribb has used characterisation here to develop Steve from a thug with