Stephen Davis explores the importance of rites of passage in the play juice through characters, events, ideas and themes. It is the end of grade 1. Rodney, a 15-year-old boy and a group friends want to celebrate with gusto. With the aid of two four-litre casks of cheap white wine, a telling game of truth or dare, and a dead canary, the group relinquish their childhood only to be confronted with adulthood. The playwright explores the importance of rites of passage juice through Characters, events & symbols. Stephen Davis centres the plot of the story on a rite of Passage among a group of students completing year 10. The pulp of the story concerns a Suicide within the group, forcing the characters individually to examine their relationships, Their futures and ultimately themselves.

Juice concentrates on the real teen issues: alcohol, Fitting-in, relationship conflict and coping with death. Melissa-Anne stands out as an example of a teenage girl, picking up on the insecurities felt at that age. Tony plays the over-confident youth who tries to buy alcohol by showing a fake ID. When Rodney wants to go party with his friends to celebrate the end of year 10, his father refuses to let him go expressing concern for his safety because there is no parent supervision. The fathers behaviour is accurate and similar to parents of today’s world it gives the audience a connection to their past the difficulties of a being a teen.

This resulted in Rodney finally speaking out without his father’s knowledge and going to the party despite his father’s stress on adult supervision. The same circumstances are also shown in the myth of Daedalus and Icarus although Daedalus and Icarus seem to have a stronger father son relationship than Rodney and his father in the play. Rodney’s parents display the difficulties in raising an adolescent, but also the care they have for their son. Juice has a strong symbolic connection with the ancient Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus both stories share the same moral theme of flying to close to the sun. the relationship between father and son is untrustworthy and sometimes daunting as Rodney experiences a few occasions where his father angers him to the point he feels he has to rebel against his father’s guidance. Juice’s style is that of a play interspersed with interview- like soliloquy. The audience find themselves grappling between past and present events, to view the bigger picture.

Davis, the author never lets anybody leave the stage, instead choosing to use freeze frames and moments of reciting to piece together the intricate elements, a method which generally works well. Stephen Davis successfully explores the importance of the teenagers’ rites of passage in the play juice through characters, events ideas and themes. The play is entertaining but also results in a tragedy with the death of Rodney. One of the scenes from the play indicated the characters were not old enough to obtain alcoholic beverages teen’s behaviour and believes were very well thought-out and described by Stephen Davis each and every emotion, decision and believe the teenagers express rite of passage it gives the audience a connection to their past