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卮丕賴丿 毓賱賶 賯亘乇 噩賵乇噩 丿賷賱賵賳
This is the play John Osborne wrote with his partner, Anthony Creighton, before Look Back In Anger. It is a fascinating mix of the 1950s rep play and the romantic excavation of pain and doubt so beloved of Osborne.
I suspect Creighton's hand in the admittedly very funny exposition: a portrait of the stifling, lower-middle-class Elliot household that becomes almost Ionesco-like in its procession of banalities. And Peter Gill's production and John Gunter's design exactly capture the gestures towards ghastly good taste of 1950s suburbia: the Radio Times lovingly encased in an embroidered folder, the square mantelpiece clock, the kitsch picture of birds in flight.
But with the arrival of the eponymous hero, a struggling actor-playwright who becomes a surrogate son for the doting Mrs Elliot, Osborne unmistakably announces his presence. It is not simply that George is an embryonic Jimmy Porter with the same withering contempt. He also has that "nag of disquiet" that was Osborne's defining quality. And in the confrontation between George and Ruth, Mrs Elliot's leftwing sister, you get writing of real passion. The disenchanted Ruth is quickened into laughter by George's sardonic wit: at the same time George himself is crippled by doubt as to whether he has the symptoms of talent - "the pain, the ugly swellings, the lot" - without the real disease.
Admittedly the play sometimes seems a parody of an old rep piece. In the third act, George is advised by a spivvy producer, brilliantly played by Stephen Greif, to tart up his putative play by getting a girl in the family way; and in life George does exactly that.
But the play exudes that peculiar Osborne flavour: a dislike of mean, middle-class values exceeded only by the author's self-hatred. It also holds the stage extremely well. Joseph Fiennes as George has the ability to switch in a second from youthful ebullience to a desolate fatigue. He also rightly leaves you in doubt as to whether George is a posturing mediocrity, or a real talent who sells his soul for suburban safety.
Francesca Annis is equally impressive as the wan, emotionally bereft Ruth who has knowingly settled for less. Anne Reid invests Mrs Elliot with a smothering motherliness, and Geoffrey Hutchings is quietly hilarious as her truculent husband. While I'm not persuaded this is a better play than Osborne's own unaided work, it offers the deep and pleasurable satisfaction of seeing a major writer discovering his voice. Even if the pain and passion burst through the conventional form, Gill's fine production honours an unjustly neglected play.
I suspect Creighton's hand in the admittedly very funny exposition: a portrait of the stifling, lower-middle-class Elliot household that becomes almost Ionesco-like in its procession of banalities. And Peter Gill's production and John Gunter's design exactly capture the gestures towards ghastly good taste of 1950s suburbia: the Radio Times lovingly encased in an embroidered folder, the square mantelpiece clock, the kitsch picture of birds in flight.
But with the arrival of the eponymous hero, a struggling actor-playwright who becomes a surrogate son for the doting Mrs Elliot, Osborne unmistakably announces his presence. It is not simply that George is an embryonic Jimmy Porter with the same withering contempt. He also has that "nag of disquiet" that was Osborne's defining quality. And in the confrontation between George and Ruth, Mrs Elliot's leftwing sister, you get writing of real passion. The disenchanted Ruth is quickened into laughter by George's sardonic wit: at the same time George himself is crippled by doubt as to whether he has the symptoms of talent - "the pain, the ugly swellings, the lot" - without the real disease.
Admittedly the play sometimes seems a parody of an old rep piece. In the third act, George is advised by a spivvy producer, brilliantly played by Stephen Greif, to tart up his putative play by getting a girl in the family way; and in life George does exactly that.
But the play exudes that peculiar Osborne flavour: a dislike of mean, middle-class values exceeded only by the author's self-hatred. It also holds the stage extremely well. Joseph Fiennes as George has the ability to switch in a second from youthful ebullience to a desolate fatigue. He also rightly leaves you in doubt as to whether George is a posturing mediocrity, or a real talent who sells his soul for suburban safety.
Francesca Annis is equally impressive as the wan, emotionally bereft Ruth who has knowingly settled for less. Anne Reid invests Mrs Elliot with a smothering motherliness, and Geoffrey Hutchings is quietly hilarious as her truculent husband. While I'm not persuaded this is a better play than Osborne's own unaided work, it offers the deep and pleasurable satisfaction of seeing a major writer discovering his voice. Even if the pain and passion burst through the conventional form, Gill's fine production honours an unjustly neglected play.
- GenresPlays
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First published January 1, 1958
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About the author
John Osborne
218听books107听followersPeople best know British playwright John James Osborne, member of the Angry Young Men, for his play Look Back in Anger (1956); vigorous social protest characterizes works of this group of English writers of the 1950s.
This screenwriter acted and criticized the Establishment. The stunning success of Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre. In a productive life of more than four decades, Osborne explored many themes and genres, writing for stage, film and television. His extravagant and iconoclastic personal life flourished. He notoriously used language of the ornate violence on behalf of the political causes that he supported and against his own family, including his wives and children, who nevertheless often gave as good as they got.
He came onto the theatrical scene at a time when British acting enjoyed a golden age, but most great plays came from the United States and France. The complexities of the postwar period blinded British plays. In the post-imperial age, Osborne of the writers first addressed purpose of Britain. He first questioned the point of the monarchy on a prominent public stage. During his peak from 1956 to 1966, he helped to make contempt an acceptable and then even cliched onstage emotion, argued for the cleansing wisdom of bad behavior and bad taste, and combined unsparing truthfulness with devastating wit.
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March 30, 2023
亘丕賱乇睾賲 賲賳 賮賰乇丞 丕賱賲爻乇丨賷丞 丕賱噩賷丿丞 賵卮禺氐賷丕鬲賴丕 丕賱丨賷丞 丕賱鬲賷 鬲賲賱賰 賲賯賵賲丕鬲 丿乇丕賲賷丞 賯賵賷丞 廿賱丕 丕賳 賴賳丕賰 禺賱賱 賮賷 丕賱爻乇丿 賵丕賱丕丨丿丕孬 賵鬲胤賵乇 丕賱賲爻乇丨賷丞 賲夭毓噩 賵賲毓賷賯 賱賯丿乇丞 賲鬲丕亘毓 丕賱賲爻乇丨賷丞 毓賱賶 丕賱丕爻鬲賲鬲丕毓 亘賴丕 亘卮賰賱 賰丕賲賱.
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