Scan barcode
A review by theeditorreads
Look Back in Anger and Other Plays by John Osborne
3.0
Look Back in Anger and Other Plays is the first volume of John Osborne's collected plays, which includes Look Back in Anger, Epitaph for George Dillon, The World of Paul Slickey, and Déjàvu.
Synopsis:
Look Back in Anger is a play set in the post-World War II period in Britain and is about the working-class angst against the ineffectual system, which results in an educated man spending a mostly discontented life.
Epitaph for George Dillon follows the cycle of the four seasons as it narrates the journey of the titular character, who is a wannabe theatre actor. Dillon traverses through his life with Elliot's, who provide him with accommodation till he finds one for himself.
The World of Paul Slickey is a play about Jack Oakham, who goes by the pseudonym Paul Slickey when he writes the gossip column of a daily newspaper. That surname literally depicts the character who is being portrayed.
Déjàvu takes us back to the Porters. Now middle-aged and living rather comfortably after having left his job of running a sweet stall long back, Jimmy Porter is still as bitter as he was back then.
Review:
This edition is no longer, at least not easily, available. And this edition is special because it has an Introduction by the playwright himself, dated August 1993, Shropshire. John Osborne reminisces the day of May 8th, 1956. A date that has gone down in theatrical history as a bringer of "a tangible change in the climate and direction of the English theatre" due to the debut of Look Back in Anger.
Osborne introduces his life's works in his usual, what I like to call it, cutting style. Some people will call it being straightforward and not beating around the bush, whichever one prefers. But, he rightly points out how "reading the text of a play is not easy, especially for those who have little experience of playgoing".
Being an actor himself, the way he has described some of the plays he has had to perform on stage, I wonder how wonderful it would have been to read literary criticisms written by him. Just saying. On the one hand, he says:
And on the other, he calls Somerset Maugham's language dead. I will have to read Maugham's works first to express my views on his language. He then talks at length about the nuances of language, about the language his play uses. In this review, I will take up all the four plays separately and talk about what impressed me or not about them. And yes, I have little experience of playgoing, but my overactive "instinct to interpret in their (sic) head(s)" makes up for it.
Look Back in Anger
First published in 1957, Look Back in Anger is a comedy in three acts, albeit a very unusual one. Anyone reading it for the first time will rather call it sarcasm, a realistic one. Set in the protagonists – the Porter's – one-room flat in the Midlands, it belongs to the kitchen-sink genre of drama. A drama with working-class characters that plays out entirely in a domestic sphere.
While the play might have ushered in the age of the angry young man, its portrayal of a young couple leaves much to be desired. However much the author shrugs off the anti-feminist tag that the play received from certain quarters, the portrayal of marriage with that level of verbal violence shocked me.
It's like Alison said, Jimmy is nothing but a man-child, who is quite immature in his worldview and refuses to grow up. Being nasty to everyone is one thing, but hiding under a cloak of disillusionment and using it to always spear everyone else is just not healthy.
If not for the Pearson Longman Study Edition, I may not have noticed how visual aspects send a strong message in a play. Watching it being performed would definitely have provided more context, but even without it, the disgust at Jimmy's frequent verbal attacks eclipses the amusement provided by some of his witty dialogues.
It is a matter of interpretations though, with the play coming out as a package of some uncomfortable truths, savage in its dialogue, mundane in its setting, but touching upon a host of issues. And it does feel sometimes as if John Osborne himself is the character of Jimmy Porter.
Epitaph for George Dillon
Written immediately before the previous play in collaboration with an actor friend of his, Anthony Creighton, Epitaph for George Dillon was first published in 1958. It is a play in three acts that became to be considered as an inferior run-up to the genius of Look Back in Anger.
But, after the Oxford Experimental Theatre adapted it, many critics began to call it far superior to what Look Back portrayed. Personally, I liked this play the most out of all the four in this collection.
It has a quirky set of characters, among them a matriarch, a snob, a bitter man, a lazybones, and George Dillon. The protagonist, surrounded by mostly female characters, has high regards for himself.
The play takes place in the home of the Elliot family who reside just outside of London. The family seems to be populated with caricatures instead of real humans. The matriarch, while not thinking much of her forever complaining husband, comes to think of Dillon as her son, feeling as though her 'died in the war' son has returned.
The full flavour of this play arises gradually and Osborne's writing in this one delighted me. It was comical, the way some of the females hero-worshipped Dillon in spite of him not having achieved something significant in life.
This play also displayed Osborne's fascination with Wilde, which made me wonder too:
It has some really good lines which will give you all the feels. And the final act threw me off balance, it was something totally unexpected, especially after the trajectory the play was on!
The World of Paul Slickey
In this one, Osborne says it as it is, without any artifice. He dedicates The World of Paul Slickey to "the liars and self-deceivers; to those who daily deal out treachery; to those who handle their professions as instruments of debasement…"
The play is a musical in two acts, and it was directed by Osborne himself, first performed at the Pavilion Theatre, Bournemouth, on 14 April 1959. It had music by Christopher Whelen, a then established composer of incidental music for theatre (yep, this information came from Wikipedia).
While the play may have ended being a disaster, I quite enjoyed reading it. At first, I didn't get why Osborne mentions in the Introduction how he "became the only living playwright to have been pursued down the London streets by an angry mob" during the first night of the play, but now knowing how the play fared, it seems plausible.
The incidents in the play take place between the office of The Daily Racket, where Slickey works, and Mortlake Hall, a stately home somewhere in England. The play is comical and it did feel less of a musical and more of a farce at times. But sometimes, the lines were funny:
There are, as usual, a number of themes that Osborne touches upon in this play too, but none of them made an impact. To describe this play will be what is nowadays known as mindless entertainment, where you're supposed to watch a movie in a theatre only after having left your brains at home.
Déjàvu
This is a simple book review and not a critical one. But the critical texts that I read as part of my MA English course made me realise the importance of Look Back in Anger, taken both in the context of the time it was written in and for, and also out of it.
After reading all that, it felt strange coming back to a narrative, set thirty-five years into the future. But it was interesting as well, to see whether there is any change in the protagonists' outlook towards life, and what exactly that change is.
In this particular edition, there's an Author's Note that accompanies each individual play. And in the note for Déjàvu, Osborne says:
Thinking of it as Look Back II, the playwright was definitely not happy with his critics. But then again, art is all about interpretations, is it not? And neither is there one story in the world that is loved by everyone. Or at least, not equally loved by everyone. There will always be faults, and it is for the artist to take it with a pinch of salt.
Déjàvu takes us back to a Sunday morning in the Midlands, but thirty-five years later. First published in 1991, Jimmy Porter is back as a grey-haired J.P., with his friend Cliff, and his twenty-year-old daughter Alison. It is on the 15th of February that the play opens.
It is a play in two acts and while the two friends may not be in the same profession as before any longer, it doesn't mean that J.P. has lost his acerbic tongue. He also has a son who is mentioned quite a lot but doesn't make an appearance. Also mentioned is his first wife, Alison.
But his daughter, from his second ex-wife, is quite spirited, unlike her namesake, and gives back to J.P. as good as she gets. Except for the years, nothing much has changed though, only a few new people added to the narrative.
This was the last play written by Osborne, which became another failure in the theatre. Some of the lines of the play did feel like the playwright was taking out a grudge against the critics of Look Back!
In conclusion, all I would say is how I wish all the plays were televised, the original ones or the most famous versions of them so that I could have enjoyed watching them. Also, all four plays reflect Osborne's ironic style of writing, as do they show his hatred for organised religion and his distaste for the rich, cultured, suburban life. And if any part of my review sounded contradictory, it's because even if some of Osborne's plays were a disaster, they're addictive to read. Maybe only to me.
P.S. I borrowed a copy of the book from the Sahitya Akademi Library. And a not so fun fact will be that I wish I could have seen for myself the live performance of Osborne's adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, which debuted in Greenwich Theatre.
Originally posted on:
Shaina's Musings
Synopsis:
Look Back in Anger is a play set in the post-World War II period in Britain and is about the working-class angst against the ineffectual system, which results in an educated man spending a mostly discontented life.
Epitaph for George Dillon follows the cycle of the four seasons as it narrates the journey of the titular character, who is a wannabe theatre actor. Dillon traverses through his life with Elliot's, who provide him with accommodation till he finds one for himself.
The World of Paul Slickey is a play about Jack Oakham, who goes by the pseudonym Paul Slickey when he writes the gossip column of a daily newspaper. That surname literally depicts the character who is being portrayed.
Déjàvu takes us back to the Porters. Now middle-aged and living rather comfortably after having left his job of running a sweet stall long back, Jimmy Porter is still as bitter as he was back then.
Review:
This edition is no longer, at least not easily, available. And this edition is special because it has an Introduction by the playwright himself, dated August 1993, Shropshire. John Osborne reminisces the day of May 8th, 1956. A date that has gone down in theatrical history as a bringer of "a tangible change in the climate and direction of the English theatre" due to the debut of Look Back in Anger.
Osborne introduces his life's works in his usual, what I like to call it, cutting style. Some people will call it being straightforward and not beating around the bush, whichever one prefers. But, he rightly points out how "reading the text of a play is not easy, especially for those who have little experience of playgoing".
Being an actor himself, the way he has described some of the plays he has had to perform on stage, I wonder how wonderful it would have been to read literary criticisms written by him. Just saying. On the one hand, he says:
Slovenly writing invites slovenly performance.
And on the other, he calls Somerset Maugham's language dead. I will have to read Maugham's works first to express my views on his language. He then talks at length about the nuances of language, about the language his play uses. In this review, I will take up all the four plays separately and talk about what impressed me or not about them. And yes, I have little experience of playgoing, but my overactive "instinct to interpret in their (sic) head(s)" makes up for it.
Look Back in Anger
First published in 1957, Look Back in Anger is a comedy in three acts, albeit a very unusual one. Anyone reading it for the first time will rather call it sarcasm, a realistic one. Set in the protagonists – the Porter's – one-room flat in the Midlands, it belongs to the kitchen-sink genre of drama. A drama with working-class characters that plays out entirely in a domestic sphere.
While the play might have ushered in the age of the angry young man, its portrayal of a young couple leaves much to be desired. However much the author shrugs off the anti-feminist tag that the play received from certain quarters, the portrayal of marriage with that level of verbal violence shocked me.
It's like Alison said, Jimmy is nothing but a man-child, who is quite immature in his worldview and refuses to grow up. Being nasty to everyone is one thing, but hiding under a cloak of disillusionment and using it to always spear everyone else is just not healthy.
If not for the Pearson Longman Study Edition, I may not have noticed how visual aspects send a strong message in a play. Watching it being performed would definitely have provided more context, but even without it, the disgust at Jimmy's frequent verbal attacks eclipses the amusement provided by some of his witty dialogues.
It is a matter of interpretations though, with the play coming out as a package of some uncomfortable truths, savage in its dialogue, mundane in its setting, but touching upon a host of issues. And it does feel sometimes as if John Osborne himself is the character of Jimmy Porter.
Epitaph for George Dillon
Written immediately before the previous play in collaboration with an actor friend of his, Anthony Creighton, Epitaph for George Dillon was first published in 1958. It is a play in three acts that became to be considered as an inferior run-up to the genius of Look Back in Anger.
But, after the Oxford Experimental Theatre adapted it, many critics began to call it far superior to what Look Back portrayed. Personally, I liked this play the most out of all the four in this collection.
It has a quirky set of characters, among them a matriarch, a snob, a bitter man, a lazybones, and George Dillon. The protagonist, surrounded by mostly female characters, has high regards for himself.
I seem to remember some famous comedian saying once that he'd never seen anything funny that wasn't terrible.
The play takes place in the home of the Elliot family who reside just outside of London. The family seems to be populated with caricatures instead of real humans. The matriarch, while not thinking much of her forever complaining husband, comes to think of Dillon as her son, feeling as though her 'died in the war' son has returned.
The full flavour of this play arises gradually and Osborne's writing in this one delighted me. It was comical, the way some of the females hero-worshipped Dillon in spite of him not having achieved something significant in life.
Gifted people are always dramatizing themselves. It provides its own experience, I suppose.
This play also displayed Osborne's fascination with Wilde, which made me wonder too:
Do you think Oscar Wilde could possibly have been a vegetarian?
It has some really good lines which will give you all the feels. And the final act threw me off balance, it was something totally unexpected, especially after the trajectory the play was on!
The World of Paul Slickey
In this one, Osborne says it as it is, without any artifice. He dedicates The World of Paul Slickey to "the liars and self-deceivers; to those who daily deal out treachery; to those who handle their professions as instruments of debasement…"
The play is a musical in two acts, and it was directed by Osborne himself, first performed at the Pavilion Theatre, Bournemouth, on 14 April 1959. It had music by Christopher Whelen, a then established composer of incidental music for theatre (yep, this information came from Wikipedia).
While the play may have ended being a disaster, I quite enjoyed reading it. At first, I didn't get why Osborne mentions in the Introduction how he "became the only living playwright to have been pursued down the London streets by an angry mob" during the first night of the play, but now knowing how the play fared, it seems plausible.
The incidents in the play take place between the office of The Daily Racket, where Slickey works, and Mortlake Hall, a stately home somewhere in England. The play is comical and it did feel less of a musical and more of a farce at times. But sometimes, the lines were funny:
The reason that we've always come through flourishing
Is that English common sense is so astonishingly nourishing.
There are, as usual, a number of themes that Osborne touches upon in this play too, but none of them made an impact. To describe this play will be what is nowadays known as mindless entertainment, where you're supposed to watch a movie in a theatre only after having left your brains at home.
Déjàvu
This is a simple book review and not a critical one. But the critical texts that I read as part of my MA English course made me realise the importance of Look Back in Anger, taken both in the context of the time it was written in and for, and also out of it.
After reading all that, it felt strange coming back to a narrative, set thirty-five years into the future. But it was interesting as well, to see whether there is any change in the protagonists' outlook towards life, and what exactly that change is.
In this particular edition, there's an Author's Note that accompanies each individual play. And in the note for Déjàvu, Osborne says:
The original character of J.P. was widely misunderstood, largely because of the emphasis on the element of 'anger' and the newspaper invention of 'angry young man'. … Wearisome theories about J.P.'s sadism, anti-feminism, even closet homosexuality are still peddled to gullible students by dubious and partisan 'academics'. … J.P. is a comic character. …He is a man of gentle susceptibilities, constantly goaded by a brutal and coercive world.
Thinking of it as Look Back II, the playwright was definitely not happy with his critics. But then again, art is all about interpretations, is it not? And neither is there one story in the world that is loved by everyone. Or at least, not equally loved by everyone. There will always be faults, and it is for the artist to take it with a pinch of salt.
Déjàvu takes us back to a Sunday morning in the Midlands, but thirty-five years later. First published in 1991, Jimmy Porter is back as a grey-haired J.P., with his friend Cliff, and his twenty-year-old daughter Alison. It is on the 15th of February that the play opens.
It is a play in two acts and while the two friends may not be in the same profession as before any longer, it doesn't mean that J.P. has lost his acerbic tongue. He also has a son who is mentioned quite a lot but doesn't make an appearance. Also mentioned is his first wife, Alison.
But his daughter, from his second ex-wife, is quite spirited, unlike her namesake, and gives back to J.P. as good as she gets. Except for the years, nothing much has changed though, only a few new people added to the narrative.
This was the last play written by Osborne, which became another failure in the theatre. Some of the lines of the play did feel like the playwright was taking out a grudge against the critics of Look Back!
In conclusion, all I would say is how I wish all the plays were televised, the original ones or the most famous versions of them so that I could have enjoyed watching them. Also, all four plays reflect Osborne's ironic style of writing, as do they show his hatred for organised religion and his distaste for the rich, cultured, suburban life. And if any part of my review sounded contradictory, it's because even if some of Osborne's plays were a disaster, they're addictive to read. Maybe only to me.
P.S. I borrowed a copy of the book from the Sahitya Akademi Library. And a not so fun fact will be that I wish I could have seen for myself the live performance of Osborne's adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, which debuted in Greenwich Theatre.
Originally posted on:
Shaina's Musings