READING MODULE

Subject: TEATRO INGLÉS S. XIX Y XX

Code: 14227 group: B

NPA: CL46706 Mª JOSEFA GÓMEZ GARCÍA

John Osborne, Look back in anger, editorial Faber and Faber, 1971, London.

Dramatis personae:

Jimmy Porter: about 25 years old, tall, thin. He is the most complicated character, he rages about almost everything but he has a complex mixture of sincerity and cheerfully malice, tenderness and cruelty. He is restless, selfish and full of pride. Basically he always looks for trouble when he speaks.

Cliff: he is the antithesis of Jimmy, same age, shorter, dark, easy going person, always looking for peace.

Alison Porter: wife of Jimmy, about 20 years old, reserved, elusive, tall, dark, weak personality.

Helena Charles: same age that Alison, medium height, carefully and expensive dressed, at first self-righteous, strong personality, matriarchal

Colonel Redfern: about 60 years old, large, handsome, considerate. Feels homesick from his past life in India.

Plot:

They basically stay in doors all the time. Passing the Sunday afternoons at home, they argue all the time, Alison is pregnant but doesn’t tell Jimmy. Helena comes and in a way rescues Allison from Jimmy bringing her father, the Colonel to take Alison away. Surprisingly once Alison has gone Helena takes her place and stays with Jimmy. Then after several months Alison comes back to visit them, she has lost her child. By then Helena is tired of Jimmy and regrets having stayed with him. Some how tells Allison that she is the one that should stay because she is her wife and that she has been wrong breaking their marriage. Helena leaves and Jimmy and Alison seem to get back together.

The whole play takes place in a one-bedroom flat in the Midlands. This gives the play an intimate atmosphere and a sense of claustrophobia. The living room seems a messy place, with lots of newspapers thrown everywhere plus the ironing board where Alison and Helena are always busy ironing clothes.

It all happens in a linear time:

Atc I: an early evening sunday, April

Act II: Scene 1: Two weeks latter.

Scene 2: The following evening.

Act III: Scene 1: Several months later

Scene 2: A few minutes later.

The play takes place at the present time of the play writer, 1957.

Most of it happens during the evenings. What gives it a more intimate space.

Literary and stylistic resources:

It is written in colloquial English, some times it uses rough language.

It uses some metaphors, similes, sayings and word games.

Other aspects:

They live under the British weather, what means lots of grey days with showers and bits and peaces of sun.

The social and politics circumstances are the ones that were left after the end of II world war, a time of disillusionment in Britain, with lots of unemployment and in general a difficult time. Apparently that is a period of peace. Britain is not involved in any armed conflict, however if there is any it doesn’t seem to affect to any of the personae.

It doesn’t look as if it was a very expensive production. They just have to recreate a living room. They don’t wear expensive clothes and they don’t need to create any special effects. All the work depends on the actors interpretation. They are the ones who have to make us believe the whole story. Specially the one who has to play Jimmy Porter. Since he has to make us both love and hate him.

Personal opinion about the play:

I quite enjoyed reading the play. I think it’s a masterpiece in the sense that it talks about social conflicts and brings up the differences between the moral codes

well-established and the ones of the characters. I also like the way he presents the winding relationship between Alison and Jimmy with lots of nuances, showing all kinds of contradictions, love and hate. The fact that Alison and Helena has been brought up in a well-off situation whereas Jimmy comes from a lower middle class is taken under consideration all the time. Finally I also like what Alison says to her father the old Colonel when he comes to take her away: “You are hurt because everything is changed. Jimmy is hurt because everything is the same. And neither of you can face it. Something ‘s gone wrong somewhere, hasn’t it?”. Which I think it reflects the discontent of almost everybody at the time.

Osborne broke-down and changed the way to write theatre at the tame. After Jimmy Porter’s creation the critic journalists got a new term called “young angry man” which they applied to the play writers of the time who also wrote about the hard period that went through the British society after II world war