Osborne Look Back in Anger

Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-30087-7
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 96 Seiten

Anyone who's never watched someone die is suffering from a pretty bad case of virginity. Look Back in Anger premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1956. 'John Osborne didn't contribute to British theatre: he set off a landmine called Look Back in Anger and blew most of it up.' Alan Sillitoe 'A story of youthful insecurity inflamed by lack of opportunity and the terrifying, destabilizing force of love . . . Jimmy Porter could fill an opera house with his bellowing hunger for a bigger, better life and a loyal love to share it with.' New York Times 'Look Back in Anger presents post-war youth as it really is. To have done this at all would be a signal achievement; to have done it in a first play is a minor miracle. All the qualities are there, qualities one had despaired of ever seeing on the stage - the drift towards anarchy, the instinctive leftishness, the automatic rejection of 'official' attitudes, the surrealist sense of humour, the casual promiscuity, the sense of lacking a crusade worth fighting for and, underlying all these, the determination that no one who dies shall go unmourned . . . I doubt if I could love anyone who did not wish to see Look Back in Anger. It is the best young play of its decade.' Kenneth Tynan, Observer 'How bracing, and, yes, even shocking, its white-hot fury remains.' The Times This edition includes an introduction by Michael Billington and an afterword by David Hare.

John Osborne was born in London in 1929. Before becoming a playwright he worked as a journalist, assistant stage manager and repertory theatre actor. Seeing an advertisement for new plays in The Stage in 1956, Osborne submitted Look Back in Anger. Not only was the play produced, but it was to become considered as the turning point in post-war British theatre. Osborne's protagonist, Jimmy Porter, captured the rebelliousness of an entire post-war generation of 'angry young men'. His other plays include The Entertainer (1957), Luther (1961), Inadmissible Evidence (1964), and A Patriot for Me (1966). He also wrote two volumes of autobiography, A Better Class of Person (1981) and Almost a Gentleman (1991) published together as Looking Back: Never Explain, Never Apologise. His last play, Deja Vu (1991), returns to the characters of Look Back in Anger, over thirty years later. Both Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer were adapted for film, and in 1963 Osborne won an Academy Award for his screenplay for Tom Jones. John Osborne died on 24 December 1994.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Osborne, John

Leseproben

Act I

Jimmy Cliff

Alison

Jimmy Why do I do this every Sunday? Even the book reviews seem to be the same as last week’s. Different books – same reviews. Have you finished that one yet?

Cliff Not yet.

Jimmy I’ve just read three whole columns on the English Novel. Half of it’s in French. Do the Sunday papers make you feel ignorant?

Cliff Not ’arf.

Jimmy Well, you are ignorant. You’re just a peasant. () What about you? You’re not a peasant are you?

Alison (absently) What’s that?

Jimmy I said do the papers make you feel you’re not so brilliant after all?

Alison Oh – I haven’t read them yet.

Jimmy I didn’t ask you that. I said –

Cliff Leave the poor girlie alone. She’s busy.

Jimmy Well, she can talk, can’t she? You can talk, can’t you? You can express an opinion. Or does the White Woman’s Burden make it impossible to think?

Alison I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening properly.

Jimmy You bet you weren’t listening. Old Porter talks, and everyone turns over and goes to sleep. And Mrs Porter gets ’em all going with the first yawn.

Cliff Leave her alone, I said.

Jimmy (shouting) All right, dear. Go back to sleep. It was only me talking. You know? Talking? Remember? I’m sorry.

Cliff Stop yelling. I’m trying to read.

Jimmy Why do you bother? You can’t understand a word of it.

Cliff Uh huh.

Jimmy You’re too ignorant.

Cliff Yes, and uneducated. Now shut up, will you?

Jimmy Why don’t you get my wife to explain it to you? She’s educated. (to her) That’s right, isn’t it?

Cliff (kicking out at him from behind his paper) Leave her alone, I said.

Jimmy Do that again, you Welsh ruffian, and I’ll pull your ears off.

Cliff (leaning forward) Listen – I’m trying to better myself. Let me get on with it, you big, horrible man. Give it me. (Puts his hand out for paper.)

Alison Oh, give it to him, Jimmy, for heaven’s sake! I can’t think!

Cliff Yes, come on, give me the paper. She can’t think.

Jimmy Can’t think! (Throws the paper back at him.) She hasn’t had a thought for years! Have you?

Alison No.

Jimmy (picks up a weekly) I’m getting hungry.

Alison Oh no, not already!

Cliff He’s a bloody pig.

Jimmy I’m not a pig. I just like food – that’s all.

Cliff Like it! You’re like a sexual maniac – only with you it’s food. You’ll end up in the News of the World, boyo, you wait. James Porter, aged twenty-five, was bound over last week after pleading guilty to interfering with a small cabbage and two tins of beans on his way home from the Builder’s Arms. The accused said he hadn’t been feeling well for some time, and had been having black-outs. He asked for his good record as an air-raid warden, second class, to be taken into account.

Jimmy (grins) Oh, yes, yes, yes. I like to eat. I’d like to live too. Do you mind?

Cliff Don’t see any use in your eating at all. You never get any fatter.

Jimmy People like me don’t get fat. I’ve tried to tell you before. We just burn everything up. Now shut up while I read. You can make me some more tea.

Cliff Good God, you’ve just had a great potful! I only had one cup.

Jimmy Like hell! Make some more.

Cliff (to Alison) Isn’t that right? Didn’t I only have one cup?

Alison (without looking up) That’s right.

Cliff There you are. And she only had one cup too. I saw her. You guzzled the lot.

Jimmy (reading his weekly) Put the kettle on.

Cliff Put it on yourself. You’ve creased up my paper.

Jimmy I’m the only one who knows how to treat a paper, or anything else, in this house. (Picks up another paper.) Girl here wants to know whether her boy friend will lose all respect for her if she gives him what he asks for. Stupid...