A Look Back at Osborne Graham Martin
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Universities & Left Review 7 Autumn 1959 A Look Back At Osborne Graham Martin "Why should I care?"—Archie Rice in THE ENTERTAINER ask the wrong question. "Osborne is certainly one of the most brilliant of our young writers, but I can't help feel- THE dates of the first productions of Look Back In ing : has he really got it in him to create a complete work Anger and The Entertainer span almost exactly twelve of dramatic art. Scenes, yes, of original power and effec- months: May, 1956, to April, 1957; without question, a tiveness, but that's not quite enough, don't you see? for watershed year. How does Osborne fit in? Does he fit serious artistic consideration. Sociologically fascinating, in? or is his connection with the politics and culture of of course, an angry Coward so to speak. I hope his next that particular annus mirabilis merely chronological? That play really does the trick. I'd like to be convinced." I.e. is the question I want to explore. What follows is not beta-plus-query, and try next year for your alpha. The meant to be a full account of his plays, his other ventures, second view, more subtle than this, is that of the social- or his influence. On the other hand, any account which realist. The principle here was to butter the man up, not ignores this question is likely to miss the mark of his with a faint but with misleading praise. "Osborne is the importance. truly significant writer of our time. His plays reflect the Krushchev's remark about the Hungarian writers ("I'd significant social and political stresses of the contemporary have had a few of them shot") argues at least a serious view scene." Of course, this looks pretty good, the exact opposite of culture; one which may be thought to reflect upon the of the formalist view. Both of them, in fact, nullify, West's philistine indifference to the threat of the pen. But because neither recognises the uniqueness of an artistic the West has Reviewing, a method so much more flexible insight. The formalist escapes into the ambiguous notions and sensitive in its discriminative power, that there is even of "art" over against "sociology"; and the social-realist a certain melancholy beauty about its fine adjustment to entangles the work in the events on which it comments. particular occasions. In the case of the "dangerous" This is the perfect red herring of criticism. A writer's value Osborne, if you put aside the gossip and the slanging, this lies not in the fact but in the nature, above all in the un- elaborate machine fostered two views. The first can be obstructed freshness with which he responds to "the signifi- described as the formalist position. Its principle was to cant social and political stresses of the contemporary 37 scene." That is where he is subversive, where his art affects formance. Qualify the term "folk-art", and recall that the our awareness of ourselves and of the world we live in. music-hall was originally and in its hey-day a working-class What could be more dangerous? We need the weekly creation, and it is only a short step to the view that the reviewers for our own safety. source and inspiration of The Entertainer was The Uses of The real situation, though, is a good deal more insidious. Literacy. Well, the dates allow it (just), and in case this The formalist, the social-realist, are not lackeys of the pros- fact excites a rash ambition in some learned breast, the titute capitalist press, not literary hatchet-men set to work difficulties had better be put as well. by the Home Office. They represent ways of reacting, habi- First, Billy Rice, Archie's father: he is an attractive tual interpretations, rooted so deeply in much thinking figure, but for this thesis, awkward. While he symbolises about art that they confuse both the expression of our the one-time health of music-hall very successfully, he also feelings, and sometimes the very sources of feeling them- brings back other memories of those good old Edwardian selves. That is why I want to introduce these remarks days: jingoism, xenophobia, "the Empire" (satirised by about Osborne's plays by some comparatively graceless Archie, what's more), a general view of the period that demolition work. The social-realist case for their import- would suit a loyal royal servant, a sort of male Crawfie. ance is influential and persuasive—not, I think, because it "They were graceful, they had mystery and dignity. Why stands upon the meaning of the plays, but because it is the when a woman got out of a cab, she descended. Descended, commonest way of interpreting and misinterpreting etc." Do we ignore these views as the touching sentimen- socially-meaningful work. The social relevance of art lies talities of an old man? Even if we do, there are Archie in a different direction. If it did not, it would be a great and Jean to account for. If Archie is a dreadful warning waste of time. (equals death of community sense, especially in working- The dust-jacket of Osborne's plays prints a quotation class communities), then Jean is the only hope. And in a from Tynan's original review of Look Back In Anger which sense, she is. She stands, at some personal sacrifice, for illustrates one claim for the play's social-realism. The play, the opposite of modern jingoism, i.e., Suez; she admires it reads, "represents post-war youth as it really is, with Frank for his pacifism, despises Mick for the conformity special emphasis on the non-U intelligentsia who live in that makes him a dead hero; also she resents the patronis- bedsitters and divide the Sunday papers into two groups, ing way Archie's successful brother gave Phoebe money; 'posh' and 'wet' ". Possibly so; but of the value of the play and she takes a strong moral line about Archie's proposals this tells us nothing; and it introduces questions which for a new wife. She has all the right responses. Yet Archie unavoidably lead farther and farther from Look Back In and Phoebe are able to accuse her of lacking some essential Anger the more intensely you pursue them. Drama is not human warmth. This is not quite true, of course, but true sociology, even when it squares with, even when it initiates, enough to disqualify her for any strongly affirmative role. sociological findings. Not many people would see the Rices According to the play, Jean's principles will bring no new as representative of post-war non-U family life as it really dispensation to birth. Which leaves Archie, and if he can is, but The Entertainer continues to make its comment on represent something Jean is not, then he must mean more a post-war Britain that includes family life. than "the death of the community sense". Either Osborne is pulling his punches, or the play doesn't have the straight- Another form of the argument finds the value of Look forward allegorical pattern a social-realist might claim. Back In Anger in the fact that Jimmy and Alison's quarrel This second view is worth considering. expresses itself as a struggle between class-attitudes, held to be peculiarly typical of welfare Britain. At first sight The answer to the social-realist is therefore something persuasive, this view at once entails two pretty damaging like this. Osborne uses contemporary social issues, not as criticisms. First, do the attitudes of Alison and her family the themes, but as the material of his plays. The Jimmy fairly represent the contemporary class-reality? These Porters, lower/upper middle-class tensions, the decay of attitudes are certainly the visible part of the iceberg. But folk-art, commitment . Osborne has an ear for these what does the play's conflict of manners suggest of the things as a journalist for news. But in the plays, he makes deeply-consolidated power, of the modern forms of class- them over to his own purpose. At best, his characters dis- privilege? So little, that "superficially-observed" seems a play an intense but extremely narrow reaction to contem- mild comment. Second, a writer who dramatises a class- porary Britain. In that sense, they can be said to be "about" conflict through the tensions of a particular marriage, and it. But the plays are about them, and on this basis, a much approves the solution Jimmy and Alison arrive at, could sounder basis for their importance can be proposed: reasonably be described as frivolous. It is not as if Osborne sounder because it begins and ends with the plays as such, is saying: "Take warning! people like these with only and because it links their comment with social insights personal affiliations and responsibilities, inevitably end in from very different sources. feeble escapism". We are certainly meant to feel that the conclusion, however tenuous, affirms a new beginning, new life of a kind. It isn't easy to reconcile this with the judg- Epitaph for George Dillon ment that Jimmy and Alison escape into an irresponsible There is, so far as I know, no published evidence about fantasy without abandoning either the play, or the view Antony Creighton's share in Epitaph for George Dillon, that its theme is a class-conflict. Which is it to be? but I take it that the heart of the play, George himself, is For The Entertainer, the social-realist case is equally off Osborne's work.