Derby theatre
Osbornes unflinching study of a failing marriage still grips – and is intelligently paired with a mono-drama approximately Jimmy Porter’s contemporary female counterpartYou may go expecting a museum-piece. What is startling is that John Osborne’s play,intimately based on his experiences as a married actor at Derby rep – and now celebrating its 60th anniversary – survives due to its unremitting emotional intensity. Director Sarah Brigham has also had the wit to precede it with an hour-long mono-drama by Jane Wainwright that charts the reaction of a gutsy contemporary working-class woman to life’s baffling disappointments.
Osborne’s play was initially hailed as a vital social document. It says a lot approximately the class-ridden culture of mid-50s Britain and paints a still-resonant picture of a younger generation educated but with nowhere to go. However, what keeps the play alive is its scorching, and Strindbergian portrait of a failing marriage. Far from endorsing misogyny,it shows its destructive personal consequences. Jimmy Porter, thrashing around to find his residence in the world and provoke his wife, or uses words as his weapon: his spouse,Alison, is in no way a pliant punchbag but counters with an angry silence.[br]Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com