"The trend of the Angry theater"

Before John Osborne, the theater was characterized by being “escapist” which focused on light comedy, more coward, less honest but with the development of John Osborne work, it was born the “Theater of Anger”.

It is significant to contextualize the age in which “The Angry Theater” emerged which belongs to 1950s, a decade that was characterized by the eradication of certain assumptions of the Victorian Age, the decline of religious believes, the materialism of the society and the development of a Post war mind.

That was how the Post war drama was taking place and the arising of “The Angry Young men” movement (taken from the title of Leslie Allen Paul's autobiography) composed by English writers of the 1950's who belong to lower middle class or the working class families whose work was labeled as social protest. They feel and labeled as heroes because of their rebellious and critical attitudes towards the English society.

The authors of this movement were the voice of the young generation who was discontent and tired of being and feeling abused for elites and complaining about their limited possibilities and dissatisfied of what the old generations led the world to. Therefore, their objective was to create a new way of living.

The Angry theater is characterized by use of realistic setting, logical plot and easy to follow, the focus on a working-class hero and a huge criticism of values and even the language changed to be revolutionary and violent.

Look back in Anger written by John Osborne fits the features of this kind of theater, especially because of the main character, Jimmy Porter, an angry young man, who is clever and an educated man from a working class. 

Jimmy Porter is a 25 year-old man with a college education and from lower-middle class, represents the frustrated generation of 1950s, married Alison an upper-middle class womanfrom a Victorian family.

In addition, the similarity between Osborne's life and Jimmy Porter can be reflected in the play because of the class, the opportunities that they have had in life and the post war mind, but also, the consistent and often sarcastic criticism of the British life.

We can realize that those Victorian attitudes were the focus to attack from Jimmy who was always insulting her with strong sentences and showing his rebellious attitude to her when he used to call her “Lady Pusillanimous” only because she did not express angry as he used to do and she seemed to be uninterested, he tells her that she is incapable to think. Because of that, we can think that Jimmy hates his wife because of the way he treats her. He even said to her that he wishes that she could have a child and then it will die just because he wondered a recognizable human and being herself. 

 

But also, Jimmy shows lack of interest when Alison leaves the home to go to her parents' house. He doesn't show being in love with her, he does not even care about it considering Helena replaces Alison in the third act by doing the same she used to do, iron his shirts and being there for his necessities. Therefore, he does not care about who has that role, only having someone who can do that. In that way, it produces a cycle.

Also, the characters of this movement are characterized by a class in conflict of their lives, no fitting in the way they live and also not being accepted by the upper middle classes which is the case of Jimmy considering his wife's family was discontent of the fact that Jimmy and Alison married and they did not accept him.

We can conclude this with Jimmy was angry and frustrated with the past which was the old generation (Burgeous class) because they were always complaining about the difference of classes. He is presented as a hero but I think is presented at the same time as anti-hero since he complains all the time but he does not do anything about it, only showing the fact he is not happy with his life. We can see him through the play only trying to destroy the relationship with his wife and showing the pain of being alive.

But at the same time, he can be seen as hero since you wonder if you are living the life that you really want, or you are just used to it and whether you are doing what you really want to do. He makes the reader to think about themselves and questioning of the real “happiness” and what it means.

Look back in anger is a play which represents the “Angry theater” in 1950s which wanted to transmit a more honest and realistic theater and the discontent from the people. This theater was not afraid of telling how the authors characters felt about the world. It related to working class which makes it to be more realistic. The theme is the social critic against the middle class values.