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Content
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL OBJECTIVE AND
SUBJECTIVE TENETS IN THE WORKS OF JOHN OSBORNE:
A DESCRIPTIVE EXISTENTIAL APPROACH
by
Eugene Greeley Prater
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Communicat ion— Drama)
August 1976
Copyright Eugene Greeley Prater 1976
UMI Number: DP22917
All rights reserved
INFORMATION TO ALL USERS
The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted.
In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript
and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed,
a note will indicate the deletion.
Dissertation Publishing
UMI DP22917
Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author.
Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC.
All rights reserved. This work is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code
ProQuest LLC.
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
Y ? LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90007
V
This dissertation, written by
Eugene Greeley Prater
under the direction of hX$.... Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by The Graduate
School, in partial fulfillm ent of requirements of
the degree of
D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y
Dean
T in t* irp4-n, m i?
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Chairman
D
' 77
P9I2.
Xu
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF T A B L E S ......................................... iv
DEDICATION ............................................. v
Chapter
I . THE PROBLEM..................................... 1
Introduction .................................. 1
Statement of the Problem .................... 6
Formulation of Existential Criteria .... 10
Significance of the S t u d y .................. 10
Feasibility of the Study.................... 11
Limitations of the Study.................... 13
Definition of T e r m s ......................... 14
Preview of the Remaining Chapters.... ....... 30
II. A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE..................... 33
III. DRAMATIC EXISTENTIALISM: DESIGN AND
METHODOLOGY.................................. 83
The Existentialist Dramatic Genre ..... 83
The Existentialists and Dramatic Theory . . 116
The Existential Criteria for Dramatic
Analysis........................ 165
IV. OSBORNE’S DRAMATIC CHARACTERIZATIONS (THE
EARLY PLAYS) ........... 190
V. OSBORNE’S DRAMATIC CHARACTERIZATIONS (THE
LATER PLAYS) ........................... 226
VI. EXISTENTIAL INCIDENT, SCENE DESIGN, AND
STAGING IN OSBORNE'S PLAYS .................. 258
VII. OSBORNE'S USE OF LANGUAGE..................... 298
i i
Chapter
VIII. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS ........... 332
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................... 345
i i i
LIST OF TABLES
1. Comparative Aesthetics of the Theatre ........... 173
i v
FOR GABRIELE
SUN BY DAY,
STAR BY NIGHT
v
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM
Introduction
John James Osborne (1929- ) is described by many
critics as "the cause of it all." The inference is that
his works and ideas close one period of theatrical history
as well as open another. When Osborne's Look Back in Anger
was produced in 1956, shock waves in the English-speaking
theatre were felt around the world. Of course, John
Osborne is by no means the "cause," but he seems to be the
best representative of a growing departure from older
insipid plays. His dramas retain the standard three acts,
psychological characterizations, and realistic staging
devices of Arthur Pinero, Noel Coward, and James Barrie.
But unlike these favorites of George V and Edward VIII's
audiences, Osborne writes plays that seek to transcend
exterior action to interior suggestion. Christopher Fry,
T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood seemed
to sense the need of an English drama for contemporary
audiences that explored the subjective through poetic verse
1
and verbal image— an endeavor of poetry in a prosaic age
that largely proved a failure in dramaturgy and ineffective
at the box office. Apparently Osborne is intuitively aware
of the need for new dramatic forms as much as he is objec
tively aware of the best changes in British society in the
middle of the twentieth century.
John Osborne, therefore, can best be understood as
a "transitional" dramatist. That is, he seems to bridge
the gap between an older era that delighted in the brusque
wit or charm suggested in the drawing room comedy of Noel
Coward, and the newer era of Harold Pinter that focused
attention on the "angst" or anxiety of contemporary English
men. As an actor and professional playwright Osborne
savored the stale fare of the Sardou-Scribe tradition of
the well-made play and found it tasteless. As a practical
man of the theatre Osborne looked for a new dramatic recipe
that might add new flavor to the theatre-goer's diet.
Holding no ideology as a Bertolt Brecht, Osborne could not
stomach either propaganda Marxist plays or Edwardian dramas
that celebrated the glories of Great Britain.'*' No doubt
Osborne found the French piece de resistance of heady
^Martin Esslin, "Brecht and English Theatre," TDK
11 (Winter 1966): 65.
2
philosophical dramatic vintage too gross for his palate.
Osborne decided to keep the conventional realistic
format of play construction because it had been "tried and
proven” in the English theatre since the time of Shakes
peare. Osborne seems to take for granted the modern
Aristotelian formula for staging with appropriate depiction
of rooms seen through a proscenium, including flats, real
props and furniture, focus lighting, and semblance of
factual surface reality in terms of costumes, makeup, and
mechanical blocking of action for the players. Osborne
denies any influence from Brecht in regard to staging, and
there seems no reason to doubt him. Indeed, numerous
critics have tried to make this connection, but Osborne’s
bent to the practical and workable in the English theatre
is the best evidence against any aesthetic speculation or
2
experimentation on his part. In short, Osborne is a con
ventional realistic English dramatist in the long British
empirical theatrical tradition. It is a tradition that
focuses on characterization and audience enjoyment far more
2
John Osborne, "On the Thesis Business and the
Seekers After the Bare Approximate," The London Times
Saturday Review, October 14, 1967, p. 1. See Patrick Owen
Conlon, "Social Commentary in the Plays of Osborne, Pinter,
and Wesker" (Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University,
1968), pp. 72-74.
than the continent's inclination for the thesis play and
the mental pleasure of pondering dramatic incarnations of
philosophic problems.
Like many of his fellow Britons, Osborne had been
brought up on the whimsical humor and optimistic sentiment
of James Barrie's Dear Brutus and The Admirable Crichton,
but by 1950 the cynical disillusionment of postwar England
dispelled any older faith and prompted a call for a more
appropriate drama of the times. This need John Osborne
grasped and he filled the void with plays that spoke to
the postwar generation. Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit was
for a carefree tea and crumpet society that still held
faith in the Church of England, the monarchy, and the
colonial empire. But Osborne spoke to the souls of youths
who would swallow none of these things or ideas. Arthur
Pinero copied Sardou's contrivances in The Second
Mrs. Tanqueray, but Pinero's portraits of agreeable fashion
are hardly the mood of contemporary Englishmen. Yet,
Osborne took the English society's temperature, felt its
pulse, and proceeded to write and stage plays that broke
out of Pinero's artificial molds. Osborne writes for and
of the signs of the time.
4
It is little wonder that T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail
Party and The Elder Statesman could no more impart Christian
grace through poetry than John Lennon could believe in God.
In contrast, Osborne correctly judged contemporary cosmol
ogy as a matter of bowel trouble, as seen in Luther. While
Christopher Isherwood and W. H. Auden's Ascent of F6 tried
to restore the sense of the heroic and spiritual, Osborne
appeared to be more apt in pure prosaic cynicism. As
Christopher Fry bolted to the Elizabethan era with a taste
for the traditional, Osborne kept his feet on the ground in
the realistic perspective. Claiming no particular contri
bution to realistic techniques or devices, Osborne became
the recipient of a heritage that arose in the nineteenth
century. That is, William Macready, Madame Vestris, and
Henry Irving had perfected pictorial realism for the
English theatre long before John Osborne became an actor-
playwright.
As a practical intuitive artist Osborne fitted his
talent to conventions that existed in the English theatre,
but he also felt the thrust of the inherent social, politi
cal, and psychological problems of modern England. To
reduce these central issues of contemporary England to
dramatic form and do it better than most of the other
5
living English dramatists became the principal contribution
of John Osborne. The manner of his capture of the mood of
his generation is the key to Osborne's box office success.
The social and political essence of his plays has been the
subject of numerous articles and books on Osborne. Psycho
logical studies of his various characters are especially
plentiful. But there is one approach to Osborne that has
received limited treatment. This dissertation seeks to
fill that void. The present writer seeks to analyze the
total body of Osborne's dramas according to existential
principles of dramatic criticism.
Statement of the Problem
The general purpose in this study has been (1) to
formulate useable existential principles of dramatic
criticism, and (2) to apply these principles in analysis to
the plays of John Osborne. In other words, what were the
existential aspects of Osborne's treatment of characteriza
tion, plot or story line, language, and staging? The
existential aspects are divided into four constituent parts
or questions:
1. In Osborne's various plays, how does he create
characters that are truly existential? What aspects of
6
these characters seem most human and illustrate authentic
ity of personality as opposed to artificial inauthenticity
of personality? The central tenet of all existentialists
is the absolute freedom of the will for choice in acts of
living. Central to Osborne's characters, as a basic con
tention to this dissertation, is their dilemma of choices—
whether it be a failure to decide or a choice that reek
havoc on themselves. Also, "conflict” takes on added mean
ing when applied to an existential dramatist since the
conventional criteria for "drama" moves alternately from
between characters to a larger emphasis on internal conflict
of characters against themselves. It is this aspect that
makes "conflict" existential. Further, "protagonist" and
"antagonist" might be more applicable to the same character
in an existential play.
2. How does Osborne construct plots, scenes,
incidents in a story line that most effectively heighten
the internal subjective life of modern man while playing
down dramatic material of external surface activity?
Although Osborne retains part of the trappings of an older
nineteenth-century surface factual realism, his play con
struction, nevertheless, reflects willy-nilly the basic
anxieties of modern human existence in Western civilization.
7
But if this be so, how may we discover those existential
elements amidst the plot? In turn this dissertation seeks
to explore the various realistic component parts such as
"good drama," "empathy," "climax," "conflict,” "protago
nist," "antagonist," "exposition," "coincidence," "truth,"
"farce," "melodrama," "comedy," "tragedy" as each concept
can be reinterpreted existentially in Osborne's plays. For
example, to what extent is Osborne's use of monologue a
form of "exposition" in the realistic sense, or is it
dramatization of the willful choices that characters make
at the root of their being? Thus, to what extent does
Osborne treat plot, incident, scene not as a literal
dramatic event, but as a metaphor of subjective feelings?
3. How does Osborne utilize language to dramatize
existential aspects of man's life? Existential philosophy
postulates as central issues to the human being faith
versus/or despair; courage versus/or dread and anxiety;
meaning versus/or nihilism. But rather than remain incom
prehensible abstractions, the existential dramatist
incarnates these issues into living characters, acting in
concrete and recognizable means of communication. Indeed,
language and silence become especially important communica
tion means with the audience. This dissertation seeks to
8
discover to what extent Osborne utilizes language to reveal
existential acts that can be termed nonessential to man’s
existence. Certainly, in preliminary investigation it is
as if Osborne were verbalizing men's most cherished secrets
— matters of life and death that could not be fully exposed
in the older surface factual realism. Poetry in the
theatre proved incommunicable in an industrial age of prose
--witness Eliot and Fry. But a theatre of poetry a la
Cocteau, Ionesco, Beckett is another matter. With the
absurdists the play serves as a vehicle to convey a central
metaphor of human existence in despair, apathy, or isola
tion. One cannot help but observe a similar metaphor in
Osborne's several plays as he appropriates to his dramatic
construction the existential dialectic of mythos versus/or
explanation, Mythos will be defined in detail subsequently
along with other terms.
4. How do Osborne's scripts as well as "staging"
of his plays exemplify the human being as subject person
rather than as object or thing? That is to say, what are
Osborne's peculiar devices for lighting, scene design,
blocking, stage grouping, costuming, and stage method
(whether thrust, proscenium arch, apron) that enhance his
dramatic portrayal of existential truths? For example,
9
excessive crassness in scene design could be construed as
suggestive of existential dehumanization, especially if
used as background for the alienated figure Archie Rice in ■
Osborne's The Entertainer.
Formulation of Existential Criteria
Formulation of the criteria for existential dramatic
criticism is subsequently enumerated in Chapter III on
methodology. Drawing from the pure philosophic Existen
tialism such notions as the aforementioned faith versus/or
doubt, this dissertation seeks to (1) enumerate and define
basic meanings, (2) redefine standard dramatic critical
criteria, i.e., "conflict" or "protagonist," in the light
of the various existential notions, (3) draw together the
principal "consensus" thought with no particular emphasis
on Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers,
Albert Camus, S0ren Kierkegaard, Miguel de Unamuno, or
Nicholas Berdyaev.
Significance of the Study
This study is significant for several reasons:
1. There is an apparent need for new principles of
dramatic criticism to deal more aptly with the emergent
absurd and existential drama of the late twentieth
10
century.
2. To grasp existential thought as well as its dramatic
application means to more readily appreciate artistic
currents in the Western civilization.
3. This study seeks to bring to light those peculiar and
original perceptions of John Osborne that may make him
a lasting influence.
4. To subject Osborne's plays to detailed existential
analysis is a radical departure from the usual criti
cism, whether social, political, or psychological.
5. This work seeks to be more comprehensive in its treat
ment of Osborne than previous published works, as well
as more thorough than other dissertations on Osborne.
Feasibility of the Study
This study is feasible for several reasons:
1. A majority of John Osborne's articles as published in
various journals in the United States and England from
1955 to 1974 are available in Doheny Library at the
University of Southern California (USC) and the
Research Library at the University of California at Los
Angeles.(UCLA).
2. All of Osborne's plays are equally available at USC
and UCLA.
3. A majority of the various reviews and scholarly articles
as published in various journals in the United States
and England from 1955 to 1976 are available at USC and
UCLA. Thus, there is no barrier to the basic materials
for investigation.
4. No travel for investigation is necessary since the
basic sources are freely accessible.
5. Other sources such as letters, unpublished manuscripts,
diaries, are irrelevant since this study's focus is
artistic, not historical.
6. Additional scholarly articles on Osborne that are
unavailable at USC and UCLA libraries have been obtained
by interlibrary loan from the Library of Congress, Yale
University, Munich University and numerous other insti
tutions .
7. Use of tape recorders, data processing machines are
unnecessary as the research is confined to deductive
examination of the plays of John Osborne, and correla
tion of them with the cited criteria in Chapter III.
8. Photo duplication processes were used to gather a
complete bibliography of more than 350 items pertaining
to Osborne's life and plays.
12
9. Several microfilms of scholarly articles and disserta
tions were used where manuscripts were unavailable.
Limitations of the Study
This study was limited in the following ways:
1. Although complete materials on Osborne are assembled,
they serve only as orientation to Osborne in Chapter II,
Review of the Literature.
2. The study is strictly confined to formulation of exis
tential principles of dramatic criticism with seminal
thought from the several outstanding existentialists.
3. The study is further confined to an analysis of
Osborne's total body of plays by following the afore
mentioned existential principles of dramatic criticism.
4. Aristotelian and Brechtian dramatic criticism, such as
might be related in social, political, psychological,
socio-pathological, or theological contexts is excluded
in the analysis of Osborne's dramas, except as a basis
of departure (e.g., Chapter II).
5. Data pertinent to Osborne's life such as might be
obtained from personal interviews or from manuscripts,
letters, and diaries are irrelevant within the limits
of this work.
13
6. Osborne's various essays and poems on politics, commen
tary on English life, religion, and other institutions
are excluded from consideration in the dissertation
proper, but are cited in the bibliography as well as
discussed in the Review of the Literature.
Definition of Terms
For the purpose of this study operational defini
tions include:
Dramatic criticism. Dramatic criticism is not only
the art, skill, and profession of making discriminating
judgments and evaluations of dramatic texts, but, hereafter,
includes the audience taste, scene design, lighting, music,
players, playwrights, as well as the rationale or criteria
whence the judgments are made.
Aristotelian theatre. Aristotelian theatre is
hereafter the modern boulevard theatre of hypnotic illusion
with its emphasis upon usage of Aristotle's dramatic
principles of catharsis, identification of audience with
actors, identification of actors with characterizations,
provocation of feelings of pity and fear.
14
Absurdist theatre. Absurdist theatre is hereafter
the theatre associated with existential despair of Sartre,
Camus, Ionesco, Beckett with nonlinear plots and dramatized
metaphors. Illogical story lines, grotesque and fantastic
incidents, and nonsensical dialogue characterize this genre.
Brechtian theatre. Brechtian theatre is hereafter
the European dramatic tradition associated with Brecht,
Weiss, Frisch, Diirrenmatt, Kipphardt, and Handke. Its
emphasis is on ironic portrayal and factual documentation
rather than illusion. It is more a didactic and instruc
tive theatre than one of pure entertainment.
Existentialism. Existentialism is "a body of
ethical thought, current in the 19th and 20th centuries,
centering about the uniqueness and isolation of individual
experience in a universe indifferent or even hostile to
man, regarding human existence as unexplainable, and empha
sizing man's freedom of choice and responsibility for the
3
consequences of his acts." Modern existentialism is not a
philosophical system per se because there is no rational
structure of knowledge. Moreover, existentialism does not
3
The American Heritage Dictionary (Boston: Hough
ton Mifflin Co., 1969), p. 460.
15
attempt or wish to provide such a structure because as a
methodology it arose in direct opposition to classical
idealism, rationalism, and empiricism; existentialism means
"to exist" as a human being in the face of modern urban-
industrial depersonalization and the estrangement of the
essential persona from Being. Modern existentialists
follow a basic perspective of atheism, often as not coupled
to a humanistic psychology. However, there are some
Christian and Buddhist thinkers who utilize existential
questioning in their forumulations, such as Gabriel Marcel,
Miguel de Unamuno, Nicholas Berdyaev, and Paul Tillich.
S0ren Kierkegaard stands as a Christian existentially ques
tioning the crumbling institution of the Church. On the
other hand, Jean-Paul Sartre's form of existential thought
calls for enclosure of the individual self into a deep
searching and questioning of the psyche. Albert Camus
portrays characters confronting "meaninglessness" in exis
tence. Rudolf Bultmann, the most talked about theologian
of Europe and former colleague of Heidegger at Marburg,
applies existentialism to interpretation of the New Testa
ment .
Existential. Existential means "of, pertaining
to, or dealing with existence: 'anxiety is existential
16
in . . . that it belongs to existence as such and not to an
abnormal state of mind,’ (Paul Tillich)." It means "based
- • i n 4
on experience; empirical."
Angst. Angst is a German noun meaning "fear" and
is used by existential thinkers such as S0ren Kierkegaard
5
to suggest "a feeling of anxiety." It is the "Fear and
Trembling" of Kierkegaard that drives one to authenticity
6
of action and feeling before the threat of death.
Physis. Physis is a concept used by the existential
thinkers that stems from the Greek and is customarily
translated as "nature" and philosophically distorted by
Latin into "to be born" in natura. Heidegger restores its
original Greek meaning as "self-blossoming emergence and
power to endure"— for example, the rolling of the sea of
growth of plants. It does not mean that physis is synony
mous with phenomena. Indeed, the existentialist believes
that the trouble with modern man is that he opposes the
4
American Heritage Dictionary, p. 460.
^Ibid., p. 51.
6
H. Richard Niebuhr, "S0ren Kierkegaard," in
Christianity and the Existentialists (New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1956), p. 40.
17
psychic, the animated, the living, in favor of the
"physical."
Dasein. Dasein is ordinarily translated "being" or
"human existence," but for many of the existential thinkers
it means man's conscious, historical existence in the
world, which is always projected into a possibility.
Aletheia. Aletheia is a Greek word meaning truth.
The existentialists point to the strength of the unique and
essential relationship between "physis" and "aletheia.”
They see this relation as now broken by an emphasis on
"rational truth" rather than "personality truth." Aletheia
means the power that manifests itself stands in unconceal
ment; that is, the modern world has recast aletheia as
correctness and transformed physis and logos into idea and
statement.
Metaphysics. Metaphysics for the existential
thinkers discards its older connotation and means "beyond
something” in the light of physis and aletheia. Heidegger
denies Nietzsche’s assertion that "being" is vapor and a
fallacy. Heidegger feels that Nietzsche's error is his
failure to see that modern man has fallen out of Being in
pursuit of other "beings.”
18
Logos. Logos for the modern man means speech or
discourse, but the existential thinkers point to the origi
nal unity between being and thinking, between physis and
logos. They define logos as collection or to gather, that
is, to put one thing with another. They see permanence and
endurance as characteristic of the logos and everything
that happens, that comes into being, stands in accordance
with this permanent togetherness. They see the logos, as
known to Heraclitus, as becoming distorted by the Christian
Fathers, and logic a creation of school teachers.
Language. Language is seen by many of the existen
tial thinkers as the "house of being." That is, the poet
brings Being to house. They see thinking as poetizing and
think of all art as basically originative poetizing.
Sein und Zeit. Sein und Zeit is the principal work
of Heidegger. He wrote this study after holding a chair
of philosophy at the University of Marburg, and after his
succession to the chair of philosophy at the University of
Freiburg. It means "Being and Time” and is dedicated to
his teacher and mentor, Edmund Husserl. In Sein und Zeit
the question of the meaning of being is raised and devel
oped as a question for the first time in the history of
19
philosophy.
Ontology. Ontology is the traditional branch of
philosophy that was dealt with by Plato and by Kant in an
academic classification and ordering. Ontology signifies
the endeavor to make being manifest. Heidegger seeks to
define being as dasein or in terms of moment-to-moment
existence. Sartre defines ontology in a more humanistic
connotation of the "self" being realized.
Authentic. Authentic means for many of the existen
tial thinkers that dasein or human existence as possibility
implies awareness of being. To be authentic is to appear
in unconcealment. It means the human being in his totality
of being-to-death. That is, dread (not fear) or Angst
brings to human life its proper freedom, and transforms the
alien absurdities of stubborn fact into an essential
possibility of being itself. Authentic does not have the
modern connotation of being "genuine." Authentic means
that the human life be unsophisticated and drop pretension.
To live in existential authenticity means a moment-to-
moment choice for participation in life now, rather than a
retreat into "images" of inauthenticity. For example,
authenticity would be participation sports rather than
20
spectator sports.
Inauthentic. Inauthentic means to render other
people into objects rather than subjects. Inauthentic
means the enslavement of dasein (human existence) by the
pseudo-security of concrete objects, by the demon of
technique. Man is inauthentic when he acts according to
habit, custom, convention without existential choice, when
he acts as a thrown or fallen man by self-glorification and
boasting and pathological self-affirmation. Man is
inauthentic when through idle talk and gossip he attempts
to escape from ultimate anxiety towards death. Man is
inauthentic when he forgets his finitude and denies the
personal "tomorrow” of death, or when (as in Western
civilization) he lives in future expectation and forgets
i
his present moment-to-moment existence. Prattle and
curiosity are seen as inauthentic.
Forfeiture. Forfeiture is a fundamental attribute
of a human being and means "ontologically” that we forget
"Being” for particular beings or objects. It means the
scattering of the essential forward drive through attention
to the distracting and disturbing cares of every day and of
the things and people that surround us every day. Thus,
21
inevitably and continuously the forward driving "I" is
sacrificed to the persistent and pressing ’’they.” In other
words, it is the onotological tyranny of conformity.
Time. Time is defined in terms of human existence.
It is not just time, but "my” time for it is the span of my
life. Time in this sense is the ontological ground of
human existence, and its basic tense is the future. This
existential time moves not from past through present to
future, but out of the future through the past to the
present. Reaching out to the future, it turns back to
assimilate the past which has made the present. Further,
existential time is finite for "my” time will be finished
in death. Also, awareness of a beginning and end of time
for human existence gives a dimension of "true responsibil
ity of freedom.”
Historical. Historical is understood by the exis
tential thinkers in the sense that the human being is
primarily historical. That is, dasein (man in existence)
has chosen us for birth and death. "History is becoming,
or change, as opposed to being, or substance. According to
Kierkegaard, from history we learn nothing. History can
22
7
give only probability, never certainty.” In other words,
man's existence is not directed to the past, but man must
8
"face the future and make personal decisions.”
Being and non-being. Being and non-being are terms
to describe human existence in the sense of courage, faith
or self-confidence, maturity or wholeness, vitality and joy
of life at the present moment. Non-being suggests an exis
tence of living death in terms of despair, doubt, anxiety,
lack of confidence.
World. World for the existentialists means the
given society for one's personal existence. They see a
"darkening of the world" in the face of the flight of the
gods, the destruction of the earth, the standardization of
man, the preeminence of the mediocre. Further, it means
the emasculation of the spirit, or the disintegration,
wasting away, repression, and misinterpretation of the
spirit.
Eschatology. Eschatology is an historic Christian
term denoting the end in time. For the structure of modern
7
The New Dictionary of Existentialism, ed. St.
Elmo Nauman, Jr. (New York: Philosophical Library), p. 91.
^Ibid., p. 93.
23
Protestantism and capitalism, there is the sense of an
expectation for the future in terms of dreams realized or
riches gained. Also, there is the notion of impending
judgment with impetus for work and time as production.
Sorge. Sorge is a German noun meaning care. Exis
tentialists see dasein (human existence) as having a common
essential structure of sorge or care. The existentialists
attempt to overcome the spatial problem of man in relation
to things. That is, man commonly knows things in terms of
realism or idealism. The existentialist seeks to reorient
man in relation to things in terms of care, intention,
meaning. It is precisely because dasein (human existence)
cares that he is different from the tree or rock. Caring
signals a freedom that permits the existent to disentangle
himself from a passive, total involvement in apathy.
Nothingness. Nothingness is a term often used by
the existentialists to express the feeling of impending
nonexistence in the face of death. Dread, the dread of our
own nonbeing, is the bridge from forfeiture to authenticity,
the support of conscience and resolve. What makes "me"
human and gives form and design to "my" truly, inwardly
finite life is not the colorless abstract consciousness of
24
Locke or Leibnitz, but the dramatic, nauseating awareness
of "my" impending nonexistence. Sartre's principal work is
I'fetre et le neant or Being and Nothingness. Sartre's first
published work was the novel, La Nausee (Nausea), which
suggests man's reaction of despair in experiencing the
absurd world.
Belonging. Belonging is a concept used by the
existentialist thinkers to suggest that man and being hold
a belonging-together. They see man as stubbornly failing
to acknowledge this "belonging-together" as long as man
looks on everything as "orderly arrangement." That is, the
existentialists say that man's alienation from being is due
in part to technology because it is a man-made plan which
eventually forces the human being into a decision as to
whether he wishes to become slave of his plan or retain
mastership over it. Care is the means of the reunion of
Being and Man.
Schein. Schein is a German word meaning "to shine,"
but for Heidegger it becomes important in understanding
basic art conceptions. Heidegger calls for abandonment of
older words like "idealism" and "realism" because of their
misleading character and seeks to trace the original Greek
25
words in a union of appearance and reality based on the era
of Parmenides: that is, Schein as self-sufficient emer
gence is phainesthai or appearance. Schein appears with
Being. Schein has several modes: as appearing, as
radiance and glow, as mere appearance or semblance.
Techne. Techne for the existentialists denotes
neither art nor technology but a knowledge, the ability to
plan and organize freely, to master institutions. Techne
is creating, building, or in the sense of a deliberate
producing. Thus, for the Greeks the craft of art is techne,
but art in the true sense is what most immediately brings
being to stand, stabilizes it in something present such as
the work of art itself. Techne brings about the phenomenon
in which the emerging power, physis, comes to shine
(scheinen).
Eskaton. Eskaton is a concept of the existential
ists to suggest the sense for which eschatology is rede
fined: that is, there is the impingement of Being on human
existence in the now, moment-to-moment critical burning
decision for or against the self, or affirmation of the
authentic or the inauthentic.
26
Edmund Husserl. Edmund Husserl is a central figure
in the origin and study of phenomenology. He was the
teacher of Heidegger at the University of Freiburg. He was
an influence on Sartre. Rather than a philosophical system,
he formulated a methodology that resembled psychology,
although he sought to separate it from that connotation.
His transcendental-phenomenological reduction discovered
the "transcendental-ego" or "pure consciousness"; he dis
tinguished sharply between the world as known to science
and the world in which we live, the Lebenswelt. Scientific
knowledge, he now believed, can be understood only if we
first understand the Lebenswelt. The study of that lived
world and of our experience of it becomes the first task of
phenomenology.
Phenomenology. Phenomenology is more of a method
ology than a philosophical system; it sought to ask ques
tions without a priori presuppositions about a separate
realm of being, and the reflection on and description of
the ways in which our communal experience comes to be.
Phenomenology probes the self, and deals with the world in
a different way than the empirical sciences. Its focus is
on the "reflective," and reflects not on matters of factual
27
knowledge but on the necessary conditions for coherence and
adequacy of experience. Phenomenology is neither realistic
nor idealistic, but goes beyond these categories to solve
the western Platonic dichotomy of subject versus object.
Demonic or demonism. Demonic or demonism refers to
the emasculation of the spirit through misinterpretation.
The crux of the matter is the reinterpretation of the
spirit as intelligence, or mere cleverness in examining
things for the possibility of changing them to make new
things. The process of engineering is an example. Further,
the spirit is falsified into intelligence and falls to the
level of a tool in the service of others, i.e. Capitalism,
Marxism, Positivism. "Conscious cultivation and planning"
of art of poetry or statesmanship is the demonic perversion
of spirit. "Art for art's sake" or "utilitarian intelli
gence" is the demonic perversion of spirit. This can be
seen at all turns in a commercial culture where advertise
ments, souvenir trinkets, and repetition in motel architec
ture structure have a tendency to deny spirit.
Spirit. Spirit is seen by the existential thinkers
as a fundamental, knowing resolve toward the essence of
being. All authenticity and inventiveness of the
28
understanding are grounded in the spirit.
Weltanschauung. Weltanschauung is a German noun
meaning world view or philosophy of life. Heidegger
denounces such a concept. He sees the notion as spurious
and a matter of willful construction. Further, Heidegger
sees the fundamental event of "modern times" as the con
quest of the world as image. That is, the image is a
man-made structure which represents things. The fallacy of
the Weltanschauung is that it serves to evaluate, distin
guish, classify and organize— and so blocks the true dasein
of human existence.
Aesthetics. Aesthetics is seen by the existential
ists as a discipline of knowledge that destroys beauty.
That is, its focus on logic in discussion of beauty leads
one away from the being of beauty. Aesthetics tends to
find the "beautiful" as pleasant, but the existentialists
would see this as an error. Art for them is disclosure or
the unfolding of being, even if it is ugly.
Beauty. Beauty for the existentialist has at its
roots the conflict of opposites, i.e. life versus death.
The being of existence is the supreme radiance, the
29
greatest beauty, that which is most permanent. The exis
tentialists look to the Greeks and especially Heraclitus
for cues on beauty. The Greeks saw on (being in existence)
and kalon (abstraction) as meaning the same thing. Modern
man has tended to move to abstractions alone. Being is
left out.
Preview of the Remaining Chapters
The chapters which follow use as their format a
method of description and analysis:
Chapter II, Review of the Literature, deals with
previous studies on Osborne such as books and scholarly
articles. Also, the numerous reviews of his plays are
considered in turn from the perspectives of social history,
political thought, psychological and sociopathic, and
theological. Also, it treats previous Ph.D. studies of
Osborne, and considers their strengths and weaknesses. A
justification for this dissertation to supersede the afore
mentioned works is offered.
Chapter III, The Existentialists: Design and
Methodology, consists of three sections:
1. The Existentialist Dramatic Genre draws perspective on
existentialism as a dramatic genre in relation to the
30
history of dramatic genres, especially as it relates to
Osborne.
2. The Existentialists and Dramatic Theory seeks to pin
point in the various Existentialist thinkers, i.e.
Marcel, Heidegger, Unamuno, Sartre, Kierkegaard, and
Jaspers, their central tenets and relate them to a
dramatic context. Osborne is the referent point.
3. The Existential Criteria for Dramatic Analysis formu
lates a set of criteria which represents a synthesis of
existential thought categories, i.e. "authentic" or
"sorge," and traditional Aristotelian formula such as
"denouement" and "conflict."
Chapter IV, Osborne's Dramatic Characterizations—
the Early Plays, seeks to apply the existential criteria in
a systematic manner to the six early published plays of
Osborne. The principal characters of each play are to be
considered from the stance of their existential context and
in light of the criteria cited in Chapter III. Other tools
for analysis along with their vocabulary and nomenclature,
such as sociology, psychology, theology, are excluded.
Chapter V, Osborne's Dramatic Characterizations—
the Later Plays, carries the existential method further to
the later seventeen plays, including television scripts and
31
film scenarios.
Chapter VI, Existential Incident, Scene Design,
Staging in Osborne's Plays, shows the relation between the
script and its existential incarnation on the stage as an
intuitive perception of Osborne. The various reviews of
Osborne's plays are drawn upon to gain understanding of the
"life" of the dramas, while the existential criteria are
correlated with the staging techniques to determine their
validity as dramatic devices.
Chapter VII, Osborne's Use of Language, attempts to
analyze the language of the several plays to see how
Osborne utilizes words and thought as an existential mode.
The criteria are correlated with the language to gain
insight to Osborne's artistry.
Chapter VIII, Summary, Conclusions, and Implica
tions, is a final summation of all the data, and conclusions
based strictly on those data. Finally, implications are
drawn from those conclusions as to the precise nature of
the existential elements in the plays of John Osborne.
32
CHAPTER II
A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
John Osborne shook the theatrical world in 1956
with his play, Look Back in Anger. The reaction was caused
not so much because of innovative change in aesthetic form,
but because he gave new thrust to an older realism that had
largely become socially unresponsive to a younger genera
tion of Britons. Osborne smashed many illusions and put on
stage for all English to see the national impotence, the
disintegrating empire, the stupidity of a tradition-bound
Crown, and pretended democratic justice in the face of a
rigid class society that kept millions on the dole, as well
as the irony of beating hell out of Hitler and ending up in
economics minister Ludwig Erhart's poorhouse via Wirt-
schaftwunder. Like Archie in Osborne's The Entertainer,
England had become seedy, tattered, and threadbare. Like
Luther, Osborne stands leading the peasants against the
oppression of the middle class and the establishment. Like
most men in the age of the common man, George Dillon sur
renders to mediocrity. Like an England that grovels to
33
"moronic public taste, "■*" Paul Slickey "empties the slop
buckets of modern love . . . crawling and cringing before
2
the almighty tyranny of the bosom." If, on the other hand,
Bill Maitland felt a sense of alienation and identity
crisis in Inadmissible Evidence, the jolly ole Isle showed
signs of excessive sexual torpor with Uncle Sam and Robert
Schuman. Osborne alternately slaps monarchy in The Blood
of the Bambergs and the press in Under Plain Cover, while
forcing the sexual deviant in A Patriot for Me "to choose
3
between being a patriot to society or patriot to oneself."
If Jimmy Porter became the symbol of a generation of angry
young men striking back at the dehumanization implicit in
Western commercial capitalism, Pamela in Time Present is
his female counterpart heaping scorn on the banality of
life. Yet if Prime Minister Heath found union on the con
tinent, the three couples of The Hotel in Amsterdam found
togetherness as a cure for estrangement. Surely if
Leonido in A Bond Honoured could pursue regressive
■^John Osborne, The World of Paul Slickey (London:
Faber and Faber, 1959), p. 15.
2Ibid., p. 75.
3
Alan Carter, John Osborne (Edinburgh: Oliver and
Boyd, 1969), p. 99.
34
amorality by setting out "to compensate for his own insuf
ficiency by merging the fantasies of adolescence into real-
life relationships," then John Bull could afford another
4
three hundred years of self-righteous pomposity. Having
realized, therefore, the thesis of some plays of Osborne,
we are better prepared to cope with relating them to a
static England.
In short, Osborne focused in his work the frustra
tions, fears, mentality, and dynamics of life that sought
expression in angry protest of an older status quo England.
Osborne seemed to embrace a multi-faceted perception of the
postwar nation that has alternately been treated in some
fashion by various critics, be it conventional literary,
psychological, sociological, sociopolitical, socio-
pathological, theological, existential, romantic-allegori
cal, or believe it or not, Brechtian. It is probably
fitting to begin this review with critics of the conven
tional realistic or literary perspective.
Simon Trussler in The Plays of John Osborne gives a
full-length book treatment of Osborne in the realistic vein.
Following a fairly conventional approach of realistic
4
Simon Trussler, The Plays of John Osborne (London:
Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 1969), p. 152.
35
criticism in an era that has largely repudiated both
realistic playwrights and critics, Trussler tosses out such
routine terms as "character," "story," and "plot." He hits
Osborne for "overstructuring," "overplotting," and seeks to
give the playwright lessons in craftsmanship, especially
5
in dovetailing details or expediting exposition. Occasion
ally throwing a curve ball by a hint of "existential over
lay,"6 Trussler fans out by suggesting that Osborne's use
7
of episodic style is detrimental. Trussler's calling of
Osborne's early plays as holding personal complexities in
contrast to the later plays of "cerebral orientation" and
g
"social complexity" rings true. Using alternately a
collage of social science touchstones, Trussler makes judg
ments with terms such as "neurotic," "normal," "middle
class," "rationalised," "in-group," "traumatic," and
"social." On occasion Trussler reverts to the vocabulary
of the literary critic with "archetype," and "solipsistic."
Yet Trussler's assertion that Osborne's plays
"appeal to the emotions rather than the intellect” is
probably an out-and-out Aristotelian barb that this
°Ibid., p. 218. 6Ibid., p. 214.
?Ibid., p. 216. 8Ibid., p. 219.
36
dissertation seeks to bring into focus. Trussler proceeds
to treat each play in chronology of production, refutes any
autobiographical inference to Jimmy Porter or other charac
ters, discounts most other criticism, and takes pride in
criticism of theatre rather than mere text. Trussler feels
he has combined the crafts of the "literary” and the
"dramatic" into the dramaturgical critic, which calls to
mind the sociologist who insisted that he had discovered
the term for the no man’s land between the rural and urban,
namely, "rurban.”10 Trussler is wanting, especially when
he dismissed Luther as a scatological and psychological
drama.^
If Trussler is disappointing, there is one realis
tic study that is probing. The second and more penetrating
study is Alan Carter's literary work, John Osborne. Less
mechanical and without the amateurish chronological treat
ment of Trussler, Carter seeks to repudiate those critics
who would follow a purely social or political line of
interpretation. Indeed, Carter points to a larger "uni-
12
versal condition." Rejecting the "angry young man"
9 10
Ibid., p. 13. Ibid., pp. 14-15.
11Ibid., p. 105.
12
Carter, John Osborne, p. 1.
37
cliches, Carter calls for an objective approach to Osborne's
rejects a psychological approach to Osborne, as well as
identification of Osborne with Beckett's vision of pessi
mism. Carter insists that Osborne's plays are powerful in
production because he lays bare the organic problems of
society in a positive sense of possible solution, as opposed
14
to the quietism of Beckett.
Carter agrees with Trussler on the central theme of
"isolation," as well as the crucial problem of "communica-
15
tion." Carter divides Osborne's plays into two groups:
"public voice" versus "private voice," and thereby perhaps
reveals his own perspective of reason and orderliness;
indeed, he makes a point of comparing the rational struc
ture of Brecht to Osborne, as well as attributing to
16
Osborne a "longing for the established order of the past."
Use of words like "commitment" and "isolation" smack of the
existential, yet appear to be only currency of dramatic
criticism for Carter rather than an all-out analysis
utilizing existential thought.
"non-rational and illogical" treatment.
13
In turn Carter
13
Ibid., pp. 2-3.
14
Ibid., pp. 4-5 .
15
Ibid., p . 12.
16
Ibid., p. 63 .
38
What can be said of Carter and his perspective?
Altogether Carter's study is far more reliable than Trussler
in perception, insight, and evaluation of Osborne. Carter
suggests the influence of Brecht's episodic style on
17
Osborne; of course, without the alienation effect. Carter
sees Brecht and Osborne as both believing in a rational
communicative man, and both committed to social and politi
cal change. Yet it must be obvious that Osborne's faith in
emotion makes for some kind of contradiction in Carter.
He does not attempt to reconcile wide gaps of differences
18
between Brecht and Osborne. For example, the "solitary
individual" thesis of either Carter or Osborne seems
strangely out of joint in the modern world, smacks of an
older romanticism, and appears irreconcilable with Brecht's
aesthetics of the needs of the group. Carter concludes his
study with conventional literary dramatic criticism in an
enumeration of characterization of heroes, analysis of
language and rhetoric, and realistic correlations of
various realistic dramatists. Carter calls Osborne a
humanist, but perhaps it is the other way around. It may
be that Carter, the critic, is the literary humanist
17 18
Ibid., pp. 77, 179. Ibid., pp. 165, 179.
39
appraising the realistic romantic by use of rational
Brechtian vocabulary. Yet Carter does not have the final
word in this perspective.
Ronald Hayman1s recent study, entitled John Osborne,
treats fourteen of the playwright’s works in a skillful
forthright manner, but also in traditional realistic terms.
19
Hayman complains of Osborne's lack of craftsmanship.
Hayman feels that Osborne's staging is derived from
20
Shakespeare and Brecht. The present writer finds Hayman's
style of writing clear and direct, but lacking in depth.
His treatment of A Subject of Scandal and Concern and A
21
Bond Honoured is especially shallow. Hayman, in fact,
does not explain the plays other than with perfunctory
remarks.
A fourth conventional literary book study of
Osborne is by an Italian scholar, Gian Luigi Falabrino,
from Florence. It is a handsome edition with numerous
photographs of various productions outside of England,
presumably in Italy and the many playhouses of Central
19
Ronald Hayman, John Osborne (New York: Frederick
Ungar Publishing Co., 1972), p. 141.
20 21
Ibid., p. 5. Ibid., pp. 52-57, 107-12.
40
Europe. So much for lengthy treatments.
In regard to some critical articles holding the
conventional realistic stance, an outstanding example is by
Mary McCarthy in the Partisan Review. She reviews Osborne's
Epitaph for George Dillon with the same detached moralism
as she treated The Group, as well as the tactic of Lincoln
Steffenish exposure of corruption as seen in her Viet Nam
22
or Hanoi. McCarthy sees George Dillon, an actor brought
home by Mrs. Elliot as a substitute for her dead son, and
subsequently as artist enveloped into the middle-class life,
23
as proof of the vulgarity of modern life. One suspects
that McCarthy would have much in common with Osborne in his
war on Philistinism, especially in her recent epithet of
24
judgment on the USA: "this miserable country." Yet
another literary appraisal of Osborne, but less bitter, is
in World Theatre by Charles Landstone as he writes on Look
Back in Anger as the focal point for the end of the Shavian
theatre of ideas, and movement toward "scornfully refusing
to plead a cause, because [Osborne's] was a generation
22
"Verdict on My Lai," Time, July 31, 1972, p. E3.
23
Mary McCarthy, "Odd Man In," Partisan Review 26
(Winter 1959): 104.
24
"Verdict on My Lai," p. E3.
41
without a cause." Landstone deals with Osborne in the
larger context of dramatic movements. On the other hand,
John Gassner in a more narrow focus in the Educational
Theatre Journal turns to Osborne’s supposed lack of thematic
development in treatment of Luther. Gassner makes a con
ventional internal structural analysis that seldom generates
26
excitement above a whisper. Yet, if Gassner remains cool,
John Weightman's review of Osborne's more recent play, West
of Suez, scolds us with such words as "snarl," "messy," and
"phoney." Weightman's literary treatment comes close to
suggesting that Osborne has recreated an Admirable Crichton
a la J. M. Barrie in reverse, i.e. the blacks shoot the
Governor-General. But the major insight of Weightman's
article in Encounter is to attempt to hand the "nostalgic"
label on Osborne as a realistic playwright yearning for the
romantic Edwardian days when everything was in its place:
English were English, servants were servants, the Americans
stayed colonial slobs, the Germans stayed sob's, and the
25
Charles Landstone, "From John Osborne to Shelagh
Delaney," World Theatre 8 (Autumn 1959): 206.
26
John Gassner, "Broadway in Review," Educational
Theatre Journal 15 (December 1963): 360-61.
42
27
union jack and empire were over all. With caustic flair
Weightman analyzes the structure of the play in conven
tional fashion. Still more blank in his reviews is John
McCarten in The New Yorker for he is satisfied to snub
Inadmissible Evidence as a "bore,1 1 and call Luther "theat-
28
rics" and proceed with no attempt at analysis whatsoever.
Such routine criticism in the public's magazines seems to
be the rule.
The thin ineptness of a large portion of the con
ventional articles and reviews on Osborne is appalling.
For example, John Raymond in The New Statesman sounds as if
he were an echo of Prime Minister Walpole in the eighteenth
century when he says that "Jimmy Porter carries no message
for his generation. Good theatre is not made out of
29
propaganda." Also, writing in the same journal, T. C.
Worsley complains that Osborne "has not yet taught himself
27
John Weightman, "Post-Imperial Blues," Encounter
37 (November 1971): 56-58.
28
John McCarten, "A Long, Long Wail-A-Winding,"
The New Yorker, December 11, 1965, p. 142; John McCarten
"Contumacious Theologian,” The New Yorker, October 5, 1963,
p. 133.
29
John Raymond, "A Look Back at Mr. Osborne," The
New Statesman, January 19, 1957, pp. 66-67.
43
30
the most elementary of the playwright's techniques."
Worsley then proceeds to praise Lawrence Olivier for saving
the play, Osborne’s The Entertainer. All of which tends to
illustrate the power of "the we11-made-piay" and the impor
tance of the actor as prime factors of an earlier English
theatre perspective, as opposed to the realization on the
part of more acute critics that Osborne represented a
watershed and turning point toward a playwright-director's
theatre. Even more perplexing is a critic like Christopher
Hollis in The Spectator who, for the life of him, can not
understand what the fuss is all about. He says, "I wish
I could understand who the angry young men are, how many of
31
them there are and what they are angry about." Still
another writer in The Spectator, Henry Tube, balances the
tediousness of it all with a good deal of wit, verve, and
pungent satire. Indeed, in reviewing Osborne's adaptation
of Lope de Vega's La fianza satisfecha into A Bond Honoured
makes much of the fact that Kenneth Tynan played Mephis-
topheles. He depicts Osborne's play as "Osborne's dreadful
30
T. C. Worsley, "Cut and Come Again," The New
Statesman, April 20, 1957, p. 512.
31
Christopher Hollis, "Keeping Up with the Riches,"
The Spectator, October 18, 1957, p. 504.
44
unhappiness . . . like blocks of lifeless machinery,
32
dragged in to create an impression of spurious 'punch.'"
Tube seems to relish clobbering the BBC producer of
Osborne's radio drama, Martin Esslin, and says:
. . . how long, 0 Lord, how long must we put up with
the villainous standard of BBC sound drama productions,
the total absence of imagination in their preparation,
the wooden acting, the insensitivity to the internal
rhythms of a scene, the flat, dogged slog from act to
act.33
In regard to Osborne's comment in the Daily Tele
graph that the theatre is an act of love with the Host
raised before the eyes of the audience, Tube sardonically
replies:
Do that, Mr. Osborne. If you hate mediocrity and
triviality, for heaven's sake, snap out of them. Do
not allow yourself to be hoisted squealing toward some
one else's Heaven, but haul us away to yours.3^
A further word of evaluation of the conventional realistic
critics shall be in order subsequently.
So much for the standard approaches. Let us turn
now to a popular and controversial perspective that we
might label the psychological. Probably more critics have
embraced this perspective than any other, although its
32
Henry Tube, "The Tiny World of John Osborne," The
Spectator, January 6, 1967, p. 15.
33t, .. 34 ,
Ibid. Ibid.
45
usefulness seems to be limited, to analysis of characteriza
tion. It is tied essentially to nineteenth-century
individualistic romantic moorings, and seems bound to pre
vent us from seeing the wider sociological-political-
existential context.
Of the psychological critics with extensive treat
ment of Osborne, the most promising with the least deliver
ance is George Wellwarth. His chapter on Osborne in The
Theater of Protest and Paradox flatly states that the
playwright is "a writer of psychological analysis with
35
vaguely Strindbergian roots." Wellwarth calls Jimmy
Porter "psychotic," "perverse," and a "Dostoyevskian hero
36
who tortures himself by torturing others." Further,
Wellwarth sees Luther as nothing more than overwrought
anal-fixation, Blood of the Bambergs as sexual exhibition-
37
ism, and A Patriot for Me as flaunting of perversion.
Continuing the Freudian stance is Walter Kerr of
The New York Times, formerly with the Now defunct New York
Herald Tribune. In a review of Osborne's Inadmissible
Evidence entitled "The Finger of Guilt” Kerr berates modern
35
George Wellwarth, The Theater of Protest and
Paradox (New York: University Press, 1971), p. 266.
36Ibid., pp. 256-57. 3?Ibid., pp. 265-68.
46
man for attempting to deny guilt and interprets the "hero"
of the play as guilty, as well as being his own self-
38
prosecutor. Yet perhaps Emilie Griffin's article on
Luther in The National Review is too excessive as she
judges Osborne as a barbaric Freudian scrawling mustaches
39
on the sacred face of the Reformer. Other critics have
continued this stance. For example, Susan Sontag calls
40
Luther "the great neurotic." Still another reviewer of
an American television production of Luther, Robert Lewis
Shayon of Saturday Review, calls the play an identity
41
crisis. Also, Vera Denty writes on "The Psychology of
Martin Luther" in The Catholic World in terms of Luther's
father-figure crisis, and sees Osborne as triggering the
42
Reformation via personal problems. But one may wonder
at the dichotomy between individualistic personal causations
38
Walter Kerr, Thirty Plays Hath November (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1968), pp. 46-49.
39
Emilie Griffin's "Osborne's Luther Scaled Up,”
The National Review, November 19, 1963, p. 446.
40
Susan Sontag, "Going to Theater," Partisan
Review 3. 1 . (Winter 1964): 96.
41
Robert Lewis Shayon, "Luther--Whose Identity
Crisis," Saturday Review, February 17, 1968, p. 42.
42
Vera D. Denty, "The Psychology of Martin Luther,"
The Catholic World 194 (November 1961): 99-105.
47
that Miss Denty attributes to Luther versus the purported
Brechtian group analysis— also attributed to the same play.
One can not help but feel that there is much more to the
play than that gained by psychoanalytic exegesis. For
instance, Osborne probably saw himself as a comparable
reformer, trying to make his fellow Britons more aware of
life and shake them from their complacency. Yet a new
breed of Freudians seems to have arisen.
Contending that Freudianism is now a way of life
rather than a mere choice among the young, Wayland Young
writes in the Kenyon Review that Jimmy Porter's statement
that "she's eaten me alive, this woman" is the proof of
43
it. Continuing the same line of argument in the same
journal is Gerald Weales, who interprets Jimmy Porter's
44
anger as whining self-pity.
In treating the same play, Look Back in Anger, but
with a slight shift of psychological method is Charles
Hussey of the New York Times Magazine. He sees Osborne as
creating anti-heroes who are maladjusted misfits who
43
Wayland Young, "London Letter," Kenyon Review 18
(Autumn 1956): 647.
44
Gerald Weales, "Two Theatre Letters," Kenyon
Review 20 (Spring 1958): 300.
48
basically can not cope. Following in this same "malady
of the personality" mold is Warren Smith in The Christian
Century. He calls Inadmissible Evidence "sick" and diag
noses Bill Maitland's illness as "self-worship." Certainly,
in one sense it is not surprising that a Protestant journal
would jettison its theological pose in exchange for the
psychological because this seems to be the popular answer
to uncertainty of conviction.
Yet it is probably true that an individualistic
salvation in religion is no less valid than the individual
istic characterizations of a realistic drama of Osborne.
To diagnose a character as sick because he does not conform
to a critic’s older set of rules of conformity is an insult
to our intelligence. The fault seems to lie at the heart
of the Protestant paradox: how can Protestantism promote
individualism for four hundred years and yet simultaneously
46
seek ego-deflation of Bill Maitland? In contrast, the
Catholic journal, Commonweal, advances the notion that
Inadmissible Evidence is a play of psychological realism
45
Charles Hussey, "Osborne Looks Forward in Anger,"
New York Times Magazine, October 25, 1964, p. 71.
46
Warren Smith, "The New Plays in London— I," The
Christian Century, September 1, 1965, p. 1066.
49
because Osborne "realized . . . that the factual situation
is usually secondary to the verbal situation in his world,
so he has turned the whole play into a verbal situation, a
47
talk-nightmare as opposed to an image-nightmare." How
ever, there are some critics even with a bolder look.
Taking an extreme psychological position among the
academic critics is Roy Huss of Modern Drama as he calls
Osborne's plays sado-masochistic. He interprets Jimmy
Porter as suffering from an Oedipal neurosis with a misogyny
48
of severe mental self-laceration. Equally harsh is M. D.
Faber's psychoanalysis of Jimmy Porter as an "orally fixed
neurotic who projects his own psychological shortcomings
49
onto the external environment." Following in a similar
vein is Gabriel Gersh's article in the same journal which
labels Osborne "obsessed" and as having a "strongly
developed need for enemies.” Gersh intimates that Paul
Slickey is a sociopsychopathic personality, and that
Osborne's use of the homosexual theme is somehow related to
47
Wilfrid Sheed, "The Stage," Commonweal,
December 24, 1965, p. 375.
48
Roy Huss, "John Osborne's Backward Half-Way
Look," Modern Drama 6 (May 1963): 20-25.
49
M. D. Faber, "The Character of Jimmy Porter,"
Modern Drama 8 (May 1970): 67-77.
50
the author's own masochism. Gersh, then in a positive
fashion, links Osborne to advocacy for need of an older
50
sense of community and human contact.
More interesting in its intricate comparisons is
Barbara Deming's "John Osborne's War Against the Philis
tines" in the Hudson Review. She correlates Jimmy Porter
to Samuel Beckett's Endgame noting the "lost person" aspect
51
with emphasis of a case study of irrational passion.
Miss Deming emphasizes the terror of meaninglessness which
almost moves her analysis into the existential realm.
Finally, there is one article on a sociopsychopathic note.
The surprisingly disappointing article in the
sociopsychopathic realm comes from none other than Arthur
Schlesinger, Jr., the famed Harvard historian and presiden
tial assistant to John F. Kennedy. Schlesinger writes in
The New Republic on Jimmy Porter with logical validity as
he moves in turn from a political-sociological explanation
of Jimmy's behavior, to the psychological "hatred of women,"
but finally concludes that Jimmy is nothing more than a
50
Gabriel Gersh, "The Theatre of John Osborne,"
Modern Drama 10 (September 1967): 137-43.
51
Barbara Deming, "John Osborne's War Against the
Philistines," The Hudson Review 11 (Autumn 1958): 414, 417.
51
homosexual sociopsychopath. Schlesinger's historical
insights seem to have been left on a shore as he launched
into the sea of dramatic criticism. It is only fitting for
us to now examine some social and political explanations
among the critics of Osborne.
Leaving behind psychological perspectives, we should
look at the central social interpreter of Osborne, namely,
Kenneth Tynan. Known more recently for his part authorship
of O' Calcutta, Tynan, more than any other one man, is
responsible for catapulting Osborne to fame and for calling
the world's attention to the playwright. It is to Tynan's
credit that he alone instantly sensed the significance of
Osborne and his plays. This is especially true when we
realize that most critics in England were consistently
anti-Osborne. Osborne himself claimed to have received the
worst reviews since Judas Iscariot. Tynan's earliest
review set the tone for Osborne's success as he said, "I
doubt if I could love anyone who did not wish to see Look
53
Back in Anger. It is the best young play of the decade."
52
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., "Look Back in Amaze
ment," The New Republic, December 23, 1957, pp. 19-21.
53
Kenneth Tynan, Curtains (New York: Atheneum,
1961), p. 134.
52
Subsequently Osborne became a sort of protege of Tynan.
Further, Tynan capsulizes the jest of The Enter
tainer in his social perspective: "Osborne has had the big
and brilliant notion of putting the whole of contemporary
54
England on to one and the same stage." Tynan notes that
The Entertainer is a social diagnosis of the English sick
ness with a vaudevillian family as the microcosm. Moreover,
Tynan contends that the essence of Osborne and his angry
young friends is a commitment to reality and social truth,
that they were chiefly from the state-educated lower middle
class and were social rebels in regard to sex war, class
war, and war itself. Tynan feels that Osborne's success is
due to writing the right play at the right time. Indeed,
the under thirty English recognized their situation in
Jimmy Porter, namely, the social dilemma of men with
academic degrees with no other place than a candy stall.
Further, the presence of the bisexual as larger and
larger a social phenomenon as well as thematic for Osborne
is scored by Tynan as indicative of Osborne's sensitivity
to the changes in social structure, and the forces of pres
sure. Also, Tynan gives Osborne credit for being
54
Ibid., p. 173.
53
instrumental in breathing new life into the British theatre.
55
Up until 1956 most English saw theatre as a dusty museum.
Tynan also ties Osborne's initial success to the political
crisis of Egyptian President Nasser's nationalization of
the British held Suez Canal. For the angry young people of
Britain, the Suez Canal represented the bungling of the
country gentry snobs and the old imperialists. "Those who
were anti-Suez also tended to be supporters of Look Back in
56
Anger." Tynan reminds us of Osborne's going against many
of the classical rules of drama by proving that one can
"make a fortune by telling an audience the very things
57
about itself that it wants least to hear." But that was
only the beginning of the social critics of Osborne.
Other critics followed Tynan's leadership in like
fashion. Harold Clurman writes in The Nation that Bill
Maitland in Inadmissible Evidence does not embody the con
dition of man, only the English. Thus, Clurman takes a
58
narrow social view. On the other hand, John Russell
55
Kenneth Tynan, "The Men of Anger," Holiday 23
(April 1958): 92-93, 185.
56 57
Ibid., p. 182. Ibid., p. 184.
58
Harold Clurman, "Inadmissible Evidence," The
Nation, December 20, 1965, pp. 508-509.
54
Taylor presents a brilliant analysis of the same play in
Encore. He sees Maitland as a middle-aged man who dis
covers that the world is conspiring to ignore him and that
he is at the end of his tether, "searching hopelessly for a
way out, a magic key to the door into the secret chamber of
59
youth, innocence, and spontaneity." Russell Taylor con
tends that Osborne's real subject in all his plays is the
60
failure to connect, the failure of communication. More
over, John Russell Brown in Modern British Dramatists feels
that Osborne's social realism mirrors a world of "young,
uneasily married and loving— and its thwarted idealistic
61
pretensions." Brown pinpoints the basic social charac
teristics of Osborne as consisting of a determined experi
ment and innovation rather than any single theatrical means,
a liking for the sensational, a choice of "popular, up-to-
date, topical, vulgar, very obvious subjects— a kind of
"pop" art, as well as a firm base in the theatre as a
59
John Russell Taylor, "Plays— Inadmissible Evi
dence," Encore 2 (November-December 1964): 45.
^Ibid . , p . 44 .
61
"Introduction," in Modern British Dramatists,
ed. J. R. Brown (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall,
Inc., 1968), p. 9.
55
former actor."
Charles Marowitz's "The Ascension of John Osborne"
tags the dramatist as a social protester who is "committed,"
but committed not to anything in particular except his art.
Marowitz sees Osborne as the closest thing England has to
Normal Mailer— writing out of a social and humanist
63
conviction. Similarly, Robert Brustein' parallels the
American social dramas of the thirties and its passionate
sense of engagement to what Brustein calls the class
64
struggle inherent in Osborne's Luther. Further, Brustein
treats the play on George Dillon as the social constriction
65
of an artist through the stifling bourgeois life.
Stephen Spender shares Brustein's awareness of the social
injustice thesis in Osborne, but sharpens it a bit. Spender
says: "[Osborne] is denouncing the hypocrisy of welfare
state uncharitablesness— the idea that today the poor are
^Ibid. , pp . 2-3 .
63
Charles Marowitz, "The Ascension of John Osborne,"
in Modern British Dramatists, ed. John Russell Brown
(Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968),
pp. 117, 120-21.
64
Robert Brustein, "The Backward Birds," The New
Republic, October 19, 1963, p. 30.
65
Robert Brustein, "Theatre Chronicle," Hudson
Review 12 (Spring 1959): 94-101.
56
looked after by social security from cradle to grave."
So much for the social or political perspectives; a few
critics border on what we might term as social psychology.
A very interesting social psychology article which
departs somewhat from the previously discussed studies, and
is slightly existential, comes from David H. Karsfelt and
is entitled, "The Social Theme in Osborne's Plays.”
Karsfelt finds evidence in the plays of the lack of feeling,
no communication of thought or emotion, and considerable
isolation and despair. Karsfelt sees anger as the "way
out" of despair, and the central problem as that of a
failure of feeling. In this sense Karsfelt says that
Osborne wishes to break down barriers via his dramas and
teach people to feel.®7
Also, Paul Findlater in the Twentieth Century con
tinues this social psychological perspective by treating
Paul Slickey as basically the loss of meaning, as seen in
the organized triviality of the central characters.
Findlater sees the treatment of the death of Lord Mortlake
66
Stephen Spender, "London Letter: Anglo-Saxon
Attitudes," The Partisan Review 25 (Winter 1958): 113.
CL 7
David H. Karsfelt, "The Social Theme in Osborne's
Plays," Modern Drama 14 (May 1970): 78-82.
57
by Osborne as indicative of Osborne's own moralistic bent.
The shams of a dying social order with multiple affairs and
sex changes as symbols of the decadence in society are the
order of the day.^
Finally, Patricia Spacks' "Confrontation and Escape
in Two Social Dramas" seeks to compare on a social psychol
ogy level Look Back in Anger to Ibsen’s A Doll's House.
Such a comparison presents more problems than Miss Spacks
admits, but we are made aware of the problem of alienation
pervading both. Solitude and yearning for other people by
Jimmy Porter is the special insight of Miss Spacks. The
need for community and the individual's relation to reality
become paramount in the play, says Spacks. Escape is
69
apparently also one of the psychological problems.
Closely allied with the probers of human nature are the
multiple theologians. Let us consider some of the theolog
ical critics.
Richard A. Duprey and Charles L. Palms write in The
Catholic World on Osborne’s Luther. These Catholic critics
Richard Findlater, "The Case of Paul Slickey,"
Twentieth Century 167 (January 1960): 29-38.
69
Patricia Meyer Spacks, "Confrontation and Escape
in Two Social Dramas," Modern Drama 2 (May 1968): 61-72.
58
see Osborne's play as often historically inaccurate, but
find much to praise for they find that "Osborne does give
more insight into the complexity of Luther's personality
than rebellion against authority. We see Luther as a
dynamic man with a mobility of outlook and genuine energy,
70
both spiritual and physical." They credit Osborne for
his ability to show the "double fault of the times— the
historically verifiable stubbornness and blindness of both
71
sides." Also, one critic, Hortense Calisher in The
Reporter, calls Osborne's Inadmissible Evidence a meta
physical morality play. Calisher sees Osborne trying to
72
write Everyman with one character: "Vanity." Indeed,
Irving Wardle in the London Times goes so far as to call
Osborne a popular preacher because of his tendency to put
73
the public's feelings into words.
Tom F. Driver, Professor of Theology and Drama at
Union Theological Seminary in New York City, reviews Look
70
Richard A. Duprey and Charles L. Palms, "Play of
the Month: Luther," The Catholic World 198 (November 1963):
135 .
71Ibid., p. 136.
72
Hortense Calisher, "Will We Get There by Candle
light?" The Reporter, November 4, 1965, p. 40.
73
Irving Wardle, "The World of John Osborne,"
London Times, July 6, 1968, p. 18.
59
Back in Anger with greater moralistic concern over Jimmy
shuttling from one woman to another than with the overall
meaning and significance of the play for English society.
Driver dismisses the play as Ma story of subhuman, or at
least subcivilized, reactions to a social and political
situation of no future. It is the story of a deliberate
regression into a screeching, primitive yet passionless
74
existence." It is a case again of a theologian failing
to see the need for social theology in terms of the preva
lent ideas of the times. Driver only considers the play in
the narrow "individualist" sense. Driver, as well as other
theological reviewers, ironically do not do as their
profession suggests— use theology in criticism. Certainly
Reinhold Niebuhr did understand art in its context of
culture with the presuppositions of classical Christianity,
but many theologians are often isolated from intellectual
history and the social science disciplines, except, as
mentioned previously, where they jettison theology for
psychology. On the other hand, there are some critics that
have faint echoes of the mystical, but not necessarily to
be associated as religious.
74
Tom F. Driver, "Poor Squirrels," The Christian
Century, October 23, 1957, p. 1263.
60
Perhaps it is presumptuous to consider the
romantic-allegorical as a separate topic as there seems to
be an implicit tie. Yet Ronald Bryden writes on "Every-
osborne" in the New Statesman, and, again Hortense Calisher
calls Bill Maitland in Inadmissible Evidence a modern
Everyman. Invoking the allegorical, Bryden proceeds to
utilize Aristotle in his defense of romantic feeling:
Tragedy--is a mechanism with a quantitative measure of
success. It succeeds by the number of fears and
anxieties it can gather up from its audience, load on
its protagonist and, by a balance of identification and
alienation between them, discharge in his destruction.
In this time, in this place, Osborne has gathered our
English terrors in Maitland's image, and purged them
pitiably and terribly.^5
Although Weightman's article follows the romantic-realistic
stance, it remained for a fuller explanation to be made.
Indeed, the notion of Osborne nurturing a romantic
throwback to the Edwardian and Georgian eras has found
extensive treatment by Allardyce Nicoll, the English
dramatic historian. Nicoll draws a parallel between
Osborne's Epitaph for George Dillon and the 1910 play by
R. S. Warren Bell, Company for George. It is the familiar
tactic of drawing a contrast of the old versus the new.
75
Ronald Bryden, "Everyosborne," New Statesman,
September 18, 1964, p. 410.
61
In Osborne's case he seems -to regret, as previously men-
76
tioned, the values of the modern era. Another writer,
Richard Hayes, writing in The Commonweal, stretches the
romantic notion a bit far by suggesting that Jimmy Porter
77
has fantasies of class envy rather than class hatred.
But this may tell more about Hayes than Osborne.
Still, such a standard source of information as the
London Times relates that Jimmy Porter unknowingly fathered
the permissive society which distressed the Edwardian
Osborne. In response he says: "It offends me, the per
missiveness, because it is so dispassionate and I'm a
romantic. The low emotional level of it all is so weirdly
cold and distrustful and dead. And you know, even in my
78
great old age, I'm all for passion." Certainly, such
passion as Osborne proclaims and exhibits in his plays
suggests a vital life force in his existence as a human
being, suggesting a further critical perspective.
76
Allardyce Nicoll, "Somewhat in a New Dimension,"
in Contemporary Theatre (New York: St. Martin's Press,
1962), pp. 78, 83.
77
Richard Hayes, "The Last Romantic," The Common
weal , November 22, 1957, p. 208.
78
"Osborne the Romantic," London Times, August 28,
1970, p. 6.
62
To be sure, a vital John Osborne leaves himself
open for an alternative critical appraisal of existential
vintage. For example, Richard Gilman in The Commonweal
calls Luther an "existential hero,” and Osborne "an
existentialist-minded playwright." Gilman states that
Osborne admires Sartre and has built his plays "around the
existentialist preoccupation with a search for identity and
a repudiation of the given, unexamined inherited situation
which life all too easily, and society all too ferociously,
keep us in so that we are prevented from becoming what we
79
might truly be." Gilman sees Luther as Osborne's embodi
ment of the existential hero forging values in action, and
representing "a plunge back into existence, a recovery, or
at least an attempt at recovery, of a personal sense and a
80
private conscience." Yet if only a few critics used the
existential as methodology of criticism of Osborne, quite
a large number invoked Bertolt Brecht in study of The
Entertainer, Luther, and other Osborne plays.
As case in point Tom Milne illustrates the Brechtian
construction of Osborne by showing how Luther has episodic
79
Richard Gilman, "The Stage: Osborne's Luther,"
The Commonweal, October 18, 1963, p. 103.
Ibid.
63
scenes and asserts that each scene illuminates, comments,
8 X
emphasizes what has passed and what is to come. Also,
Louis Bonnerot, writing in a French journal Etudes Anglaises
believes that Osborne’s The Entertainer is Brechtian in its
essential construction because of the loose music hall
episodes that eliminate the restrictions imposed by the
82
naturalistic theatre. Those sharing similar views on
Osborne's Brechtian leanings include A. Alvarez, John Simon,
8 3
and Ossia Trilling. Charles Marowitz has pinpointed
specific techniques in Luther that reflect Brechtian influ
ence, he feels. He states:
Like Brecht, he [Osborne] has strung together a series
of short, stark tableaux. Like Brecht, he has backed
them with evocative hangings— flags, banners, tapes
tries, crucifixes. Like Brecht, he employs a narrator
to fill in background and make comment. Like Brecht,
he has balanced the man and the social structure so
that every movement of one produces a gesture from the
other. But unlike Brecht, he has not endowed his play
with that added intellectual dimension around which the
81
Tom Milne, "Luther and the Devils," New Left
Review, no. 12 (November-December 1961), p. 57.
82
Louis Bonnerot, "John Osborne," Etudes Anglaises,
10 (October-December 1957): 384.
8 3
Ossia Trilling, "The New English Realism,” Tulane
Drama Review 7 (Winter 1962): 192; A. Alvarez, "The Anti-
Establishment Drama," The Partisan Review 26 (Fall 1959):
602; John Simon, "Theatre Chronicle," The Hudson Review
16 (Winter 1963-64): 584.
64
drama may cohere. He has not, in this fact dramatiza
tion of history, furnished an underlying concept with
which to interpret events.
Let us consider two specialized studies on Osborne,
which partially treat his plays in a supposed existential
method.
Robert Barry Moore's dissertation, "The Published
Stage Plays of John Osborne, 1956-1968: A Critical Explor
ation," is an unnecessary and inadequate study. It is
unnecessary because most of his dramatic criticism on John
Osborne has appeared previously in numerous published books
and articles. It is inadequate because Moore's purported
examination of Osborne's protagonists as manifestations of
existential crisis reflects an elementary grasp of existen
tial thought and a failure to relate them to the larger
context of Western civilization. As an overview, Moore's
appendices are repetitious; the bibliography is spotty; the
"problem" of the dissertation is not clearly defined, nor
executed in research; Moore's pretended existential method
ology proves to be more in the vein of the psychological;
Moore provides no "operational" definitions; finally,
although the study is well organized, documented, and
84
Charles Marowitz, "The Ascension of John Osborne,"
Tulane Drama Review 7 (Winter 1962): 176.
65
written, its significance is questionable.
Attached to Moore's dissertation on Osborne are two
appendices that list the casts, as well as production
credits, for the British and American opening productions
respectively.^^ Although at first glance the lists appear
informative and an enhancement to Moore's work, he was
apparently unaware in 1971 at the completion of his study
that the lists had already been published in Ronald Hayman's
book on Osborne in 1968. Also, it seems odd that Moore
should fail to cite or utilize Hayman's work in the disser
tation, especially as it is a major published book on
Osborne. Although Hayman's John Osborne was not published
in America until 1972, it had two editions in 1968 and 1969
• TP 1 ^ 8 6
in England.
Apart from the omission of Ilayman, Moore's bibliog
raphy is quite adequate with apparently no attempt to pad.
A spot check in comparison to the present writer's bibliog
raphy on Osborne reveals that Moore has a compilation of
the principal critical works on the dramatist. Moore's
85
Robert Barry Moore, "The Published Stage Plays of
John Osborne, 1956-1968: A Critical Exploration" (Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Denver, 1971), pp. 246-63;
Dissertation Abstracts International 32 (1971). (University
Microfilms No. 7216602.)
86
Hayman, John Osborne. See publication dates in
the flyleafs.
66
bibliography is by no means exhaustive as approximately
30 percent of the total reviews and articles on Osborne are
absent. However, the most alarming omissions, especially
since "existentialism" is a key factor in the study, are
primary or secondary materials dealing with existentialist
writers or with existentialist philosophers. Indeed, only
two books by S^ren Kierkegaard are cited in the disserta-
87
tion. To be sure, it may be argued that for the purposes
of Moore's work, two books were adequate to define
88
Osborne's protagonists as "lonely, isolated rebels."
Yet, from the perspective of the present writer, such a
simplistic notion of the import of existential thought is
an insult to the reader's intelligence. It implies that
Moore really has no idea that Kierkegaard was attacking
Hegel's rational structure of thought or that Kierkegaard
was putting the root blame for modern man's sense of
alienation (by implication the protagonists of Osborne's
plays) squarely on the shoulders of "reason," and his
subsequent "loss of feeling" and sensibility.
87
Moore, "Published Stage Plays of John Osborne,"
p. 239.
88 . r„
Ibid., p. 66.
67
Compounding the absurdity is the fact that he uses
89
one literary work each of Sartre and Camus. Now, the
reader is obliged to confuse the Christian existentialism
of Kierkegaard with the atheistic existentialism of Sartre
and Camus---piled on top of realistic dramatist John Osborne.
It is almost as if Moore opened these several authors long
enough to grab some catchy phrases. But one wonders what
happened to multiple other sources of existentialism such
as Heidegger, Jaspers, Nietzsche, Marcel, Unamuno, Berdyaev,
or Tillich? A perfect model for existential dramatic com
position is the dramatist Gabriel Marcel, yet there is no
bibliographic entry for Marcel.
Moreover, Moore seeks to relate the Absurdist
dramatists to his existential thesis applied to Osborne's
dramatic protagonists, but a check of the bibliography
reveals no works by Eugene Ionesco, a major Absurdist, or
even a commentator such as Richard Coe. The entries of
Martin Esslin on the Absurdists reveals that Moore relies
90
heavily on general critical studies. On the other hand,
if Moore has sins of omission, he also has sins of commis
sion: for example, his entries on Brecht and English
89 90
Ibid., pp. 236, 242. Ibid., p. 237.
68
Romanticism may be, in part, inappropriate to his study.
91
This is discussed subsequently. Also, there are several
bibliographic errors, including the absence of one-half of
92
an entry on Christopher Hollis.
Moore states the dissertation's "problem," but
after numerous readings the present writer can find a topic.
93
but no problem as such. Moore first denies the validity
of contemporary studies of Osborne as exponent of "topical
94
social and political issues." Moore, then, states that
Osborne should be seen as a radical individual grounded in
English Romanticism. Moving on, Moore ties Osborne to
"existential loneliness," Absurdist drama, and Brechtian
technique. Finally, Moore claims that Osborne's dramatic
work can only be understood through "his protagonists—
95
structurally, thematically, and psychologically."
Clearly, the reader is left to wonder whether one or all of
these elements are the "problems"! Further, the "disserta
tion abstract" of the study is erroneous as it leads one to
believe that Moore treats existential themes as revealed by
01 0 2
Ibid., pp. 235, 244-45. Ibid., p. 239.
93t_ _ 94t, .,
Ibid., p . 5. Ibid.
95
Ibid.
69
96
Osborne's protagonists.
Whereas the dissertation itself occasionally uses
existential terminology, its main thrust is to analyze
simply in the conventional literary and psychological-social
vein, and to pinpoint Osborne's protagonists as modern
romantic rebels. Such a contention by Moore, the present
writer feels, is a distinct disservice to the various
existentialist writers and thinkers, and probably to
Osborne as well. A close examination of nineteenth century
English Romanticism reveals a powerful metaphysical mysti
cism, and an inherent intuitive quality that is impossible
to relate to philosophical or literary existentialism, much
less to a realist like John Osborne. Apparently, what has
happened is that Moore has made some surface observations
of exterior manifestations without plunging into the depths
of background of English Romanticism and English Realism.
Actually a better case might be made for Osborne as
a harsh realist since he arose from the realistic English
stage tradition as actor turned playwright. With little
formal education Osborne can hardly be termed a thinker,
let alone an existentialist philosopher. The realism of
96
Ibid., p. 7123A.
70
the English stage was born in the Elizabethan Renaissance,
and promoted by Shakespeare, and subsequently given impetus
by Shaw, Pinero, Pinter. It may be that Osborne has much
more in common with seminal thinkers such as Hume, Hobbes,
and Locke, rather than Sartre, Camus, or Kierkeggard. What
Moore failed to perceive, apparently, is that while Osborne
and his dramatic work was realistic by nature, the plays do
lend themselves to existential analysis by an existential
critic.
But if Moore saw Osborne's protagonists as lonely
alienated anti-heroes, he failed to carry through with his
role as existential critic, and, for the most part, lapses
into social, psychological, and sociopathic commentary.
One wonders at the odd mixture of terminology as well as
the maze of confusion of terminology provoked by its
97
usage. While it is perfectly true that Moore recognizes
Osborne's realistic stance, it is equally true that Moore
naively accepts the traditional Aristotelian perspective of
Raymond Williams and Northrop Frye on the nature of
98
Romanticism. Most probably Osborne would be horrified by
97
Moore, "Published Stage Plays of John Osborne,"
pp. 223, 242.
98
Ibid., pp. 16, 47.
71
a study that castrates him to the whimpering level of an
unruly individualist rebel.
Indeed, the present writer sees this type of study
as more of a reflection of the American syndrome of basic
confidence in technology, science, and capitalistic
imperialism. But it is extremely unlikely that such a
dissertation could be written in many European universities
because their faculty and students, like Osborne, seriously
question modern man's faith in science; obviously, the
existential movement arose to counteract "objective truth"
with "subjective feeling." Moore cannot, it would seem,
explain away modern man's predicament of living without a
god or destiny by merely pigeonholing Osborne’s protagonists
99
as "Romantics," "Rebels," or "Individualists." Certainly,
Osborne's plays were so successful in production because
young and old alike identified their spiritual dilemmas
with the protagonists, not as relics of the romantic past
or as far-out weirdos.
The plain fact is that most Europeans see Americans
as extremely conservative, hung up on religion, paranoid on
communism, quite nationalistic, technological in
99
Ibid., pp. 61-65.
72
orientation, and constantly waging imperialistic wars. In
contrast, the typical European has been sharply touched by
the immediacy of the Second World War; he is nihilistic,
cosmopolitan, tolerant and respectful of communism or other
forms of collectivism, aware of the post-Christian age, and
balances his science and technology with a discerning
humanism. Thus, for the present writer, it seems incon
ceivable that a modern Briton or European could confuse a
Camus' Rebel with a Lord Byron or Osborne's Jimmy Porter
with an Edgar Allan Poe. This is precisely the fallacy
that Moore commits.
Moore treats Osborne's protagonists as if their
rebellious nature were a passing fad; most likely Osborne
is inadvertently pointing to the symptoms of an entire
civilization. The hell of Osborne's protagonists is
compared by Moore to Sartre's No Exit. Moore says that
both are "self-created."1* 11 At this point we can recognize
Moore's fallacious view based on the perspective that the
individual is responsible, not the social context. It is
precisely this distinction of the Romantic individual
versus the social existential context that clearly places
100T... __0 101_..,
Ibid., p. 108. Ibid.
73
Osborne at odds with Romanticism, and might call into ques
tion the validity of much of Moore's dissertation. Again,
much of the trouble is related to definitions.
Moore provides several "justifications" of his work,
102
but gives no "operational definitions." Consequently,
the words, "existential," "existentialism" or "existential
ist" are never defined. We get some synonyms and formal
definitions for these and many other words throughout the
dissertation, but the reader has to reach for the meaning
103
of the author. The possibilities of confusion are
enormous, especially if diversity of, say, one existential
thinker versus another is pondered. The precise meaning of
"Romanticism" is not given, nor its multiple possibilities.
104
An existential rebel is equated with a romantic rebel.
Absurdist principles are not operationally defined, nor is
105
the theatrical aesthetics of Brecht. Much of the afore
mentioned confusion in Moore's study could perhaps have
been avoided by a series of "operational definitions" in
the first chapter. Moreover, the blurred connotations tend
to multiply into massive misinformation, as well as
102Ibid., p. 6. 103Ibid., p. 223.
104Ibid. 105Ibid., pp. 127, 180.
74
questionable methodology of analysis.10^ Further, the
reader has no notion that a rational Brecht might be at
107
odds with an irrational Absurdist dramatist.
Moore organizes his dissertation into five chapters,
including: Chapter One, which in addition to the afore
mentioned introductory material, surveys the major studies
on Osborne; Chapter Two presents a "critical perspective"
108
and background on Osborne. Much space is given to the
political, social, and cultural milieu of contemporary
109
Britain. Chapter Three treats the Protagonists "that
occur in the contemporary milieu," such as Paul Slickey or
Jimmy Porter.11^ Chapter Four treats Protagonists that are
"historical figures," such as Luther. Here Moore seeks to
relate Brecht's techniques to Osborne.1^1 Finally,
Chapter Five summarizes the most important views. Overall
Moore's work is well written and organized with many per
ceptive insights. A spot check of several footnotes and
quotations reveals accuracy.
i06T, . ,
Ibid., p . 94 .
i07T,
Ibid., pp. 180, 33-34
108tK.,
Ibid., pp. 33-66.
109T. . ,
Ibid., pp.
00
l
1 1 9 .
Ibid. Ibid.
112T^.„
Ibid., pp. 100, 168.
75
A somewhat less important dissertation on Osborne
is Patrick Owen Conlon's "Social Commentary in Contemporary
Great Britain, as Reflected in the Plays of John Osborne,
Harold Pinter, and Arnold Wesker." This Ph.D. study was
completed in 1968 at Northwestern University. Of the 274
pages in the work, about 110 pages are devoted to Osborne,
while the remainder is divided between Pinter and Wesker.
The study is considerably less sophisticated than Moore's
work, and confines its total attention to social and
political critics and criticism. The psychological,
theological, and existential critics are completely
excluded by Conlon. Therefore, this study does not
infringe on the present writer's existential treatment.
Conlon's theme throughout his treatment of Osborne
is that basically the younger generation is out of tune with
113
its society. The sociopathic view of Conlon makes one
wonder if the author had considered the possibility of his
own simplistic notions. A simple check of the bibliography
reveals a total of twelve pages--rather meager considering
113
Patrick Owen Conlon, "Social Commentary in Con
temporary Great Britain, as Reflected in the Plays of John
Osborne, Harold Pinter, and Arnold Wesker" (Ph.D. disserta
tion, Northwestern University, 1968), p. 19; Dissertation
Abstracts 29 (1968). (University Microfilms No. 69-6903.)
76
the fact that any one of the three dramatists might merit
twelve pages. But even more questionable is the slanted
selectivity in the bibliography toward only a social condi
tioning interpretation of Osborne. One wonders not at the
validity of the interpretation, but at the intended narrow
ness of perspective. If Moore’s dissertation is unneces
sary and inadequate, Conlon's dissertation is more of a
tasteful term paper.
Conlon argues that Osborne saw Bertolt Brecht's
Berliner Ensemble while on tour in London in 1956, and that
Osborne's use of "narrator” and "historical distancying”
114
reflect his adaptation of Brecht's devices. The present
writer does not wish to deny Conlon's contention, but merely
wishes to point out that Conlon has assumed this position
115
largely based on the statements of Martin Esslin.
Rather than check Osborne’s statements, Conlon has depended
on a secondary source.
Systematically Conlon summarizes each of Osborne's
plays from 1956 to 1968 inclusive, and makes appropriate
sociological and contemporary English social history
114
Ibid., pp. 21, 41, 64, 72-74.
] I C
Martin Esslin, "Brecht and the English Theatre,"
TDR 11 (Winter 1966): 65.
77
commentary. He concludes his study of Osborne by stating
that Osborne's central focus is on the English class system.
He feels that Osborne is irked by welfare statism, the
Labor Party, and socialistic reforms. Conlon thinks that
Osborne basically favors anarchy, and is the champion of
the individual. All of which may be perfectly correct in
the perspective of Conlon, but the present writer contends
that there is a good deal more to be perceived in the plays
of John Osborne.
By way of summary and evaluation, it should be
noted that the series of conventional realistic critics
such as Trussler, Carter, McCarthy, Raymond, Worsley,
Gassner hold primarily to Aristotelian principles of
character, plot, story movement, language and rhetoric, in
comparison to the diet of the early part of the twentieth
century and the even more rigid Aristotelian well-made-
play. Some, as Carter, are far more acute in their apprai
sal, but one finds that the tone is distinctly British,
strongly tied to the same realistic-empirical tradition
that they are evaluating, highly moralistic in regard to
whether Osborne confirms or offends sacred British tradi
tion, manners or morals, and strongly in rapport with both
78
Osborne's as well as the English public's political-soap-
box-tradition.
On the other hand, the psychological critics such
as Wellwarth, Kerr, Sontag, Young, Hussey, Gersh, Deming,
Schlesinger are noticeably American in the majority, tend
to focus on characterization in their analysis which may
reflect the American hang-up on an actor's theatre rather
than a European theatre of the playwright, render critical
judgments that are rooted in the social sciences, as
opposed to European criticism which has its soil in
language-philology and philosophical ideas, put forth an
arbitrary and unnecessary preoccupation with the "internal
natures" of characters in regard to psychopathology as
opposed to the general European criticism of a wider cul
tural context.
Further, it must be said that the psychological
critics tend to promote a critical approach that by its
inherent nature is narrow in perspective and does not
account for the playwright's intention. It may be that the
"new criticism" of Brooks, Warren, and John Crowe Ransom,
in its examination of the work of art by itself, tends to
spawn the psychological analysis of characters with
disregard for the meaning of the play. On the other hand,
79
what are we to make of the social and political critics?
Certainly, the social critics such as Tynan,
Clurman, Taylor, Brown, Marowitz, Brustein, Karrfalt, and
Findlater place Osborne in a wider context with evaluation
of his plays in relation to contemporary English society
and politics. Perhaps it might be said that they do not
suffer from the vice of narrowness as the psychological
critics do, but proceed to spread themselves too thin with
speculation of all the possible social or political impli
cations. It is apparent that there is a mixture of British
and American critics— -perhaps reflecting the same social-
empirical tradition common to both nations like Locke-
Hume-Berkeley since the eighteenth century. To be sure,
the same could be said about the theological critics as
they seem to be more steeped in the thought of Skinner,
Adler, or Bertrand Russell than in Aquinas, Tertullian,
Ambrose, Augustine, or St. John Chrysostom. Consequently,
the richness of thought that one might expect from the
wisdom of centuries is oddly prostituted to the bitch-
goddess progress a la social science.
However, the romantic-allegorical critics provide
the proper balance of mystical-moralism where the theolo
gians abdicate. Happily all of the perspectives contain a
80
kernel of subjective truth and insight. Each critic rides
his or her particular hobby horse. Each contributes larger
vision and greater understanding to Osborne. Some critics
appear to have an exceptional grasp of these dramatic
matters, and we are the beneficiaries of their wisdom.
However, awareness of the essential sameness of these
various empirical traditions of criticism is important
since the absurdist perspective of playwriting still stands
somewhat at odds with Osborne and almost wholly continental
as well as outside the English theatre, with the possible
exception of Pinter. Although a few critics try to link
Osborne with Brechtian thought, it is very tenuous and only
incidental.
Finally, the existential, the most fruitful criti
cism in many respects, is largely left untouched, with the
exception of the aforementioned studies of Deming, Gilman,
Carter and others. This is probably a result of the
absence of the existential movement, for the most part, in
England and America, except among small university groups.
Existentialism seems to be rooted in a series of multiple
combinations on European soil: that is, alienation of the
spirit in the wake of wars and industrial-technical
dehumanization, as well as the total collapse of traditional
81
values necessitating the search for a new value system.
Such utter disillusion has not yet occurred in America, but
the appearance of Osborne does seem to indicate the growing
awareness of what Tillich called "The Shaking of the
Foundations."
82
CHAPTER III
DRAMATIC EXISTENTIALISM: DESIGN AND
METHODOLOGY
Chapter III is divided into three sections:
(1) The Existentialist Dramatic Genre, (2) The Existential
ists and Dramatic Theory, and (3) The Existential Criteria
for Dramatic Analysis.
The Existentialist Dramatic Genre
This section seeks to place the existential
dramatic genre in proper perspective. That is, how can
Osborne's plays fit into the spectrum of the various genres
of drama?
To be sure, dramatic genres tend to reflect the
Zeitgeist or "spirit of the times" of a given culture or
period in history. Such genres include: classicism, neo-
classicism, romanticism, sentimentalism, realism, natural
ism, symbolism, theatricalism, futurism, expressionism,
structuralism, absurdism, and existentialism. There are
numerous variations or combinations of these basic genres,
S3
but our immediate concern is with the central categories,
especially existentialism. While it is possible to dis
cover one or more themes of one genre in the drama of a
supposed second or "foreign” genre, it may be generally
stated that the distinctions remain fairly constant. For
example, romantic characterization and psychological real
ism can be pinpointed in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in
the seventeenth century, far removed from the regularly
defined "romanticism" and "realism" of the nineteenth
century. Yet, the overwhelming weight of the Elizabethan
drama, including Shakespeare, is that of nonrealism, and
of nonromanticism, in favor of a metaphorical verbal
theatre peculiarly immersed in monarchialism, mercantilism,
Renaissance humanism, as well as Elizabethan cosmology and
medieval legend.
On the other hand, it is possible to discern the
alienation elements of either a Hamlet or a Jimmy Porter.
Existential analytical tools are equally fruitful for
discernment of a Shakespeare or an Osborne. The existen
tial genre is often identified with the harsh realism of a
Sartre or a psychological Marcel, but, obviously, all drama
can be scrutinized from a perspective of existential
thought. John Osborne often utilizes the artistic form of
84
realism, but he likes to inject expressionistic devices
which carry a flavor of existential perception.
It is probable that Osborne is often unaware of his
own philosophic presuppositions, but the fact remains that
underpinning each dramatic genre are philosophic notions of
ontology, epistemology, teleology, ethics, metaphysics, and
aesthetics. That is to say, the genre reflects the science
of being, the problem of knowledge (how do we know some
thing?), direction or purpose, right or wrong ways of act
ing, the question of the supernatural, and the artistic
theory that stands as corollary. There are many instances
in which the dramatic work of art swerves away from the
pure theory: the realistic drama of Ibsen treats of indi
viduals, but the realistic detail of melodrama treats of
types. Yet, neither are strictly tied to the empiricism of
Hobbes, Locke, Hume, or Berkeley. Osborne, for example,
perceives intuitively the existence of his characters, but
is apparently ignorant of the philosophy of existentialism.
Moreover, the dramatic genres tend to envelop the theatri
cal experience as a whole: e.g. neoclassical Jean Racine's
Andromaque was staged, directed, and acted in somewhat of
the same vein as the drama script was composed. Yet, since
existentialism is a further extension of realism, it is
85
proper that Osborne's scripts and staging be a reflection
of that aesthetic combination of the existential-realistic.
Scene design, gesture and movement of actors, voice
and diction are closely tied to the genre in basic
aesthetic postulate. Sometimes, as with a Shakespeare, the
classical "violence" of a Seneca is used for Titus Androni-
cus, or the romance of Greek lovers is the basis for
Troilus and Cressida. While on the other hand, French
drama remained fairly rigid in favor of one plot, adherence
to classical unities, and no mixing of comedy and tragedy.
All of which seems to indicate that drama reflects the life
of a people at a given time. To the extent that a drama
touches universal problems of common concern, then that
drama may "live" and be repeated for various audiences for
centuries. Thus, Osborne's Bill Maitland, Paul Slickey,
and Jimmy Porter portray a common experience of despair
that is perennial to mankind in the modern world.
Even an Elizabethan Hamlet felt despair. That is,
Hamlet's pondering of his destiny and the meaning of life
in indecision and conscience wrestling points to a larger
appeal that transcends language and culture boundaries.
Thus, Hamlet is of an age and genre quite distant from the
twentieth century, but is just as enjoyable to us as it was
86
for the Elizabethans. That is, genre must beware of the
crippling and stultifying tendency of fashion. We are more
ready .to accept the romance of Shakespeare's A Midsummer's
Night's Dream or Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac than Hugo's
Hernani. When momentary style eclipses more essential or
universal aspects of man's nature, the greater the likeli
hood of that drama becoming obsolete in the next generation.
However, without that special style, without that special
perspective, romanticism or naturalism, for example, lose
their claim of man and his society. A genre of drama is a
particular vision of reality. It unfolds man's nature
while projecting man's emotional lives on the stage.1 The
genre is artistic representation not duplication, lest it
lose dramatic power. No matter the genre’s claim for truth,
or its purported objectivity, subjectivity, perception, or
proximity to the factual, it is still a perspective subject
to modification by subsequent artists of the theatre.
Taking the various genres of drama in turn, let us
examine: the basic aesthetic premises, the original
historical and cultural context, the relation of the genre
1The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1967 ed., s.v.
"History of Aesthetics," by Monroe C. Beardsley.
87
to concomitant problems of philosophy, the accompanying
artistic tendencies in "total" theatre, and the various
important examples of plays that illustrate most vividly
that genre. Overall the method of existentialism will
serve as a referent. Osborne's plays and characters will
serve as a contrast. First, let us consider classicism.
The basic aesthetic of Plato is seminal for all subsequent
drama: imitation of an object as a representation, not as
2
duplication. This notion is continued by Aristotle, and
3
even by Bertolt Brecht. Plato postulated a world of ideas
or a reality of archetypes that stand behind the physical
reality. Subsequently, romanticism, structuralism, and
classicism looked to the "ideal" forms as touchstones for
stage representation of the world. Dionysian (passion) and
Apollonian (reason) archetypes became models for either
sentimentalism or neoclassicism. Aristotle's metaphysics
was basically the same as Plato's, except that Aristotle
said that Plato's forms were embedded in particulars. Thus,
Aristotle's Poetics described a drama of particulars rather
than universal abstractions of Plato. We see Osborne's
2
Ibid., p . 19.
3
Martin Esslin, Brecht: The Man and His Work
(Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1961),
pp. 120-28.
88
dramas portraying the particulars of Aristotelian experi
ence. That is, the carping of Archie Rice or Paul Slickey
in the form of monologues do suggest a possible reemergence
of Platonic archetypes in existential-melodramatic clothing:
despair, alienation, inauthenticity.
In the history of the theater we see the two
traditions of Plato and Aristotle finding concrete repre
sentation: the universal platonic characterizations of
Corneille, as well as the "hero" and "heroine" of melodrama,
e.g. Boucicault’s The Octoroon; or, the drama of particu
lars as it was so exemplified in the factual detail of
naturalism. Emile Zola's Therese Raquln seeks to be true
4
to the facts of existence. Yet, if Aristotle is the
father of empiricism, and subsequently of naturalism and
realism, is he not also related to those two modern genres:
absurdism and existentialism? The answer is decidedly
"yes," since every drama must have a concreteness in "exis
tence” of man in order to be represented properly with pity
and fear, and subsequently catharsis of pleasure in pain.
Certainly, modern existentialism is a new specialized type
of realistic drama. That is, born in 1929 in the heyday of
4
Allardyce Nicoll, World Drama (New York: Harcourt,
Brace and World, Inc., 1960), p. 511.
89
Noel Coward's comedies and nurtured on the well-made play,
Osborne merely carries his heritage of realism to a height
ened dimension.
Perception and analysis of dramas according to
existential thought is fruitful with genres of diverse
historical and cultural heritages. That the plays of
Aeschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides bring man's existence on
stage for observation is a foregone conclusion because of
the testimony of the content of their dramas: the sense of
guilt (Aeschylus' Agamemnon), the relation of the finite
(man) to the infinite (God) in (Aeschylus' Promethus Bound),
the persistent problem of evil (Aeschylus' The Libation
Bearers and The Eumenides), the problem of pride or self
blindness (Sophocles' Oedipus Rex), the rational man as
bestial animal (Sophocles' The Ichneutai), the search for
justice (Sophocles' Antigone), the problem of man's choices
(Aeschylus' Agamemnon), the pursuit of man by fate, or in
other words, man's freedom of the will versus the bondage
of the will as manifest in determinism (Sophocles' Oedipus
Tyrannus), or man's destiny due to "his own control or lack
of control of his passions," (Euripides' Medea or
90
5
Electra). While Euripides is often hailed as an ancient
realist, it may be that he merely evaded the aforementioned
problems of man's existence by identifying them with
process. Therefore usage of deus ex machina became a
necessity for arbitrary and illogical endings because the
infinite was denied. Perhaps that is the secret to grasp
ing realism and naturalism, whether with the dramatists of
the nineteenth or twentieth centuries, or with Euripides
for that matter: they pretend there is.no infinite, only
the finite. By so pretending, space is irrelevant, and
time is only the immediate. To so contemplate the vastness
of time and space, as Kant wondered about the starry
heavens above and moral law within, would perhaps bring
into doubt the ultimate reality of observable phenomena
that the realist or naturalist insists upon. To be sure,
Osborne's multitude of characters, especially in such plays
as Time Present or Hotel in Amsterdam, are beset by the
realistic tie to the finite, but their existential anxiety
betrays an unconscious yearning for the infinite.
5
James H. Butler, The Theatre and Drama of Greece
and Rome (San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co., 1972),
pp. 9-11.
91
Yet, if modern man is portrayed as fragmented from
his essential oneness with nature by Osborne in Look Back
in Anger, it is equally appropriate to note that the study
of ancient Greek anthropology through the Greek language
reveals a certain "oneness" of man with nature. That is,
there was an absence of the modern man's sense of aliena
tion from nature. Thus, the satyr plays, the revelries,
the psychic projections through the drama of inner turmoil
and aspirations, the abstracting into mythology of the
shared experiences of man and nature— all indicate a vital
ity of natural feeling and pure expression. Man's myth
making faculty was robust in ancient Greece as compared to
his crippled imagination at the hands of a factual tech
nology in the modern era.
The Romans exhibited a similar pragmatic and
utilitarian spirit as that of modern industrial man in
their borrowing of Greek dramatic forms for popular con
sumption. That is, for the Romans, what was useful was
good. Greek myths served as entertainment in pantomimes,
while Atellan farces and Phlyakes provided diversion "from"
rather than "in" reality. Plautus' dramas portrayed prac
tical family and social relations (Miles Gloriosus and
Menaechmi), while Menander and Terence sought to arouse
92
0
enjoyment in the intelligentsia. Whereas Aristophanes
reflected a latter-day secular satire on society and
politics, Terence reflected a hodge-podge of stoic and
epicurean values of courage and pleasure. In other words,
the problem of "ultimate concern” for the great Greek
tragedians had slowly withered into the pap of momentary
titilation of farce and games.
The denigration of the metaphysical in the Roman
drama could only result in a basic realistic perspective of
practicality. Like all the realists of the nineteenth
century, they fell into gushing sentimentalism and over
simplified problems. In one respect it is no wonder that
the great church fathers of Christendom such as Tertullian,
Origen, Ambrose, Cyprian, or Augustine, found the Roman
drama obnoxious; it simply failed to deal with central
issues of man's existence: suffering, fate, meaning. Thus,
our referent dramatist, Osborne, is no less concerned about
these issues as his characters confront alienation, despair,
and seek meaning. No doubt Osborne is probably repelled
equally by the popular consumption drama of ancient Rome,
as by the trite of Edwardian drama.
6
Nicoll, World Drama, pp. 124-25.
93
At the same time it becomes clear why the finite
realism of ancient Roman drama would have to give way to a
new dramatic form that did reassert those critical ques
tions: the Roman Catholic Mass. As formulated by Pope
Gregory the Great by 590 A.D., the Mass became a central
drama for Western Europe for a thousand years. Basic
dramatic symbolism was formed: that is, symbols were
visible objects "representing to the mind the semblance of
something which is not shown but realized by association
7
with it." Ironically, in the case of Osborne, he denounces
religious institutions while portraying a large number of
protagonists who are in quest of authentic existence and
salvation. In summary, the genre of classicism in drama
contained elements of Plato's ideal forms in static charac
terization, Aristotle's empiricism in psychic problems of
action and character, as well as basic principles of
mimetic imitation and audience catharsis as found in his
Poetics. Platonic "types" were continued from the Greek
to the Roman comedy characterizations. Whereas there
seemed to be a basic union of the rational (idealism) and
the empirical with the Greeks, there was a gradual
7
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., s.v. "Symbol."
94
separation of the mind (Apollonian) from the feelings
(Dionysian) in the Roman era. Interestingly enough, it is
John Osborne who seeks to practice a theatrical aesthetic
of "restoration of feeling." Osborne's awareness of the
alienation of emotion from man's existence in the modern
Western society and the triumph of the rational and
abstract is quite uncanny, since the author has apparently
little or no formal knowledge in existential thought. How
does the classical genre, on the other hand, compare to the
neoclassical?
Overall, the neoclassicism of the eighteenth
century in French drama tended to be far more rigid in
temper than the ancient classicism. That is, the rational
dominated and was largely divorced from the empirical.
Reason was supreme as the older Renaissance empirical
spectacle declined. The verbal wit of spoken drama choked
out the nonverbal visual pantomime of the commedia dell'arte.
Heroic archetypes of Plato played a part in Corneille's
Le Cid, while idealistic reason and logic of Aristotle gave
mental pleasure in Racine's Andromaque. Moliere's satire
in Les precieuses ridicules or Tartuffe echoes a classical
Ovid, and an astute commedia pragmatism in staging for
95
g
comedy. The loose formulations of Aristotle were recast
by theorists Julius Scaliger and Lodovico Castelvetro into
more rigid and inflexible rules for the neoclassical French
9
theatre. The rigorous and rigid thought of Rene Descartes
as inventory of the new analytical geometry seemed to
trigger a like emphasis in the style of art, politics and
manners.
The perfect "forms" of Plato now came forth once
again, except they were cast now in the astronomy of Kepler
and Galileo, the physics of Newton, the harmony and
symmetry of architecture, the balance of society through
"organization,” "statistics," and "philosophies." Order
was the new word of neoclassicism, along with precision
and unity.10 Racine adapted the Senecan tragedy in Phedre:
He perfected its versification; he subordinated its
scheme entirely to the one motive which could have free
play in it,— the display of a conventionally intense
passion, hampered by this or that obstacle; he set
^Nicoll, World Drama, pp. 316-24.
9
Julius Caesar Scaliger, "Poetics," in Barrett H.
Clark, European Theory of the Drama (New York; Crown
Publishers, Inc., 1970), pp. 45-51; Lodovico Castelvetro,
"Poetics," ibid.
10Nicoll, World Drama, p. 316.
96
himself to produce in verse a kind of Ciceronian
correctness.
Further, he wrote with "triumphant accuracy" and was able
to follow the "rules" in execution of almost "impossible
tours de force in ballades couronnees (encompassed ballads),
12
and similar tricks." Moreover, the circumscribed move
ment, little as there was on stage, the direct address to
the audience, as well as the "balanced" placement of props
— were all designed for a nonvisual or nonrealistic effect
emphasized by the very nature of the rational-mental neo
classical drama. In contrast, although the modern Osborne
can be seen as quite distant from neoclassical drama or
staging methods, it does seem that he had inadvertently
utilized a tone of existential questioning of simplistic
Sardou-Scribe plots, as well as probe the validity of
rational society in contemporary culture. In several of
Osborne's plays, for example The Entertainer and The World
of Paul Slickey, he uses traditional neoclassical devices
such as direct address to the audience, and is far more
verbal in dramatic concern (with the exception of his
^ Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., s.v. "Racine,
Jean."
12Ibid.
97
television or film plays) than many of his dramatic con
temporaries such as Harold Pinter.
The neoclassical style in scene design and play
construction reflected a reaction to the excesses of the
Baroque and Rococo, and a return to rationalism and
13
simplicity that was inherent in classical line and form.
It may be that Osborne's search for the personal in the
face of extreme dehumanization is perhaps the same kind of
reaction. Yet, the new aesthetics of the Enlightenment was
not only rational (Descartes), but it was also empirical
(Bacon). Whereas rational aesthetics insisted the imagina
tion was an image-registering procedure, the British
Empiricists like Hobbes, Hume, Locke advanced a "sensation"
or "association of ideas" theory. A perfect example of a
dramatist that utilized these two perspectives is Moliere,
for he appropriated the "balanced" stage with split-second
timing of the classical rules. Yet, he also advocated
"experiment" in production and the ultimate test of the
14
empirical man of the theatre: does it work?
13
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1972 ed., s.v. "Neo
classical Art and Architecture."
14
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, s.v. "History of
Aesthetics," pp. 25-26.
98
The "sensation" perspective of Hume and Locke sub
sequently contributed to the basis of romanticism, and
realism. Insofar as our referent, existentialism, it should
be obvious that an "heroic" prototype character such as
Corneille's Cinna, or Racine's probing "into the secret
recesses of the soul" of Iphigenia in Aulis connotes a kind
15
of dramatization of the unique individual known as man.
To be sure, to use the term "existential" apart from its
twentieth century context does some violence to understand
ing, but the possibility of applying the term to other
genres and periods of culture is possible if careful
delineation is applied. Corneille and Racine were existen
tialists in the sense that they projected their own
emphasis of "romantic individualism" into passionate
characterization and incident, but were nonexistential in
the sense that their plots, themes, characterizations, or
dialogue were artificial and lacked the ring of authentic
ity. The genre of neoclassicism suggests a series of
presuppositions: a cosmology of a perfectly operational
mechanism of world order, a belief in God who has absented
himself (deism), a purpose in time and justice inherent in
15
Nicoll, World Drama, pp. 305, 311.
99
nature (natural rights), an inherent optimism in man and
the goodness of ’’ being," and an unflagging confidence in
16
progress. Yet, implicit in these notions were echoes of
the new romanticism of the early nineteenth century.
Whereas neoclassicism reacted against formalism,
romanticism reacted against reason that stifled feeling,
and simplicity that denied richness in beauty. The roman
tics retained the essential "goodness" of nature (Words
worth), the belief in progress (R. W. Emerson), belief in
God and purpose in time (Nathaniel Hawthorne). But an
absent God with the neoclassicists became an immediate
immanent Deity with the romantics (Goethe's Eaust). A. W.
Schlegel's romantic aesthetic of art postulated an "organic
theory": that is, art grows "out of nature like a living
being."
Hence, romanticism subsequently reinterpreted
symbolism in a pantheistic sense: that is, all objects of
nature are symbols and held a "sensuous embodiment of a
17
spiritual meaning." But whereas romantic poets and prose
writers used sensuous vocabulary to evoke emotion, the
16
The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1967 ed., s.v.
"Deism," pp. 333-35.
"^Ibid., s.v. "History of Aesthetics,” p. 29.
1 0 0
romantic dramatists sought to color setting, boldly present
romantic love, and stage the "action" of heroes and hero-
18
ines. The clearest example is Victor Hugo's Hernani
which provided intense emotion and many thrilling scenes.
Its opening production in 1830 in Paris precipitated a
famous riot in the Comedie-Fran9a±se because many neo-
classicists violently objected to the violation of the
19
"rules" by Hugo. In regard to our referent, it should be
pointed out that Osborne's plays, in the contemporary
twentieth century, are seen often as an utter contrast to
the romantic movement. Yet, it is apparent that detailed
attention to factuality has its roots in romanticism. The
existential thrust of Osborne smacks of the skeptical and
the realistic, but its questing tone suggests a dissatis
faction and a yearning for the significance beyond the
factual and rational.
Like the romantics Osborne follows the intuitive.
Certainly, one must recognize that the principal emphasis
of historical romanticism was not merely emotional bathos,
but it was also a matter of the intuitive apprehension of
18
Nicoll, World Drama, p. 472.
19
Ibid., p. 470.
1 0 1
the reality (noumena) that lies behind the natural (phenom
ena). Here was a resurgence of the metaphysical, but it
was a castrated metaphysics that smacked of "goodness" and
"sentiment" rather than the more robust treatment of "fate”
and "suffering" by Aeschylus and Sophocles. Obviously, the
sentimental drama had an emotional affinity with romanti
cism, but the sentimental dramatists (e.g. Beaumarchais'
Eugenie) tended to moralize while the romantic dramatists
solicited the thrill of a good love story or detective
20
mystery. Shakespeare's Hamlet, for example, is in one
sense a romantic detective story.
Romantic comedies are by no means passe, as exem
plified by Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park. Even the
nineteenth century romantic thesis of intuitive vision is
repeated in the contemporary Jean Giraudoux's Qndine or
Jean Cocteau's Orphee or The Infernal Machine. Truly the
Dionysiac romantics found fuel in the "will to power"
thought of Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche's "yea" to life.
Richard Wagner's operas, such as Das Rheingold, Die
Walklire, or Gotterdammerung, illustrate romanticism at its
height where lighting, setting, staging, converge with the
on
Ibid., p. 398.
1 0 2
music and operatic drama for a "total" theatrical effect of
21
soaring spirit and ecstasy of emotion. Most certainly
the resurgence of Plotinus' neoplatonistic archetypes in
the Florentine academy of Ficino in the Renaissance was a
contributing factor that led to the romantic yearning for
the levels of pure essence in the Oversoul. In addition to
the stimulation of romanticism, the British empiricists
contributed to sentimentalism.
The sentimental drama, true to the empirical spirit,
strived to capture "reality" and to present a didactic
moralization. In contrast, Osborne is obviously a moral-
izer with his protagonists, Archie Rice, Paul Slickey, and
Jimmy Porter, but without the bathos of the sentimental
drama. Yet, Beaumarchais sought to expose folly and vice,
not by laughter but by serious and emotional drama (i.e.
Eugenie). Hugh Kelly's False Delicacy and Richard
Cumberland's The West Indian are examples of this genre
that basically failed in the eighteenth century, but has
flourished since in the guise of the melodrama of the late
nineteenth century, or in the soap opera of radio and
television, as well as the notorious horse opera. Its
21Ibid., p. 482.
103
preachments seem to be derived from the morality plays of
the Middle Ages, while use of factual realism is highly
selective in plot line to enhance the moral point. That
is, the empirical is fashioned to the needs of thematic
propaganda. Not really so Christian as the sentimental
drama professes, it actually promotes ethical values of the
rising and established bourgeois class of merchants and
22
commercialists. But empiricism also spawned another
important genre: realism.
Realism is the dramatic genre most prevalent in the
modern Western world for it perfectly expresses the per
spective of the industrial man of the late nineteenth
century, and the scientific-technical spirit of the twen
tieth century. Rooted in the basic empiricism of Aristotle
as reinterpreted by Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and Comte, it
emphasized the exterior reality, the factual detail, the
dismissal of the metaphysical. In regard to our referent
dramatist, Osborne is usually deemed a realistic playwright
because of his basic form, but his expressionistic and
pseudo-Brechtian devices in The Entertainer or Inadmissible
Evidence such as confessional catharsis or scene contrast
22
Nicoll, World Drama, pp. 398-99.
104
tend to place him in an arena suggestive of the subjective
method of existentialism. Still, res in Latin means thing,
as opposed to ideas or imaginings. No doubt Osborne would
accept that. Thus, the verbal expression of imagination as
found in an extended metaphor of Shakespeare's Macbeth
cannot be realistic in the new empirical sense, only
"psychologically real" in terms of Renaissance humanism.
The central focus is on the literal action of a character
in an approximate "slice of life" setting. While a Henrik
Ibsen may illustrate a central thesis or idea in Hedda
Gabler, the characters reveal a factuality of psychological
truth, while the plot and setting approximate objective
reality.
Accompanying the realist’s down-to-earth practical
ity was the corollary of reaction against idealism, so
implicit in both neoclassicism and romanticism. Yet, close
examination of the realistic dramas of the nineteenth
century reveals a certain quaint quality interlaced with a
slight moralism. Such plays as Victorian Sardou’s Daniel
Rochat, Eugene Scribe's Camilla drew sketches of life but
are considerably distinct from the psychological realism of
an Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. As with romanti
cism the individual becomes central for dramatic
105
development and subsequently fosters the actor's theatre
(Stanislavsky) and the director's theatre (Gordon Craig or
Max Reinhardt). In addition, there was a long movement
toward factuality, historicity in scene design, as well as
costuming, staging, and acting. Such notables as Madame
Vestris, Macready, Henry Irving, the Meiningen troupe,
and Andre Antoine's Theatre Libre— all were part of realis
tic depiction, or representation by factual detail. But
the objectivity of the realistic dramatic treatment was
profoundly changed after 1859 when Charles Darwin's Origin
of Species was published. The new Darwinian science
gave rise to a new perspective in economics, politics, and
drama.
The genre of naturalism shared the same aesthetic
base as realism: literal reproduction of sense impression.
Both genres denied the ideal, and the metaphysical. Both
professed objectivity, but in turn were "selective" of
"facts." Both saw "process" as ultimate truth. Both had
an innate skepticism. However, naturalism had a greater
tendency for fatalism, and lapses into mechanistic deter
minism. In regard to our referent dramatist, it must be
pointed out that John Osborne must be judged as non
naturalist ic . While superficially Osborne might be
106
understood as denying the ideal and the metaphysical, it
becomes clear that the total range of his twenty-three
plays are indeed searching for a metaphysic of meaning.
Osborne at root is not a skeptic, nor a fatalist, or a
determinist. On the other hand, where there was a dramatic
consciousness of fate with Aeschylus, a naturalistic Eugene
O'Neill simply let the determinism take its course in
Mourning Becomes Electra or Desire Under the Elms.
Naturalism did not see nature as objective process as
realism, but more in the vein of the subjective "red in
tooth and claw." The goodness of nature and man which was
innate in the neoclassical genre and the romantic genre
were now completely repudiated.
The naturalistic dramatist, such as in Emile Zola’s
Therese Raquin, sought the ugly and the unharmonious in a
deliberate attack on the previous sentimentalist and roman
tic traditions. Yet, an odd result to the naturalistic
perspective occurred: emphasis on matter and motion
brought the naturalistic drama closer to sensationalism or
23
associationism. The irony to the attempt of realism and
naturalism to corner final factual truth in process only
23
The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., s.v.
"Naturalism."
107
resulted in resurgence of Platonism and reactionary
romant icism.
The dramatic genre of symbolism arose because the
supposed truth of realism and naturalism was found to be
equally as suspect as previous styles. Luigi Pirandello
was a realist "whose realism questions the very fact of
24
reality." Dealing with the "inner mask” of the human
personality, as well as deliberately confounding the "real"
with the real characters of Six Characters in Search of an
Author, or the "illusion" of Henry IV, Pirandello leaves
the impression that "personality is a thing either built up
25
by ourselves or else imposed from without by others.”
Indeed, symbolism seemed to suggest that "symbols" might
26
better convey dramatic truth than living characters. The
use of allegorical characters by the Russian dramatists,
Leonid Andreev and Nikolai Evreinov in King Hunger and The
Chief Thing suggests a radical return to spiritual morali-
27
ties of the Middle Ages. In addition, the resort to
theatricalism and futurism by Myakovsky, Tairov, and
^Nicoll, World Drama, pp. 707-18.
o c; pp
Ibid., p. 717. Ibid., p. 719.
27
Ibid., pp. 719-25.
108
Meyerhold was a desperate attempt to give beauty to
"girders and factories," and color to the bland monotony of
28
factual artistry. Furthermore, Osborne's dramas do not
utilize physical "symbols” per se, but in such plays as The
Right Prospectus and A Bond Honoured Osborne has concocted
spiritual moralities in regard to modern anxiety in educa
tional repression and unethical behavior. The "bear" and
"squirrel" symbols of Jimmy Porter and Allison in Look Back
in Anger suggest roles of behavior that make existence more
endurable.
Even a more serious reaction to realism and
naturalism is the dramatic genre of expressionism.
Osborne's plays are realistic in form but utilize expres-
sionistic devices, especially as seen in Luther. Osborne
must have been exposed to some expressionistic plays in his
career. Founded by Kasimir Edschmid in 1917, expressionism
was chiefly promoted by the plays of Georg Kaiser (i.e.
Gas, I and II) and Ernst Toller who sought to present on
the stage a vision of life from "within" the artist's soul,
not the recording of external details. Certainly, a supreme
example of expressionistic artistry is Ett Dromspel by
28
Ibid., pp. 726-27.
109
August Strindberg. But gradually the resurgent idealism of
expressionism broke down in the face of even more disillu
sionment in the twentieth century. The staging methods of
expressionism in Verfremdungseffekt were gradually adopted
by the new "harsh realism" of Marxist Bertolt Brecht and
29
Erwin Piscator. Hegelian idealism was united with Comtean
positivistic empiricism in dramatization. Arising in equal
succession to realism, but without a major deviation of
epistemology were the dramatists associated with absurdism.
Osborne may have derived his "direct address" to the
audience from the expressionists, especially Piscator.
The "primordial images" of Jung led to a search for
"archetypal patterns" in the collective unconscious of man.
Ernst Cassirer 1s "philosophical anthropology" saw man
using primitive symbolic forms in which he represented art
or myth to himself. Based upon the same nonmetaphysical
interpretation of reality as naturalism or realism, the
structuralists saw behind myth, language, and religion an
innate "pattern" that spoke of a hidden source of power.
Thus, the materialistic perspective could be retained
29
Phyllis Hartnoll, The Oxford Companion to the
Theatre (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 302-
303.
1 1 0
while speculating with the emotive or spiritual power.
In a vague fashion the absurd dramatists such as Alfred
Jarry (Ubu Rei), Eugene Ionesco (The Bald Soprano), Samuel
Beckett (Waiting for Godot), Harold Pinter (The Birthday
Party), Edward Albee (Tiny Alice), used the structural
approach in realism to project patterns of man's inner life
into a drama for discernment in a recognizable realistic
fashion. The symbolistic movement also was a contribution
to the Pataphysical movement of artists who denied the
"mechanical" principles of physics in search of another
pattern, another reality. The absurdists rejected expres
sionism, romanticism, realism, and naturalism. They created
whole plays that were in essence dramatized metaphors.
Their spiral plots and allegorical characters testified to
the despair, anxiety, alienation, and crisis of modern man
and his nuclear-threatened civilization. Indeed, John
Osborne's recent plays have much similarity to the absurd
ists. This includes such plays as A Bond Honoured, or Very
Like a Whale. In conjunction with the absurdist dramatists
was the dramatic genre of existentialism.
Absurdism in one respect is existential because it
is an awareness that modern existence is silly and absurd,
30
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, s.v. "History of
Aesthetics," p. 32.
Ill
without meaning or purpose, without a metaphysical justifi
cation. As such, existentialism is an atheistic philosophy.
Yet, a Christian may be existential if he lives with
greater awareness of the importance of the immediacy of
life— moment-to-moment. Two world wars, threat of nuclear
catastrophe, decline of Western colonialism and imperial
ism, vast social changes in Asia and Africa, and decline of
traditional social and religious values in the face of the
rise of statism and social forces such as communism gave
rise to national and personal crisis in our time.
The throw-off effect of the denigration of the
individual personality by technology called for a solution:
it was existentialism. S0ren Kierkegaard first saw the
foolishness of Hegel's "abstractions" in the nineteenth
century and called for "life," for genuine existence, not
abstractions. Kierkegaard called for the "leap of faith"
to mornent-to-moment personal confidence— no matter how
despairing reason was, or how absurd life seemed.
Jean-Paul Sartre called for a passionate commitment
to a cause lest the personality founder in nihilism.
Sartre saw personal freedom and choice as basic to man's
existence. Thus, modern man found himself "trying to go it
alone" with no Christian destiny, no Greek "fate," no
1 1 2
romantic illusions— merely the self alone in existence.
Sartre dramatizes this self-awareness in No Exit and
Dirty Hands. The denigration of feeling and the promotion
of inauthentic living by technology, commercialism, and
conformity in statism is solved by the existential emphasis
of spontaneity of emotion, authenticity of personality, and
freedom of individual choice.
Existentialism as a dramatic genre arose to solve
the objectivity of realism by subjective means. Gabriel
Marcel is an existentialist dramatist because he portrays
characters who seek authentic existence by being known, not
in the classical French dramaturgy genre of desiring to
know. Marcel's The Votive Candle and Ariadne illustrate
the existential problems of conscience, deceit, and crisis.
Marcel, Heidegger, Kierkegaard reassert a new meta
physics of being. They postulate that "being" testifies
to itself by its own mystery of life vitality, by the
mystery of infinity, by defying man to recreate or dupli
cate, and by the presence of dissatisfaction of man in a
world deserted by mystery. Starvation of man's "being"
drives him to seek the occult. The rise of the hippies,
the seeking of the infinite in drugs all testify to this.
Our referent, existentialism, means to exist in full
113
humanity. To think or philosophize about existentialism is
to fail to be existential. Existentialism is more a method
than a philosophy. There are as many kinds of existential
ism as there are existentialists. Existentialism simply
attempts to restore feeling and emotion in an era that
tends to cause the alienation of emotions from the self, in
a culture that depersonalizes the individual person for the
sake of technical efficiency or economic profit.
In the case of Sartre, his dramas portray the
modern nihilistic condition, and then through characteriza
tion posit the need for decision in order to affirm the
"identity" of the character or assert their "being."
Failure to affirm one's identity is to fall into nihilistic
nonbeing. It is for these reasons that Sartre was a French
underground fighter, as well as a dedicated communist.
Through passionate commitment Sartre gave his nonmeta
physical void meaning.
On the other hand, Gabriel Marcel took his cue from
Kierkegaard and realized that his Catholic Christianity (or
Protestant for Kierkegaard) was more a matter of moment-to-
moment hope and courage of vital life spontaneity— than any
"belief" or system of abstractions or symbols empty to
modern relevancy. Marcel's plays illustrate that pretense
114
or posed virtue such as politeness constitutes nonexisten-
31
tial inauthenticity.
As referent to the other dramatic genres, existen
tialism acts as an antidote to the long development of
empirical dramaturgy. As a kind of secular metaphysics,
existentialism returns to those central issues raised by
the Greek tragedians, the medieval mysteries and moralities,
and Shakespeare. The nature and destiny of man is again
central to dramatic portrait. Certainly, in regard to our
referent dramatist, it is the contention of this study that
Osborne is equally interested in portraying the contempo
rary existence of modern man.
In summation, the aesthetic touchstones of Platonic
idealism and Aristotelian empiricism have provided the
genres of dramaturgy with seminal bases through the cen
turies. Either singly, in combination, or variation the
multiple playwrights and artisans of the theatre have
provided style and perspective that has properly expressed
the era.
31
Gabriel Marcel, Three Plays (New York: Hill and
Wang, 1965), pp. 5-34.
115
The Existentialists and Dramatic Theory
Let us examine the basic notions and categories of
thought of the various existential thinkers and ferret out
their ideas of aesthetics and art, and construe their
existential views in regard to the various forms of theatre,
such as dance, opera, drama, as well as the actor and
critic. In so doing we can better apply the existential
criteria of the following section, The Existential Criteria
for Dramatic Analysis, to John Osborne's plays in terms of
characterization, scene, and language.
Although Osborne has probably only a passing
acquaintance with Martin Heidegger, it is important for us
to study his existential thought as we may discern certain
conditions of Osborne's plays. Indeed, Martin Heidegger
32
has been called the leader of existentialism. Our
thoughts usually turn to Sartre, Camus, or S0ren
Kierkegaard when the word, existential arises. Yet, we
must remember that Heidegger's basic thoughts on "human
existence" in Sein und Zeit was published in the early
1920s. It must be kept in mind that Edmund Husserl, as
father of phenomenology, or exploration of the self, and
32
The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1967 ed., s.v.
"Martin Heidegger," by Marjorie Grene.
116
seminal figure for existentialism, was the teacher of both
Heidegger and Sartre. Heidegger is far more influential on
Sartre than in the reverse fashion. Kierkegaard’s nine
teenth century existential views were more applicable to a
Christian seeking to reform the Church. Camus wrote in the
wake of the Second World War, and the breakup of the older
colonialism. On the other hand, it is perfectly true that
Heidegger himself insists on shunning any labels, preferring
to break through the categories of traditional philosophy
in coinage of new words, and avoidance of the jargon of
psychology, theology, sociology, or biology. Nor is it
possible to make an interchange or equation of language
because Heidegger is looking at man's existence, or for
that matter the "Being" of phenomena, the cosmos, in
33
entirely an original fashion. Thus, there is no evidence
of the influence of any of the various existential thinkers
on Osborne, whether it be Heidegger, Kierkegaard, or Camus,
or Sartre. Indeed, it is the contention of this disserta
tion that Osborne's intuitive art pieces confirm the
existential substance, rather than any individual existen
tial thought.
33
Michael Gelven, A Commentary on Heidegger’s
"Being and Time" (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers,
1970), pp. 1-7, 149.
117
Under strict formalistic questioning, it might be
that Osborne would question the validity of the existential
approach. Osborne might ask: Why is it necessary to look
at man and the cosmos in a new way? What is existentialism
for? Why should we be concerned about our "existence"?
We might answer by pointing out that the irony of the mod
ern world's synthesis of the rational (deductive logic)
with the empirical (inductive logic) has spawned a scien
tific age that threatens to denigrate man and extinguish
his very existence. Thus, the creator of the scientific
age, man, is enveloped by his own creed of objectivity.
Man, therefore, has become "object," rather than "subject."
Surface factual empirical knowledge has displaced the
subjective knowledge of spirit as testified to by music,
painting, sculpture. Man's innate capacity for myth-making
in order to validate his existence and give himself direc
tion is crippled by a "positivistic knowledge" onslaught
that essentially denies "imagination" in favor of utility
and the pragmatic.
In such a climate the nature of man is interpreted
by man as "rational," and his acts as "experiential."
Moreover, technology as a way of life envelops whole
nations, an entire civilization, if you please, in turning
118
men into "machines" and "things" with spontaneity and emo
tion dismissed in the name of "efficiency" and "productiv
ity.” No wonder hippiedom! Even the Christian churches
have transformed spirit into business enterprise in promo
tion not of Christianity, but of moral maxims and
bourgeoisie middle-class values of commerce.
Historians no longer see history as art. In
contrast were the supreme historical artists, William H.
Prescott and Francis Parkman. Historians today see history
as social science in the August Comte positivistic frame
work. They see, for the most part, history as related to
empirical evidence, to factuality, to data, to interpreta
tion of facts, to ideas issuing forth from sensation. But
Heidegger might say: that is precisely the "fault" because
what is taken at face value as "fact" or "interpreted from
the facts" is an oddity of scientific determinism, just as
restrictive on man's assertion of authentic freedom as
perhaps Jonathan Edwards' predestination. Indeed, existen
tial selection of materials shows that the historian, by a
creative free act of spirit, writes history subjectively,
no matter the pretense of objectivity. Fortunately,
Osborne has seen that historical drama is more than mere
chronology as testified to by his existential portrait of
119
Luther as a vibrant human personality.
Osborne seems to agree with the existentialists who
look at the cosmos in a new way because of a reaction to
the modern scientific world, and a fulfillment of the need
to perceive man as he really lives, not as science describes
the way he lives. Existentialism means "to exist" now, not
in the pretense or inauthentic hope of "future" as promised
by the Protestant ethic, and made manifest in technology's
"progress." "To think" about existentialism is not to be
existential, for one must make that moment-to-moment burn
ing critical decision of authenticity or inauthenticity.
Commercial civilization overwhelms us with inauthenticity,
of pretense in work or vocations we detest, of "images of
appearances" as personalities, of imitated thought in
school, of "hand-me-down" morality and mores in the family
or society. Indeed, the existentialists seem to be saying
that "learning" itself has become a tyranny of "hand-me-
downs" because modern man fails to act and authenticate
himself in whatever endeavor he undertakes. He lives in a
state or existence of inauthenticity, that is, of detach
ment from his work, of estrangement from his natural
emotions in robot fashion, of alienation from normal social
process in a maze of "masks" or "pretensions," and, finally,
the loss of certainty of one's own true identity that
prompts a quest that is so typical of the twentieth century.
Thus, Osborne's alienated protagonists, especially Bill
Maitland and Paul Slickey, are in quest of their identity.
Even philosopher-dramatist Jean-Paul Sartre would
probably say that existentialism does not serve any "use
ful" design or "utility," except as an awareness of one's
own life, its possibilities, its limitations, its ultimate
finitude. He might say that it is rather ironic that in
the modern era when we are encouraged to move away from the
"total assertion" of the sacred of the Middle Ages to the
"partial assertion" of the secular in modern science, we
are confronted by constrictive conditions of impingement on
our existence that deny our freedom of self-authentication
such as Standard Oil, or the Communist Party, or the con-
34
vention of hair style. Truly, to be existential is to be
free in authentic possible choice. Perhaps this is the
answer to Sartre's dilemma in living by his own existential
category: demand of freedom of choice versus the "total
assertion" of the Party. Has not modern science fallen
34
Harold H. Watts, "Myth and Drama," in Perspec
tives on Drama, ed. James L. Calderwood and Harold E.
Toliver (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968),
p. 116.
121
into the very "total assertion" that it sought to escape
from? Man's existence, therefore, needs a renewed aware
ness .
But, one must remember, that to be existential does
not necessarily imply a projection into nihilism such as
often is the case in a superficial rendering of Sartre's
Being and Nothingness; certainly, Sartre and Heidegger,
both, advocate passionate commitment to Being. They favor
being in work, being in personality, else one lapses into
inauthenticity. Nietzsche said that Being or ontology was
a "mistake" as he reflected the modern revulsion with the
medieval synthesis of theology and philosophy in regard to
ontology; Heidegger answered Nietzsche by saying that the
real crux of our era is not the "mistake" of ontology, but
35
the "falling out of Being" into inauthenticity. In con
trast, Heidegger calls for authentic existence of Being in
one's vocation with love for the job, of personality that
goes beyond the demand of commerce or the pretense of
social convention, of original thought in school, of self
discovery of moral and social values that authenticate our
existence, of choice that is sincere. Indeed, Osborne's
35
Thomas Langan, The Meaning of Heidegger (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1961), pp. 182-90.
122
recent television and stage plays explore these problems in
a brilliant fashion. They include: The Right Prospectus,
Very Like a Whale, Time Present, and A Sense of Detachment.
Thus, man's existence has possibility in each act of choice
which is constantly affirming or denying one's existence,
constantly choosing authenticity or inauthenticity.
As with Sartre, Heidegger denies any inherent prob
lem of "free will" versus "bondage of the will" in an
Augustine-Calvin-Barth sense, and holds that the "good" of
the individual resides in the integrity with which he recog
nizes his freedom and acts while so recognizing it. Evil,
conversely, is the lie of fraudulent objectivity, the
denial of freedom. For Heidegger existentialism is an
ethic of integrity, in which running away from one's self
is evil, facing one's self is good.^
Heidegger's notion of man's "togetherness" is
similar to Sartre's statement in L'Existentialisme est-il
un humanisme? that "when I decide to marry, raise a family,
37
or the like, I am . . . deciding for all mankind." Man's
36
Marjorie Grene, Dreadful Freedom (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1948), p. 1.
37_, . ,
Ibid., p. 73 .
123
existence, therefore, may be limited in the sense of choice
of "forfeiture" of ’’ Being" for particular beings. "It means
the scattering of the essential forward drive through
attention to the distracting and disturbing cares of every
day and of the things and people that surround us every
day. Thus, inevitably and continuously, the forward
driving "I" is sacrificed to the persistent "they!" Another
choice of man that limits his existence is the recasting of
spirit as intelligence in a falsification that calculates
and plans more than it creates; indeed, capitalism, Marx
ism, positivism, or technology harness "cleverness" more
38
than authentic spirit.
Yet, the paradox that propels man to authentic
human existence is awareness of his ultimate finitude, of
"dread" of his own individual death. This is especially
true with the Spanish existentialist, Miguel de Unamuno, in
his emphasis on "agonic struggle" as the meaning of life.
The tension between man's affirmation of immortality and
the threat of extinction is what gives him "the tragic
sense of life" that is familiarly associated with
38
H. J. Blackham, Six Existentialist Thinkers
(New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1959), p. 91.
124
39
Unamuno. Our referent, John Osborne, provides us with an
Archie Rice in the play, The Entertainer, who perfectly
matches this awareness of Unamuno.
Such an emphasis becomes a necessity in our era
simply because man has inauthentically "hidden" his own
death from himself by simply making it "factual." When
man faces his own temporary existence, and is consciously
"aware" not of other's death, but his own, then he can act
in choices of the authentic. Dread, not fear, lends
existence "an extraordinary sense of urgency, a conscious-
40
ness of now or never." But even more important, accord
ing to Gabriel Marcel, is the moment-to-moment deprivation
of being in modern man resulting in "living death." The
essentialist technology of modern science, says Marcel,
categorizes man, especially universals and characteristics,
but forgets the unique man in himself. The result is
dehumanization, alienation of feeling, estrangement from
being in psychic "living death." Its cure is the "leap of
faith" into confident self-belief, and for Marcel, faith in
39
John A. Mackay, "Miguel de Unamuno," in Christi
anity and the Existentialists, ed. Carl Michalson (New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1956), pp. 56-57.
40
Laszlo Verseyi, Heidegger, Being, and Truth (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), p. 180.
125
the mystery of God. Yet, whereas Marcel's characters
seek a positive solution to their existential dilemmas,
John Osborne's characters merely struggle in the mire of
continued self-negation.
For the most part, Osborne's characters suffer from
the oppression of mechanical time. Thus, one must see that
Heidegger's idea of time is powerfully fruitful in conjunc
tion with death. Most of us live off of the mechanical
time of Newton and the rationalistic eighteenth century,
especially as time through the tradition of Christianity
sets it as "work productivity" sequence, and as living in
the present in expectation of the promise of the future.
This is the classic direction-purpose notion of time
(teleology), joined with a sense of distant eschatological
(end) resolution, common to utopian dreams or the Biblical
"lions lying down with lambs."
Existential time seeks to overcome all of this by
redefining time in terms of human existence as it is lived
moment-to-moment; thus, "my" time becomes the span of my
life. Rather than living in the present in terms of the
41
Marvin D. Brown, "Gabriel Marcel on the Lost
Sense of Ontological Mystery," The IIiff Review 11 (Fall
1954): 21-29.
126
future, Heidegger proposes living in the present as if the
future were already at hand, and the past is assimilated.
For example, Osborne's characters in The Hotel in Amsterdam
and West of Suez are caught in the grip of boredom and
monotony because of the meaninglessness of their present
existence. Further, the notion of eschatology is trans
literated into an eskaton (that is, impending dread of
one’s own finiteness) that hammers at man's existence
moment-by-moment.
Heidegger's ontology proceeds from the Greek
Heraclitus, and Parmenides, as well as the tradition of
Hegel and Kant; moreover, he raises the question of "what
does it mean to exist?" and redefines Greek and German
words to go beyond traditional categories of thought. To
be sure, ontology for Heidegger is redefined apart from the
traditional scholastic speculation of an abstract rational
cast, and placed in the setting of Dasein (man in exis
tence), or Sein as "Being," or "beings." Heidegger does
not try to define "Being" because he sees its meaning in
living presence. Heidegger's metaphysics is a redefinition
that seeks to recover the Greek "physis" as not meaning
natural phenomena, as such, but "self-blossoming emergence
127
and power to endure." He seems to believe that in the
modern era man opposes the psychic, the animated, the
living, in favor of the "physical." Heidegger seeks to
overthrow the long dichotomy in Western philosophy that
Parmenides favored static Being as unchanging (apparently
against common sense) and Heraclitus favored Becoming or
constant change and flux; Heidegger argues for a new meta
physics that sees a Becoming in all of Being. This becomes
extremely important for our later consideration of drama
and the theatre.^
Heidegger rejects, surprisingly in one sense, but
understandably in reflection on his interpretation of
Heraclitus and Parmenides, in turn the theory of knowledge
of Plato, Descartes, and Kant. He attacks the stream of
humanism because of its "objectification of truth" and
44
Heidegger's concern is for "humanization of truth." The
ideal essence of a Plato, Kant, or Hegel gives way to the
existential of Heidegger. Thus it is not surprising that
42
Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics
(Garden City, N. Y. : Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1961),
pp. 11-12.
43
W. J. Jones, A History of Western Philosophy (New
York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1952), pp. 38-43.
44
Langan, Meaning of Heidegger, pp. 172-73.
128
Heidegger further seeks to topple the dichotomy of Plato,
and the subsequent heritage of the ideal versus real, or,
for that matter, the classic dualism of Western civiliza
tion (e.g., Judaism and Christianity) of good versus evil,
or mind versus matter by a perspective of unification or
wholeness (perhaps a hint of Hinduism) in Being. Classic
idealism of a world of ideas or pure essences as models of
form for the material world are equally rejected.
Heidegger's Sein und Zeit seeks to discover the
question of "what does it mean to exist?" by description of
Dasein or man or Being in existence. Heidegger's existen
tialism "does not turn to existence in the sense that it
finds human values emergent from mere facts, as pragmatism
or positivism try to do," but freedom itself is the source
45
of ultimate value, value generated by free decisions. A
final example of Heidegger's recasting is the Greek word,
aXriOeia (Aletheia), for truth. The Latin "veritas" came to
be the translation, but has more of the connotation of
rational knowledge, whereas "aletheia" means the union of
"physis” inherent in "aletheia" (now broken in the modern
era) and suggesting a power that manifests itself in
unconcealment. Heidegger sees "aletheia" as misconstrued
45
Grene, Dreadful Freedom, p. 12.
129
today as "correctness,” and "physis” and "logos" as trans
formed into idea and statement, rather than their existen
tial meaning of "living matter" and "wisdom in
46
personality."
Let us turn now to a consideration of the various
theories of art of the existential thinkers. Camus,
Berdyaev, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer are treated in turn.
Sartre is treated briefly, while Heidegger is given greater
depth.
It could be said that Albert Camus's Caligula is a
drama that illustrates Camus's theory of art, as well as
his theory of existential drama. The play is a being in
itself. It is self-contained and exists by itself. But
its being is affirmed and authenticated in living existence
by production and actors. As with all plays, production
brings being to an otherwise inert and static script into
living authenticity. The play's protagonist, Caligula,
lives in the state of nihilism, of meaninglessness. Thus,
the portrait of ancient existential revolt, alienation,
and awareness of the absurdity of man's predicament is
correlated to modern man’s similar situation. The story or
46
Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, pp. 86-87.
130
plot of Caligula merely reflects the existential truth
telling of Camus's perceptions about the meaninglessness of
modern life. Camus's dramatic art is spontaneous and
sincere just "like the child who speaks his mind without
malice, telling the truth among stiffened, formal and
47
hypocritical lying adults." In a similar fashion,
Osborne's recent play, A Sense of Detachment, is a spicy
collage of spontaneous outbursts on modern existence by
various characters from multiple age levels.
Certainly, Osborne's plays portray the "subject" of
man's existence. That is, a basic problem to understanding
existentialism in art or in the drama is that most people
in the modern world think of art as a matter of objects.
What existentialism does is to reorient our thinking to
conceive of drama and the dramatic production as subject.
Most of us conceive of the drama in the most factual and
objective terms. The sensational perception of Locke and
Hume still dominates most aesthetic theories of the theatre.
Stimulus and response of behavior psychology deeply per
vades explanations of audience/actor/production. The
47
Arthur B. Follice, Art and Existentialism
(Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1962),
p. 725.
131
various existential thinkers seek to restore awareness that
the drama exists and appeals because of its portrayal of
man's consciousness or being. If audience and actor and
playwright participate in a creative act together, the
existentialist would say that the prime motivating factor
is man's yearning for being, for life, for authentication
of one's right to live. Immersion into being is what
motivates us to see a play. The story of the play tells
us the subjective truth about our own existence.
Nicholas Berdyaev saw erotic energy as "the eternal
48
source of creativity." Drawing from his roots in Mother
Russia, and the soil of the Russian Orthodox Church,
Berdyaev became the existential leader of the Slavophils
in Paris and the Sorbonne in the 1920s and 1930s. He
emphasized "freedom" of the human spirit throughout all of
his writings in a basic protest to the Comtean positivism
and deterministic materialism that undergirded the commu
nist movement.
Berdyaev also sees art as "liberation" and a
49
"partial transfiguration of life." Berdyaev postulates a
48
Nicholas Berdyaev, The Meaning of the Creative
Act (New York: Harper and Bros., 1954), p. 224.
49
Ibid., p. 225.
132
basic metaphysical thrust in his writings, and exposes
himself as somewhat of a Platonist in his statement: "In
the creative-artistic attitude towards this world we catch
50
a glimpse of another world." But he insists that one
attains the "beauty of the world" in freedom and not in
compulsion. Berdyaev feels that "artistic creativity is
ontological rather than psychological in nature," and as
such shares a common "ontological" concern with the various
51
existential thinkers. He characterizes the tragedy of
ereativeness as one of a gulf between "aim and realiza
tion"; but the artist tries "to break out through this
52
world to another world." Berdyaev seemed to be the
perfect theorist for his fellow exile, Marc Chagall, as
both saw the creative act as a divine intervention— that
5 3
is, theurgical. As with the other existentialists,
Berdyaev perceived the "act of life" as the "transcendent
54
longing" for Being. In contrast, he had a poor opinion
of realism, calling it the "data of the world": "furthest
removed from the essence of every creative act— the least
50t, . , 51
Ibid. Ibid.
EL O CjO
Ibid., pp. 226, 234. Ibid., p. 226.
Ibid., p. 232.
133
creative form of art. Realism, says Berdyaev, "depresses
55
and quenches the artist’s impulses.” Certainly, John
Osborne's dramas can hardly be justified on such a meta
physical thrust as "divine intervention," but it does seem
obvious that Osborne is acutely aware of the limitations of
the realistic aesthetic in the theatre.
Again, both Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur
Schopenhauer saw the "limitations of rational and scien-
56
tific knowledge." They, like the other existentialists,
saw that science could not help one to comprehend ultimate
reality. Nietzsche insisted that pain, suffering, and evil
lie at the root of human life and that art is born out of
this awareness. Sartre also saw the limitations of the
scientific view, especially as it tended to reduce words
and poetry to "objects" rather than signification or
57
meaning.
According to Nietzsche Greek art stemmed from the
Apollonian emphasis on form and reason (sculpture), as well
Ibid., p. 237.
56
Kurt F. Reinhardt, The Existentialist Revolt (New
York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1960), p. 70.
57
Jean-Paul Sartre, "What Is Literature?" in
Aesthetic Theories, ed. Kurt Aschenbrennen and Arnold
Isenberg (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
1965), pp. 478-79.
134
as the Dionysian emphasis of intoxication (music).
Nietzsche saw the joining of the two into Greek tragedy,
especially as actors spoke in Apollonian language while the
Chorus danced and changed the "irrational sentiments" of
58
the Dionysian. The dramatic work of art is transfigured
beyond change and contingency, as well as being raised
59
"above the flux of time into a realm of lasting validity."
Further, the intoxication of the Dionysian "transcends the
60
finiteness and narrowness of external reality." But
Nietzsche says that Greek "rationalism and skepticism"
61
destroyed both Greek mythology and Greek tragedy. The
modern existential corollary is the same. Truth is equated
with facts, not as human life in pain, suffering, death.
Art triumphs over death! Existence is made bearable by
art, music, or drama.^
Heidegger's theory of art encompasses the "unfold
ing of Being" through Earth, World, Dasein, Schein,
58
Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy,” in
Aesthetic Theories, ed. Kurt Aschenbrennen and Arnold
Isenberg (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
1965), pp. 341-43.
59
Reinhardt, Existentialist Revolt, pp. 69-70.
^Ibid., p. 69. ^Ibid.
62t1 . ,
Ibid., p. 70.
135
authentic techne is distinguished from inauthentic tech
nique. Certainly, Heidegger’s definition of art as the
"unfolding of Being” follows from the previous considera
tions of Heidegger’s thought; he sees revelation, "aletheia”
or Truth, unfolding in art, and that original thought or
poeticizing leads forward, brings to light what is hidden.
Further, what is made, wrought, created in art is not a
63
thing but a disclosure. The present writer feels that
such "disclosure" is a de facto perception by any observer
of Osborne’s plays, but, ironically, Osborne himself might
not conceive of his impact in just those terms. Yet,
Heidegger insists that art exists because man has absolute
need of it to make his life or existence meaningful; that
is, in the beholder's confrontation with the work of art,
the art work arrests the beholder's commonplace existence
and discloses essential Being to him and authenticates his
. ^ 64
existence.
Heidegger still forges a new vocabulary to skirt
the encrustrations of traditional categories; for instance,
63
Martin Heidegger, Per Ursprung Des Kunstwerkes
(Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam Jun, 1960), pp. 10-11.
64
Joseph Sadzik, Esthetique de Martin Heidegger
(Paris: Editions Universitaires, 1963), pp. 184-85.
136
he prefers the word "Kunstwerk" or "art work" in opposition
to the objectification tendency in the "scientific"
aesthetic connotations, and asserts that aesthetics can
never explain beauty. He follows the Greeks in identifying
as synonymous beautiful, good, real, true. For Heidegger
to be beautiful means to shine, gleam, and blaze forth, to
be revealed in one’s essential nature, to be disclosed in
65
one's true Being. Therefore, Being and beauty belong
together for beauty is disclosure, and inherent in the work
is the tension of struggle, just as struggle is inherent in
66
Being.
Heidegger continues his discussion of philology by
extending it to the art of poetry and language itself. He
feels that the poet and the thinker share the responsibil
ity of "bringing Being to house" in forging language
because language itself is poetry in a fundamental sense
67
and a way that Truth or Being manifests itself. Surely
if any modern dramatist forges rhetoric to get at the root
of modern man's dilemmas, it is John Osborne. Chapter VI
65
Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, p. 111.
66
Sadzik, Esthetique de Martin Heidegger, pp. 193-
94 .
67
Langan, Meaning of Heidegger, pp. 110-12.
137
deals more fully with these implieations. Certainly, this
notion resembles the artistic theory of Emerson in seeing
all words and all material objects as symbols of spirit;
implicit in Emerson remains the old'Platonic dichotomy of
spirit versus matter which is not the case for Heidegger
because he sees Being as united in spirit and matter, while
art is the emergence of Being and Schein out of matter.
Heidegger's theory of art revolves around a series
of key postulates: Earth, World, Dasein, Schein. He
posits Earth (matter) as the base of art, for it includes
stone, colors, wood, sound, motion which becomes the
"fructifier"; that is, it is the actual material out of
which and among which man must build his art. Dasein, or
human existence, takes from or draws from or draws out of
stone, colors, etc., in an act of illumination (World)
creates the work of art. Thus, human existence acts as a
mid-wife to art. World does not connote cosmos, but in
one sense might be equated to Zeitgeist (spirit of the
times), or even Mythos; it means that in the act of crea
tion that the work of art is the result of the meeting of
"desires and ideas and lights" with Earth, as Dasein
illuminates Earth with those "desires and ideas." But
Earth does not give itself over completely, and forces the
138
World to sink its tentacles into its resistant soil and
68
become Sein (Being).
Schein, on the other hand, is the "appearance” of
the work of art, but to the extent that it has emerged out
of Being, it falters, yet to the extent that Schein conveys
Being and remains integrated in Being in the work of art,
69
it unfolds Truth. The driving power behind Dasein's "act
of illumination" is Eros which in the "beautiful" transports
man out of and beyond himself to Being; further, the erotic
possession wrenches human existence out of the oblivion of
70
Being, and gives it insight into Being. Osborne's dramas
seem to portray good deal of Schein as professed criticism
of the Schein of contemporary life. Osborne's erotic
language conveys Schein, while the plays as a whole do point
often to a more important Sein. In connection with these
concepts, it must be said that for Heidegger, our cognitive
approach to Being is at the expense of erotic-artistic
71
possession inspired by Being itself.
6 8
Verseyi, Heidegger, Being, and Truth, pp. 95-105.
69
Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, pp. 84-87.
70
Verseyi, Heidegger, Being, and Truth, p. 94.
^Ibid., pp. 94-95.
139
Heidegger's principal essay on art, "Ursprung Des
Kunstwerkes," or "Origin of the Work of Art" explains that
the essence of a utensil lies in usefulness, in one sense,
but in a painting of a pair of peasants' boots by Van Gogh
the boots have an existential meaning: "the boots belong
here, they gather in themselves the whole world of this man,
they are all the more significant and comprehensive bond
72
between man and earth, and point to a whole." Thus, for
Heidegger, a Greek temple is not the image of something
else, such as a Platonic ideal construction, for it repre
sents nothing; the temple is an existential support of our
Dasein for it holds mythological content of subjective
models: it unites all the aspects of the life of a nation
— "that of birth and death, blessing and disaster, triumph
73
and defeat, joy, endurance, agony and ruin." For
Heidegger man creates the work of art not so much by him
self as he is the "fated" instrument of Being: he is a
persona, a mask and Being speaks through him. The artist
is ecstatic, possessed by Being, and threatened by the
74
Eskaton.
72
Heidegger, Kunstwerkes, p. 43.
73
Verseyi, Heidegger, Being, and Truth, pp. 184-97.
74
Sadzik, Esthetique de Martin Heidegger, pp. 184-
97.
140
In summary of Sadzik's Esthetique de Martin Heideg
ger , we see some salient features of Heidegger's aesthetics
for he finds that Heidegger conceives of the work of art as
a Being in another dimension than the ordinary thing, as
a work existing for itself; further, "that there is always
essentially an incarnation of the human spirit, that is to
say, a union of the human spirit with the material. Works
75
of art never age." Sadzik interprets Heidegger as seeing
man as an incarnated spirit, and that art is "an ontologi
cal resemblance to man himself"; whereas man's thrust to
creativity is done in the likeness of man, but, also out of
76
the necessity of Being's demand on man. He notes that
Heidegger uses the German word "herstellen," not in the
sense of production, but to make known or clear that which
is unknown. Also, Sadzik illustrates this notion by
referring to the sound of music as a means of perceiving
"physis" (the final reality) as Being. Sadzik says: "the
abstract painting has rendered again more purely this ini
tiation to the material reality in divesting itself of a
literary control which does not belong to the essence of
the painting. Thus it is that we understand the words of
f7r r7£5
Ibid., pp. 184-85. Ibid., 195-96.
141
77
Heidegger on the revelation of Earth."
Sadzik interprets Heidegger as implying that art
has a double face to it; for example, the symphony's magic
gives us an astonishment when we find that the tones escape
us. Sadzik dwells on the battle, the conflict, of Earth
and World, and the tear or break of the battle is the
78
executed pen of the poet, or the stroke of the painter.
Yet, there is also the dialectic of "rest" as opposed to
the "tension" in the work of art, for the "rest" of the
work of art is not the peace of death because the work
79
lives before the beholder. Indeed, the Being of the
beholder seeks to be "at one" with the "meaning" of the
work of art, in the joy that it pours out. Finally, Sadzik
interprets Heidegger in terms of "thought" as the key to
poetic creativity, and as a manifestation of Being, he
says, "the poetic essence of thought assures the rule of
80
the Truth of Being."
The curse of art for Heidegger is technique which
supports the inauthentic, and Schein without Sein. He
77
Sadzik, Esthetique de Martin Heidegger, pp. 191-
92.
78 79
Ibid., pp. 193-94. Ibid., pp. 192-93.
80
Ibid., pp. 195-97.
142
distinguishes carefully between technique and teehne; thus,
modern technique is a form of "discovery" but not in the
same way as the techne of the Greeks. Modern technique is
not asking the "things-that-are" to yield up their Being;
rather it demands of material things that yield up their
energy, which modern man wants to transform in a thousand
ways. He contrasts older machines that cooperated with the
elements, such as the windmill, to that of strip coal
mining as an illustration of the tyranny of technique, and
its objectification of nature, reducing subject to object.
Thus, man can be reduced to "manpower" in a factory or to
"patients" in a modern hospital. In terms of art the
danger of technique as man's enslaving everything to a
scheme is that poiesis (thought poeticizing), or disclosure
in art is suppressed, that truth itself is forgotten, that
81
we are blinded to the truth of our essential nature.
Let us now consider the existential theories as
applied to the performing arts, especially the dance, opera,
drama, actor, and critic. In regard to the dance it should
be noted that this is the most physical of the arts for
performance, yet, in Heidegger's terms, its beauty derives
81
Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, pp. 133-
34; 137-39.
143
from "springing out of Earth," by taking postures, poses,
movements that testify to the driving force of Eros, to
the demands of "emergent Earth." It is a physical art, yet
its Schein (appearance) gives Sein (vision) in spirit. For
the dancer it is not so much a matter of technique (Schein),
as it is the feeling and expression of the dance. The
greatness of Nureyev or Nijinsky is their transcendence of
mere technique to Sein. Sein can be seen in the gestalt or
all movements put together, but the fragmented specific
movements tend to pull Sein away. The mystery of musical
sound tends to enhance the ineffable quality of the dance.
Further, every dancer can master the technique of pirou
ette, attitude, entre chats, arabesque, but the feeling and
expression that gives Sein is another matter; indeed,
modern dance or ballet are equally applicable to existen
tial notions. Yet, Osborne's The Entertainer and The World
of Paul Slickey have numerous dance sequences that reveal
the Schein of modern existence rather than Sein.
On the other hand, the mythological "given" of
Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" or Stravinsky's "Les Sylphides,"
or, for that matter, Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade,"
(which might be seen as Heidegger's World notion) suggests
existential universal concerns of love and death,
144
subjective expressions of every man's life. The movement
and form seem to unfold the existential Truth of the mythos
in portrait of pity, joy, sorrow, vitality and transcend
the matter of body into resolution.
The "mythos" or the vehicle for the opera form of
performing art provides an existential insight or vision
into the totality of life, into the meaning of life's
existence. For example, Wagner's Tristan and Isolde or
Bizet's Carmen unfold the Being of the tension of love
strife, an existential concern of all mankind. The exag
gerated movements, stilted acting tend to heighten the
inward subjective feelings of the character's existence and
unfold Sein. The immediate intuitive apprehension by the
beholder of the feelings emergent from the "World" of the
mythos and character (emergent from the Earth of Dasein) is
enhanced by tempo of orchestra, and surging power of
operatic singer. Indeed, his song is radiant Schein with
implicit unfolding of Sein. To the extent the operatic
score of music, the staging of the production, or the
rendering of interpretation by the opera singer fails to
give vision of Being and leaves the audience in Nothingness
(i.e., that sense of boredom), then the opera may, or may
not, be judged in one of its component parts to be
145
inadequate art. That is to say, the opera’s grandeur is in
unfolding of ecstatic vision to the opera beholder; however
if he bears trite "Schein” music, or he sees that conven
tional, stereotyped characters which remain conventional
with no transcendent music to unfold their Being, or the
"mythos" itself, as vehicle for the opera, is without exis
tential relevance, and cannot be related to or felt by the
existential situation of the audience, then the opera is a
failure.
The musical comedy as an art form truly expresses
the "mythos" that is America, whether it be religious
fervor joined with nationalistic piety as in George M.
Cohan's Yankee Doodle Dandy (as only Americans can serve up
their god in Uncle Sam clothing), or whether it be the
transfigured Protestant Ethic found in the manifest destiny
of Captain Andy’s Showboat, or whether it is the mythos of
the hope of the American Dream realized in Rogers and
Hammerstein's Oklahoma, or whether it is the triumph of the
American Way in militant egalitarianism or Cinderella's
social mobility in My Fair Lady, or whether it is the
mythos of social justice found incarnate in Porgy and Bess.
Yet, the existentialist might see much of musical comedy
that is Schein more than Sein because there are the
146
continual trite songs that seldom soar beyond a beat on the
sidewalk, the implicit commercial fakery (Schein) of
Broadway producers and Broadway consumers (more Schein),
the conventional and stereotyped jokes, dialogue, situa
tions that, often as not, reveal momentarily the power of
Sein, but forever whimper in Schein. The same could be
said for the aforementioned musicals of John Osborne,
except that Osborne utilizes the shoddy Schein to deliber
ately seek meaning beyond the commercial fakery.
A continual artistic problem is the confusion of
Sein and Schein. For example, an illustration in the news
paper is to a greater degree Schein, but for many people it
may be confused with the spirit or truth of Sein; therefore,
in their aesthetic appraisal they cannot distinguish the
notion that Michelangelo's "David" or Botticelli's "Birth
of Venus" express Sein's truth to a much higher intensity
than in the newspaper's illustration, that Schein is there
in the canvas, the stone, the wooden frame, the materials
of paint and color, but that the vision of Botticelli or
Michelangelo excels any newspaper illustration. Yet, the
same newspaper projected on the background screen of a
Brechtian play can by Schein (appearance) give vent to Sein.
Indeed, the confusion of Schein and Sein or their improper
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channeling may contribute to "poor” art or "good" art, to
a "good" production or a "bad" production, to a good play
or a bad play.
While nudity in the theatre certainly symbolizes
the driving revolt of Eros (Dasein) against the repression
of Schein (apparently a result of modern man's love of
things, gadgets, and affluence rather than Sorge [care] for
other human beings or the communal expression of Sorge), it
must be said that 0 Calcutta! as an artistic effect on the
beholder solicits Schein and detracts from its original
intention of Sein. Kenneth Tynan was tired of repression
of the spirit, but his production focuses on Schein and
Sein is eclipsed. Yet, Osborne uses nudity and eros on
occasion (i.e., The Entertainer and Inadmissible Evidence)
to good advantage as he seems to perceive the modern exis
tential dilemma of the divorcement of eros from sorge. On
the other hand, a pornographic movie provokes Schein for
Schein's sake, appearance for appearance's sake, unless it
is an Andy Worhol who is apparently sensitive to this and
makes ironic existential thrusts of parody on Schein for
Schein's sake.
Youth in America and England in recent years have
felt the "awesome terror" of Nothingness (as a vague
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feeling, but not conscious, necessarily), perhaps as a
direct confrontation with possibility of death in war, but,
more profoundly, as "living existential death" in the
sameness, blandness, meaninglessness in the midst of plenty,
or doubt and despair become living realities. Their con
frontation with a reality that is almost apocalyptic, that
is, contains portents of social revolution, destruction of
older values, and even the "end of an age," has projected a
newer "mythological content" that vitally expresses, and as
the existentialist might say, one of authenticity.
To be sure, the mythos of Hair in its concern over
vitality of life in "a dying nation" still holds to older
mythos such as confident self-renewal. Yet, within the
framework of Heidegger's categories of art, Hair does have
an implicit "pointer" to Sein in terms of a literal hair
style, or clothes, or life style that seeks to advocate the
overthrow of the inauthentic Schein of a commercial-
positivistic society. Yet, it must be said that the poetic
lines, many of the songs, as well as an obvious commercial
ization of the play, represents more of a "falling out of
Being" than an unfolding.
In a real sense Jesus Christ, Superstar or Godspell
are the representative American operas for the implicit
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mythos of transcendent salvation. The "falling out of
Being” from organized religion has either propelled many
young Americans to existential self-authentication in Jesus
cults, or as active devotees in cultic "heroes" of film.
Thus, it was only a logical conclusion that the "mythic
hero of heroes" would become a symbol of transcendence in
the face of modern anxiety. For it makes no difference of
the "factuality" of Jesus, the existentialist would say,
but the mythological symbols as appropriated to the person's
present feeling of dread, or need for hope, or meaning in
existence. The rock-religious musical provides a trans
cendence of the trite in commercial society, as well as a
recharging of emotions drained away by the technological
machine.
Group grope clearly seeks Sein because the fusion
of sound, sight, effect--tries to go beyond the terrible
"fear and trembling" of anxiety produced by the emptiness
of modern existence. Youth is deeply aware of this tragic
state, and yearns for wholeness that shattered society
holds back in Schein. Youth yearns for meaning in the face
of barrenness, for vision and mystery in an era that denies
all mystery (Sein) and that tries to make all of life into
fact (Schein). Truly, that late on-going hippie, Ezra
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Pound, illustrates this notion in his love for Italy
because of the artistic vitality inherent in a more non
mechanical culture. Pound reacted in revulsion to his
native land by a return to the classical languages, espe
cially in his view that "to koAov (the beautiful) has
become the decree of the market place." The rock-musical's
lasting artistic merit is questionable. Indeed, Heidegger
might point to the preponderance of pretense and appearance
(Schein), of mocking fakery, of a pathetic inversion of the
same commercial society that it seeks to surpass.
The existentialists would probably agree that
English and American drama has had a long struggle with
Earth and that the World has, often as not, stunted the
emerging drama. Dasein has been inept as mid-wife. To be
sure, drama as pretense, hypocrisy, fakery (Schein) has
filled the dramatic history books in America, for dramatic
literature of the eighteenth century was a staple of
Restoration pretense, while the nineteenth century turned a
grand theme of good versus evil into a Schein of inauthen
ticity in the melodrama with cardboard characters, spurious
plots, and even more Schein infested characterizations,
and "theatrics" of production. The twentieth century has
had its inundation of plays, radio programs, films,
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television shows that seldom reveal Sein, for Schein com
pletely obscures the ultimate existential questions: What
is existence? What is the meaning of Death? What does it
mean to be a human being?
Perhaps the existential thinkers would say that
modern tragedy is possible once the implicit mythos of man
in dread before the absent gods is made clear to the
beholder. Perhaps this is the genius of Samuel Beckett as
he reveals the awesome mystery of Sein amidst the Schein of
man's futility. For the existentialist the drama's roots
are grounded in the authentic expression of Sein, and the
mythos (World), as a given anthropological story of
explanation of man or phenomena, such as the Babylonian
Gilgamesh epic. Other mythos for drama might include:
the celebration of the life-death cycle in Isis-Osiris, or
the venting of Sein's life force in Dionysius, or the life-
restoring hope mythos of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, or
the projected salvation-eschatology of Marxist-Leninism.
Thus, Ionesco's Exit the King existentially reveals the
mythos of man's age old confrontation with death and
finitude; Shakespeare's Othello existentially reveals the
mythos of faith and trust in tension with existential doubt
and despair; Samuel Beckett's Krapp’s Last Tape portrays
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existentially the mythos of man's barren alienation from
Sein (almost a double paradox), and yet Schein's yearning
for reunion with Sein. Osborne, too, treats of this
divorcement in terms of language, characterization, and
staging. His play, Inadmissible Evidence, is a profound
exploration of one man's Schein without Sein.
The Existentialists would probably say that the
"unfolding of Being" is quite possible in whatever genre
used on the stage: realism, naturalism, expressionism,
surrealism, ritual theatre, dadaism, theatre of cruelty,
or the "holy theatre" of Grotowski. To the extent that the
existentialist sees poeticizing an act of revealing Sein,
then we can see the songs of Brecht as vision to Being,
the "theatre of poetry" of Jean Cocteau as existential
metaphor. But Maxwell Anderson's "poetry in the theatre”
is more inauthentic and filled with Schein.
Although the Existentialists' criteria for art do
make an implicit disparagement of art forms that emphasize
the "surface details," or "the natural processes," it is
quite possible to think of realistic or naturalistic drama
within his perspective. Heidegger says that art must be
more than man (Dasein) tied to Earth, for he sees true art
as unfolding from Earth, yet paradoxically holding its
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roots in Earth. How do we see this "to kalon," this
beautiful? When Schein is united in Sein will we see it;
it is a vision like an icon from Byzantium of old, a Greek
tragedy's implicit existential concern of fate, guilt,
justice, and self-blindness, a balance, or counterpoint
antithesis of one of Bach's fugues, testifying to the
infinite. Further, the vision of the beautiful is appre
hended by Chagall's "floating lovers," that is, the exis
tential ecstatic, or in the "personality" of an Edvard
Munch's "Scream," or, finally, the existential anxiety of
Georg Buchner's Woyzeck.
The existentialist thinkers would probably say that
the James Bond movies or "Hawaii-Five-0" on television
express a great deal more Schein than Sein because of their
conventional plots, faceless stereotyped characters, but,
more importantly, because the total work of art is not
rooted existentially in Being. That is, the characters
never suffer, exhibit pity, feel compassion— which are
common, yet powerful existential events of life. Further,
"love" implicit in the plot exhibits mere Schein of appear
ance rather than the ring of the authentic as in full
personality fulfillment of Sein. Indeed, the "blankness"
of emotion exhibited by the characters reveals much to an
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outsider--it reveals a society of people alienated in feel
ing, estranged in emotion, and deadened in sensitivity.
Also, the plot of "Bond” or "Hawaii" consistently treats,
as again revealing the society, death as fact rather than
subject. This is in part the reason for the destruction of
tragedy in modern drama or film because a technological
society in its efficient imperative demands that the ulti
mate anxiety of existence be "forgotten" or "unmentioned";
therefore, the "bodies" are neatly eliminated with no blood
(at least Shakespeare's realism had vials of sheep blood
at hand), cops in the face of danger exhibit no existential
fear or dread of death. It is in this sense that the Sein
of Truth can be existentially applied to realism or
naturalistic theatre. Further, the blandness of talk, the
absence of authentic motivation, the lack of true character
development implies Schein without Sein. On the other
hand, many of Osborne's characters exhibit a certain auto
maton numbness that makes them seem inhuman. Obviously,
the anger (sorge) of Jimmy Porter sought to jar Alison out
of her alienation and lethargy.
Yet, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, or Arnold
Wesker utilize the data of factuality, but their selection
of material, their manipulation of characters and setting,
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and, for that matter, the production as guided by director,
scene designer, or lighting artist, unfolds far more Sein
than possible in James Bond.
What is the relation of Sein and the mythos
(World)? To be sure, the overpowering of the "life vital
ity" by refocusing of our attention on the object rather
than the subject, which certainly seems to be the case in
an urban-industrial-technical society, tends to destroy
Sein and turn all of our moment-to-moment occupations into
that with Schein. However, Sein, driven by Eros and seek
ing to Become, cannot be repressed and must find expression.
Thus, the playwright or actor is the instrument of Sein.
He is not acting upon so much as he is being acted upon.
The inauthentic prevents the expression of Sein. Modern
industrial society tends to cripple Sein's expression and
vital creativity is stunted. It is for this reason that
art has been alienated by the Church because this institu
tion has become a focal point of "celebration of business
enterprise."
Sein, or spirit, has ironically surrendered to
Schein in the Church. Thus, the original motivating power
for religion (Sein) has sought expression elsewhere, most
especially with the artists and poets who are the true
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spiritualists of the twentieth century. Sein in mythos is
graphically illustrated as it is existentially enacted on
the stage of the Roman Catholic Mass. Here the drama
enacts by Schein (ritual, and wafers, and color of vest
ments) but points to a vision of Sein. What most deeply
matters to human existence, for example, "suffering," or
meaning to one's life, or hope for the authentic, or over
coming of fate and "living death of despair," is dramatized.
The actors or priests become channels for Sein; the audi
ence participates authentically or inauthentically to the
extent that Sein overcomes Schein. If the communicant of
the drama confuses ritual with glass, or mortar and bricks
as only Schein, then Sein has been eclipsed and remains
hidden. Finally, Osborne, as well as a majority of con
temporary dramatists, is interested in the Christian
Church's lack of meaning. Osborne devotes several plays to
j
this exploration including: A Bond Honoured, Luther, and
A Subject for Scandal and Concern.
Further, the ritual theatre must seek a mythos,
from whence the participants and actors communicate in
meaningful existential exchange and awareness. For example,
Von Itallie's The Serpent, while certainly taking a well-
known mythos of the Old Testament concerning the "falling
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out of Being," probably fails to relate to most people
simply because the Christian-Judicial series of mythos have
become unknown or not understood in the modern scientific
world. This is precisely why Christianity has become
irrelevant; indeed, the myths or conveyors of existential
truths for practical living right now have become empty.
Von Itallie truly points to Sein, but the methodology of
Schein in an out-worn mythos unknown to the modern world
fails to provide his intention. Yet, Von Itallie's America,
Hurrah! captures the generalized mythos of American assump
tions: crass materialism, lack of care for the society and
mankind as a whole, blatant exploitation, demonic commer
cialization of all values. While not the strictly ritual
form of The Serpent, America, Hurrah! does provide a mythos
of the American Dream turned into a nightmare that the
society can as a whole relate to in a deeper awarenss of
Sein.
What of the beholder? As noted previously in the
discussion of the existentialists; theory of art, he sought
to overthrow the basic dichotomy of spirit/matter by
postulating the unity of Sein, Schein, Dasein. Thus,
Dasein or human existence confronts the unfolding of Being
in the drama which is implicit in the meaning of the play
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as a totality, not in any fragmented sense of individual
characters or conscious solicitation on the part of scenes.
Dialogue should not make the audience aware of "style" as
the object of truth lest it be a manifestation of Schein.
Certainly, character and characterization by the actor
which reveals the totality of Sein (Truth) must move
together to enhance the meaning of the play. To the extent
that the actor's technique or style transcends "meaning"
and fixes the audience's attention on studied pauses,
verbal facility, polished movements, then the existential
ist would probably say that Schein is more manifest than
Sein. Perhaps an example is the recent production of Home
in which audience awareness of the studied and polished
acting technique of Gielgud and Richardson makes itself
more manifest than the meaning of the play itself.
What about Aristotle's theory of identification?
Most likely the existential thinker would seek to correct
a misinterpretation of Aristotle: namely, that Aristotle
did not mean that the beholder should identify with "indi
vidual” persons on the stage. This seems to be the case in
view of the fact that the use of masks tended to heighten
"characters" into "symbols" rather than to construe any
modern realistic identification notion. On the other hand,
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it appears that John Osborne seeks to have his theatre
audiences "identify” with the existential problems of his
characters, such as anxiety, search for identity, pursuit
of meaning. Osborne seems less interested in a psychologi
cal identification with the characters. Thus, the beholder
found purgation of emotions in the total meaning of the
play, just as the Roman Catholic Mass solicits a catharsis
through meaning rather than the Schein of an individual
priest.
In the Poetics Aristotle says: "For tragedy is an
imitation, not of man, but of our action and of life, and
life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action,
not a quality. Now character determines men's qualities,
but it is by their actions that they are happy or the
reverse." Also, "character comes in as subsidiary to the
actions." Aristotle's statement that a "character must be
true to life" can be construed on a subjective basis, not
the objective of twentieth century thought. Further, pity
and fear should spring out of the plot, not from scenery or
spectacular effect. A textual translation of the Greek
reveals that the words have much more than we ordinarily
assume. For example, here is one sentence from the Poetics
which indicates that "plot" is really mistranslated in
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English because the Greek word used, is "mythos." Further,
the sentence fits nicely into existential notions: "The
plot (mythos) then is the first principle and as it were
82
the soul of tragedy: character comes second."
Thus, we might construe from the Greek text that
character connotes "subjective personality truth" rather
than the faceless realistic rendering of the modern
realistic drama; also, the emphasis on "action" and "legend
ary tale" to the expense of "character" clearly reveals the
existential nature of Aristotle’s theory. Even though such
categories of thought of Heidegger or Sartre are in the
twentieth century, they do point to a phenomenon of men
explaining their existence and fate by stories.
What of the place of the actor? To be sure, the
drama is a complex art form because actor, playwright,
director, scene designer, lighting artist work in unison to
convey the unfolding of Sein or Being. Certainly, the
Schein of the dramatist may become Sein through the actor,
or director. The several existential thinkers might see
the current emphasis of actor for actor's sake as only
Schein. Again, the Stanislavsky method of almost total
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Aristotle, Poetics (Cambridge: Harvard Univer
sity Press, 1927), pp. 26-27.
161
identification of actor and character stems from the cul
tural conditioning of emphasis on the "factuality" and
subsequently falling away from concern for "meaning" into
nihilism or apathy. In the identification method the
actor, in one sense, actually surrenders his Dasein for
another Dasein. To recover the actor and acting from
nihilism seems to be the integrity of the Grotowski theory
of drama and acting; he calls for a "holy acting" of
devotees, stripped of the technology of Schein, in perfor
mance of a given mythos.
Yet, the more symbolic method of acting seems to
be conducive to the lessening of Schein in order that the
?7orld' s ideas and Earth may give forth Sein through the
mid-wife mediator of the Actor in Dasein. To the extent
that the actor's ego or hubris obstructs the symbolism of
the character portrayed, then Schein is revealed, not Sein.
Further, the existentialists would probably respect
the Pataphysical movement in Paris that emphasizes acting
of "breaks" in movement and dialogue, that injects absur
dity in character portrayal to deliberately heighten the
total meaning to the audience, rather than permit identi
fication. One can readily appreciate that the existential
analysis is most appropriate to the Pataphysicals'
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revulsion with the denigration of scientific physics. Can
there be a more perfect example of the existential concept
of Zeit (time) in the Eskaton impinging as death than in
Ionesco's Exit the King? Antonin Artaud's Theatre of
Cruelty or Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi theatre would probably
satisfy the existential demand of Sein's vision in Schein
only in part. One suspects that Artaud or Jarry's total
purgation of the demonic involves Schein for Schein's sake
in the actor's cruelty or violence, with only an inkling
of the need for "authentic" feeling in a repressed era;
yet, on the other hand, Jean Genet follows in this tradi
tion with profound revelation of Sein. His symbolic
characters seem to call for an acting of nonidentification
with frequent use of masks.
Acting in the light of existentialism must be sub
ordinate to the total meaning of the play for there must be
an exchange of exhibitionism for authenticity. No one
knows this better than John Osborne because of his long
experience as an actor. On the other hand, a challenge to
the American acting establishment is Frank Silvera's
Theatre of Being which sees the actor as not "behaving,"
but he "Becomes," shuns the passive stereotype of illusion,
and through an act of "will" and "spirit" becomes the
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character. This is an attempt at existential structure,
although the existentialist might interpret this as little
more than compounded Schein. That is, existential acting
interpreted as only extra-Stanislavsky fails to realize
that "dead mirror emotion" will only beget more "dead
mirror obstructions.”
Certainly, the critic's perception will be shaped
to the World, often a limited shallow one of the factual
journalist. However, if the critic listens to intuitive
Sein, his own propensity for intellectual Schein may be
overcome.
In regard to the contemporary theatre, Heidegger's
existentialism is most timely. Sartre's existentialism
follows a social perspective, whereas Gabriel Marcel writes
plays that emphasize situation, with character interplay,
and "meaning” of the total play. Moreover, Richard
Schechner's "Ritual Theatre" emerges on existential lines,
but has more of a social therapy cast to it. While the
existentialist would probably favor the demise of the old
psychological drama, or the theatre of social realism, yet,
he might question the degree to which authentic Sein issues
forth from the theatre as a platform of prophecy (Peter
Weiss), a place not for sincerity but for factual truth
164
(theatre of fact of Rolf Hochhuth), a court room (Peter
Handke), a confessional (Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty), a
psycho-analytic-like transaction (James Joyce Memorial
Liquid Theatre), a shock therapy (Living Theatre), a
happening (Jan Kott's Theatre of the Streets).
The Existential Criteria for Dramatic
Analysis
As a basis for this proposed existential analysis
of John Osborne's plays a list of criteria is needed. In
order to distinguish more sharply between conventional
realistic dramatic criteria and the existential dramatic
criteria, the following list of concepts is submitted for
the reader's scrutiny. It is taken from the glossary of
Cleanth Brooks and Robert B. Heilman’s Understanding Drama:
1. Allegory: Narrative in which the persons and
events stand for a system of ideas. The charac
ters are often personifications of objects or
abstractions.
2. Anticlimax: A disappointing loss of tension or
force; a "let down"; a failure to reach an
expected intensity.
3. Atmosphere: Mood or feeling created by events,
places, and situations.
4. Attitude: Understanding and interpretation of
author's materials. His attitude expresses itself
in the use of the comic or tragic mode, in the use
or non-use of irony, in the tone and form of the
work, etc.
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5. Chorus: A singing and dancing group used to
comment on or interpret the action; to help create
tone; to dramatize the universal significance of
the conflict.
6. Chronicle Play: A play on a historical or bio
graphical theme.
7. Cliche: A worn-out expression such as "shaking
like a leaf."
8. Climax: The most intense moment of conflict; the
turning point.
9. Closet Drama: Drama intended to be read rather
than produced.
10. Coincidence: Simultaneous occurrence of two
events, such as two people's happening to come to
the same place at the same time, etc.
11. Comedy: Form of drama which has its orientation
in "the way of the world" rather than in ultimate
moral problems; which is concerned with man's
relation to society rather than to immutable
truths; which deals with experience at a level
where expediency and compromise are suitable rather
than questionable; and where the best judgment of
society rather than one's own conscience provides
the criterion of conduct.
12. Comedy of Humors: A kind of comedy of character
based upon the "humor" or dominant trait (avarice,
jealousy, trickiness, etc.) of character.
13. Comedy of Manners: Used in several senses. In
the more restricted usage, comedy which wittily
portrays fashionable life. But manners also means
"moral actions" and hence "character." Thus
"comedy of manners" becomes "comedy of character,"
in contrast with "comedy of situation" or
"intrigue comedy.”
14. Concentration: An effect of compactness and
intensity; getting to the "center" of things.
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15. Concrete: Expressed by means of actions and words
that are characterizing and meaningful, that is,
specific and original rather than stereotyped and
conventional.
16. Conventions: Techniques that are accepted by
common agreement.
17. Denouement: The resolution of "unravelling" or
"working out" of the plot.
18. Deus Ex Machina: "God out of a machine." Any
rescuing or saving agency introduced to bring about
a desired end. Use of the term generally implies
that logic of situation and character has been
ignored.
19. Dramatic: Having the quality of drama, that is,
presented by means of characters in action and
marked by the tension of conflict.
20. Episode: A loose term for any unit of action in
a play.
21. Focus: The directing of the reader's attention
primarily to one character, situation, or concept,
and the subordination of other interests to the
central one.
22. Form: The total organization of materials— ideas,
characters, situations, scenes, etc.; the arrange
ment of all the parts to create a desired effect;
the way in which the author sets forth his theme.
23. Functional: Having a definite function to perform
in the development of the play; helping carry out
the author's intention; not merely conventional,
or decorative, or existing for its own sake.
24. Heroic Drama: A form of drama, popular in the
late 17th century, which often involved a conflict
between love and honor, and which was character
ized by language at times poetic but generally
highflown and bombastic.
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25. High Comedy: A general term roughly denoting the
mature effects of comedy of character. Rather
than depending upon farce, intrigue, or other
kinds of situation, the author derives his effects
from a complex view of character.
26. Imagery: The use of images; the conveying of
meaning through appeal to the various senses;
communication by means of the concrete and the
particular.
27. Intrigue Comedy: Comedy of situation character
ized by stratagem and conspiracy, generally in
amorous matters.
28. Irony: Verbal irony or irony of statement is a
manner of expression by which the reader, in
order that he may be made to grasp the discrepan
cies of experience, is compelled to infer a good
deal more than the words say; the writer may use
understatement, in which he says less than he
means; or paradox, in which he stresses the
apparently self-contradictory; or, most frequently,
the device of saying what he does mean. Dramatic
irony or irony of situation— outcome is different
from what is expected or from what may seem
fitting.
29. Interior Monologue: A character's meditating with
himself; the equivalent of soliloquy.
30. Logical: As applied to drama or other literary
works, consistent with the terms of character,
situation, and mood which the author has adopted.
31. Method: All the procedures which the author uses
to accomplish his end.
32. Motivation: Logical accounting for the behavior
of the dramatis personae, primarily in terms of
"motives" but also by means of other devices which
produce anticipation of future events.
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33. Neo-Classical: Applied to certain beliefs and
practices of the European literary world of the
16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. In drama, neo-
classicism was marked by devotion to the "rules":
the three unities, the use of a chorus, the avoid
ance of violence on the stage, the use of only
royal or noble characters in tragedy, a severe
"correctness" in language, etc.
34. Objective: Objective and subjective are less
applicable in drama than in other literary forms
in that the dramatist must speak entirely through
the characters and therefore has less opportunity
for the direct comment and expression of personal
feelings and views which we call subjective.
35. Paradox: A statement or an occurrence which is
apparently self-contradictory but at the same time
profoundly logical.
36. Pathos: Literally "suffering"; hence, the quality
of a situation that evokes compassion or sympathy.
Pathos usually implies weakness, helplessness,
insurmountable difficulties.
37. Personification: Presenting as an animate charac
ter something inanimate, such as an object or an
abstraction.
38. Plot: The structure of the action.
39. Poetic Drama: Drama in which the lines make
regular use of the devices of poetry— rhythm,
metaphor, other kinds of imagery, etc.
40. Probability: Logicalness; consistency with the
terms of character and situation that are used.
Probability is often said to rely upon an author's
grasp of the "universal" that which is character
istic of human experience, that which "may”
happen.
41. Progression: Forward movement; the development of
the situation.
169
42. Realistic: Characterized by fidelity to the
generally observed facts of experience.
43. Rhetorical Structure: Arrangement of the words of
the dramatis personae.
44. Romantic: Implies that which is different from
everyday experience: unusual, remote, exotic,
idyllic, etc.
45. Selection: The author's choice of the materials
with which he must create the effects he desires.
46. Sentimentality: In a person, emotional response
in excess of the occasion; in a literary work,
the effort to secure an emotional response not
prepared for, or not justified by, the character
and situation.
47. Significant Variation: A type of structure in
which the effect is secured by an alteration in a
pattern of action which has become familiar by
repetition.
48. Soliloquy: An "alone-talk"; the "thinking aloud"
of one character; a speech which is not part of
a dialogue.
49. Stock Response: The immediate, standard, predict
able reaction of an uncritical reader to the con
ventional appeal of a stereotyped character,
situation, or emotion.
50. Structure: The arrangement of the larger elements,
especially the episodes and the details of action
within episodes; structure is functional in that
it is an important means of presenting theme.
51. Style: Usually denotes the selection and arrange
ment of words. In drama, the language is deter
mined to a considerable extent by the requirements
of character. Characters may of course speak
wittily or metaphorically or prosaically, etc.,
and their language may change somewhat as situa
tions change.
170
52. Suspense: A combination of uncertainty about and
intense interest in the outcome of an action or
the way in which the outcome is to be brought
about.
53. Symbol: An object or incident which stands for
something else, frequently, something limited and
concrete which stands for something inclusive and
abstract. A specific dramatic situation repre
senting universal or recurrent human relationships
may be said to be symbolic; a plot itself may be a
symbol.
54. Theatrical: Literally, characteristic of the
theatre. Theatrical has come to mean artificially
contrived effects, implausible situations intro
duced merely because they are "striking” or
spectacular, contrasts and clashes which exist for
their own sake rather than as the logical products
of theme and character. The theatrical situation
is melodramatic rather than dramatic; it is
external and showy, and often coincidental; it is
"sensational.” Theatrical speech is characterized
by inappropriate elevation, excessive emphasis,
cliches, pompousness instead of inherent serious
ness, rant instead of emotional force, the high
falutin instead of the truly poetic. Hence, a
"theatrical manner" suggests exaggeration, self-
consciousness, posturing.
55. Theme: In one sense, the general subject with
which a work is concerned. In another sense, the
"meaning" implied by the drama; what the author
is "saying"; his interpretation of experience.
56. Tone: General effect produced by an author's
selection and treatment of materials— as comic,
tragic, gay, etc. A product of the author's
attitude to his material and his skill in convey
ing that attitude to the reader. More inclusive
than but not wholly distinguishable from
atmosphere.
171
57. Tragedy: In general, that form of drama in which
the protagonist undergoes a morally significant
struggle; in which the conflict is rather within
a character than between characters or between a
character and external forces (though the conflict
ing elements may be symbolized in external form);
and in which the protagonist, although treated
sympathetically, incurs guilt of which the expia
tion (by suffering, death, or other means) is
part of the dramatic problem.
58. Unities: The "unities" of time, place, and action
were considered essential by Renaissance critics:
of time, that the action take place within a day;
of place, that the action take place within one
building or city; of action, that there be a
single plot of limited extent. Various modern
dramatists— Ibsen is one— are in practice compara
tively faithful to the unities, although only
unity of action is generally considered to have
theoretical justification.
59. Well-Made Play: An influential 19th century type
of drama, chiefly the work of the French dramatist
Scribe, in which all details of the action were
supposed to be very realistically worked out, with
especial reference to cause and effect. Many of
the devices now seem artificial and even melo
dramatic .
Further delineation in discernment of the three
principal staging methods or "aesthetics of the theatre" in
the Western world is provided in Table 1:
The table only serves as a general guide. The
citation of specific existential criteria will provide
numerous exceptions to specific authors and plays.
172
173
TABLE 1
COMPARATIVE AESTHETICS OF THE THEATRE
Aristotelian Theatre Brechtian Theatre Existential and Absurd Theatre
a) action or plot narrating action or plot and narrating
b) implicates the spectator in
a stage situation
c) wears down the spectator's
capacity for action
d) provides the spectator with
sensations
e) experience
f) the audience or spectator is
drawn into something
turns the spectator into an
observer
arouses his capacity for
action
forces the spectator to take
decisions
world image, or picture of
the world
audience is set opposite the
play or made to face some
thing
implicates the spectator in a
stage situation and also turns
the spectator into an observer
does neither one nor the other
neither, it provides him with
a new experience
experience, and world image,
or picture of the world
the audience or spectator is
drawn into something
g) suggestion argument suggestions and argument
174
TABLE 1— Continued
Aristotelian Theatre
h) sensations or instinctive
feelings are preserved
i) the spectator is in the thick
of it, shares the experience
j) the human being is taken for
granted or the supposition
that man is known
k) man is unchangeable; his ego
is static
1) anticipation of the play's
end
m) one scene for the next; or
one scene makes another
n) growth
Brechtian Theatre
sensations are driven to
realization or brought to
the point of recognition
the spectator stands outside,
studies
man is the subject of
investigation
man is alterable and able to
alter; his ego is constantly
renewing
anticipation of the play’s
course
each scene for itself
superimposition
Existential and Absurd Theatre
neither one or the other, new
sensitivities are found
the spectator is in the thick
of it, shares the experience
man is the subject of
investigation
man is unchangeable; his ego
is static
anticipation-of the play's end
and its course
either one scene for the next
or each scene for itself
growth and superimposition
175
TABLE 1-—Continued
Aristotelian Theatre Brechtian Theatre Existential and Absurd Theatre
o) linear action
p) evolutionary predestination;
determinism
q) man as a fixed point
r) thought determines being;
"thinking makes it so"
every scene is an entity to
itself, but the episodes
create a collective effect of
accumulation
leaps or jumps in movement
man as a process; or men in
a panorama of process
social being or forces of
society determines thought;
economics undergirds art,
ideas, and thought
both linear action and every
scene as an entity to itself
both evolutionary predistina-
tion and leaps or jumps in
movement
man is as a fixed point or
man is as a process
either thought determines
being or social being or
forces of society determines
thought
s) feeling reason feeling
The existential criteria for dramatic criticism and
analysis are as follows:
1. Existential conflict. A basic prerequisite for
drama, but in existential drama it becomes more of a self
conflict of character than a matter of character in con
flict with character. It may take its form in choice or
non/choice by a character. That is, Vladimir and Estrogen
in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot are more in conflict with
themselves than with one another. Also, the characters are,
or may be, in conflict with forces of the universe. The
characters authenticate themselves by choice or remain
inauthentic by their non-choice.
2. Existential protagonist and antagonist. Com
monly understood as the central characters of a drama who
become the well-spring of tension or dramatic action.
However, in existential drama such objective exterior
designation becomes irrelevant. The existential actor in
an existential-subjective play may find that unseen forces
are the actual protagonist and antagonist. The overpower
ing "conformity” as represented in Goldberg and MacCann in
Pinter’s The Birthday Party might be designated "antago
nists," while Stanley is vaguely a "protagonist." Yet,
obviously all characters of the play are victims of the
176
antagonist, "conformity."
3. Existential allegory. A narrative drama
associated with the medieval church and the modern Brecht.
Characters represent abstractions. However, the existen
tial drama may have allegory in the sense that a subjective
tension is transmuted into a dramatic form. For example,
Ionesco's Exit the King is a drama-metaphor of existential
life tension in all humanity between life-affirmation
versus death-wish.
4. Anti-climax. Generally absent from all exis
tential drama.
5. Atmosphere. In existential plays it is the
mood or feeling created by verbal and nonverbal suggestion
rather than by events, places, or situations. The imagina
tion of the audience is more heavily employed rather than
the sensation appeal of the visual as in realistic staging.
6. Chorus. In existential plays the multiple
characters may serve as their own chorus, and make comment
on themselves in self interpretation. An example is Samuel
Beckett's Endgame.
7. Cliche. Existential dramas may introduce radi
cal new verbal dialogue or staging to avoid worn out
theatrical expressions or methods. Some existential
177
dramatists, i.e., Sartre and Marcel, use conventional
realistic characterizations and staging, but intensify
certain special problems through incident or dialogue:
namely, freedom of choice as in The Flies.
8. Rising action. Generally absent in existential
drama as solicitation of perception of character angst or
apathy on the part of the audience is more important than
the Scribe-Sardou well-made play emphasis of plot and
act ion.
9. Closet drama. An existential drama is always
intended for production and not to be read. It has more of
a nonverbal essence to it than a verbal quality. However,
as thematic emphasis on a subjective experience pervades
in excessive proportion in the existential plays, then
subsequent eras may relegate them to the closet. Hair,
Jesus Christ Superstar, Oh! Calcutta!, could be described
as existential plays in their outcry for meaning, relevance,
transcendence, and erotic union with being. Yet, they are
only memories if read.
10. Coincidence. Such a dramatic convention is
foreign to the existential dramatist. Coincidence suggests
either cosmological fate or theological punishment. All
existential dramatists see only freedom in characterization
178
without any determinism. That is, Sartre's characters come
to hell together by self choice, not by fate in No Exit.
11. Chronicle or historical play. The existential
dramatist generally does not write logical sequence plays.
Orderly time events give way to disorder of scene sequence
and the capriciousness of man in time. The Chairos
(importance of the moment) takes precedence over the
Chronos (the cause-effect relation).
12. Comedy. Comedy is reinterpreted by existen
tial dramatists to blend with tragedy. The comedy/tragedy
paradox becomes intertwined for the existentialist because
he no longer believes in immutable truths. Therefore, the
laws of the gods are as relative as the laws of men. The
foibles of the universe are laughable as the foibles of
men in society.
13. Comedy of humors. Renaissance drama, as well
as a large portion of subsequent drama, exemplified man
kind's adherence or falling away from certain Aristotelian
virtues and vices such as avarice, jealousy, honor, love,
etc. The code of virtu pervades the Elizabethan and
Restoration English drama. But the existential dramatist
seeks to consider internal psychic problems of human
existence: identity, despair, and alienation of feelings.
179
Existential comedy involves the "absurdity of being alive"
apd the mystery of existence.
14. Comedy of manners. Existential drama could be
construed as "comedy of manners" but in a new sense. It is
neither witty nor fashionable as it often deals with
unfashionable people. Yet, like Noel Coward's comedy of
manners it has a certain wry horaor: e.g., Pinter's The
Room or Ionesco's The Bald Soprano. Also, there is a con
siderable moral preoccupation which reflects an existential
ethical concern on the part of a Jarry or a Genet.
15. Concentration. Whereas Brechtian dramatic
method is more loose and episodic, and realistic Aristote
lian drama tends to gain compactness and intensity as the
rising action progresses to a climax, the existential
drama is often compact and intense from beginning to end.
The shortness of the existential drama, especially in the
absurd vein with use of one-acts, may be explained by
their intended omission of loose construction or a rising
action. Michael McClure's The Beard is a case in point.
16. Concrete. Sartre and Marcel's existential
dramas seek to suggest the specific and original through
conventional realistic staging. Words and actions serve to
reveal the profound "concrete" inner experience of the
180
characters. The intensity of emphasis, as well as under
standing of peculiar problems known only to modern man, are
the territory of existential drama. While it is perfectly
true that existential drama, i.e., Beckett's Krapp1s Last
Tape, seeks to depart from the stereotyped and conventional,
there is now a tendency for common nomenclature such as
"identity," "despair," and "alienation” to become equally
stereotyped.
17. Conventions. Common conventions seemingly
acceptable to existential and absurd drama: (a) nonlinear
plot line; (b) a metaphorical marriage of script, scene
design, lighting, and actor to enunciate a mood or thematic
perception; (c) a central departure from emphasis on the
visual and exterior action to nonverbal suggestion and
imaginative insight.
18. Denouement. Rather than the untying or the
unravelling and resolution of the plot in Aristotelian
drama, the denouement might be construed in existential
drama as the posing of a problem that has no definite
solution. The "untying" of the plot is replaced by a grow
ing audience awareness of that problem. Of course, the
plays of Sartre, Camus, and Marcel follow the more
conventional denouement.
181
19. Deus ex machina. Used extensively in existen
tial and absurd existential plays. Logic of situation and
character may be ignored to "put across" to the audience an
awareness of "angst" or "identity crisis" or "bad faith in
self-deceit." That is, Ionesco's Rhinoceros is an example
of the dramatist exerting arbitrary manipulation of the
plot and story line to bring his desired satirical effect.
It was this same manipulative intrusion by Euripides in his
ancient dramas that was designated "deus ex machina."
20. Conflict. Normally defined as "characters in
action and marked by the tension of conflict," it appears
that the "dramatic" quality of existential drama is
lessened in many instances, i.e., Beckett's Breath, by the
absence of action or tangible conflict. As the philosophic
comes to the fore in Gabriel Marcel's Ariadne, the "dra
matic" quality of the play suffers.
21. Episode. Existential dramas tend to be self-
contained units without the episodic style of Brecht.
22. Focus. Existential drama and production tends
to emphasize attention or focus more extraordinarily to
one character's internal crisis, or to one concept. Focus
on situation or incident is merely to heighten the concept
or problem of a character, and never to place situation
182
above human existence.
23. Form. The total organization of materials—
ideas, characters, situations, scenes— tends to be more
organic than in realistic drama. That is, a controlling
metaphor provides the guidelines of form that in turn
unfolds the content of the play. That is, Beckett's Wait
ing for Godot depends upon the basic existential metaphor
of alienation and angst; the whole play, scenes, characters
arise from the basic perception.
24. Irony. Irony is used especially in the vein
of the existential since many existential dramatists
provide in the dramatic vehicle the discrepancies of
experience for the audience. The use of paradox, self-
contradiction, or dramatic irony of situation may be used.
It may be seen in Ionesco's Rhinoceros: characters turn
into the animal, Rhinoceros. It is a long irony on men
turning into herd-instinctual creatures without human
existence.
25. Interior monologue. This is a method of a
character soliloquizing to himself, but is often transmuted
by the existential dramatist to "talking at" another
character. There is the apparent intention of disclosing
to the audience the interior anxiety as well as the
183
"isolation” of human life in the modern era. Its symptoms
are alienation of feelings, security through conformity,
and breakdown in communications.
26. Logical. In existential thematic works, such
as with Marcel, Sartre, or Camus, a realistic logical
sequence is followed. However, in absurdist existential
drama the chaotic and capriciousness of human existence is
reflected in the utter abandonment of logic. Just as S0ren
Kierkegaard opposed the logical structure of Hegel, so the
existential art of drama reflects the chaotic flux of life.
27. Motivation. In Aristotelian drama the charac
ters are logically motivated. So, too, it could be said
for existential drama. That is, motivation of apathy and
despair is as important for the motivation of a character
as is buoyant optimism. It could also be noted that in
many existential plays, i.e. Beckett and Pinter, there is a
marked absence of character motivation which is apparently
deliberate on the part of the dramatist as he seeks to
portray modern man's existential emptiness of meaning or
goals.
28. Unities. It is often thought that the classi
cal unities of drama, that is, time, place and action,
are violated by existential drama; however, the opposite
184
seems to be the case. Compactness and slavish adherence to
the unities of time, place, action are incarnate in the
typical play of Samuel Beckett.
29. Well-made-play. The artificial characters and
contrived logical plots of Scribe and Sardou are opposed by
the existential dramatists. Plung'ing the depths of human
existence for the authentic as may be expressed in simple
art forms is the existentialist's business.
30. Objective. Usually "objective" is more
applicable to the drama as an art form in that the drama
tist does not have the possibility of direct expression of
feelings as he might have in fiction. Yet, the use of the
term "subjective" in reference to the existential drama
seeks to pinpoint in dramatization those psychic experi
ences of the human self such as faith versus/or doubt.
That is, the self-contained drama of the existentialist is
an artistic metaphorical assertion of faith versus/or
doubt through character, scene design, lighting, story
line, incident, etc. On the other hand, the dramatization
of life in a realistic objective manner is largely avoided
by the existential playwright.
31. Paradox. It is a statement or an occurrence
which is apparently self-contradictory, but at the same
185
time profoundly logical. The existential dramatists
utilize the paradox or contradictoriness of human existence
as thematic vehicles in their plays. Dialectical questions
are often posed in Albee, Pinter, Sartre, Marcel, Camus,
Beckett, Ionesco, or Jarry in terms of characterization,
incident, and the dynamics of "acts of life." Such dialec
tics include life versus/or death; faith versus/or despair;
courage versus/or dread and anxiety; authenticity versus/or
inauthenticity; meaning versus/or nihilism; spirit versus/or
demonic; being versus/or nothingness and nonbeing; identity
versus/or facelessness; time as eskaton versus/or mechani
cal time; objectification of truth versus/or humanization
of truth; becoming versus/or static; art as disclosure
(sein) versus/or art as appearance (schein); mystery
versus/or apparent; possibility versus/or bondage of the
will; mythos versus/or explanation; confrontation versus/or
withdrawal; crisis versus/or complacency; subject versus/or
object.
32. Pathos. The quality of a situation that
evokes compassion or sympathy is pathos. One might say
that existential dramas constantly present man’s suffering,
which subsequently often provokes a combination of pity and
laughter.
186
33. Plot. Plot line could be termed nonlogical,
and nonlinear in many of the existential dramas. However,
Marcel, Sartre, and Camus follow more conventional staging.
Existential plot in terms of the absurd dramatists follows
a spiral line of reiteration of basic predicaments of
modern man.
34. Poetic drama. Basically poetic drama from
the ancient Greeks to Shakespeare, Moliere, and Lorca used
a communication method of verbal figure of speech to convey
the inner feelings of their characters to the audience.
But existential drama seeks to speak metaphorically about
man's subjective being through the totality of theatre arts.
Jean Cocteau's theatre of poetry illustrates this.
35. Progression. There is usually no "forward"
progression in existential drama; as such, resolution of
the plot is replaced by positing of questions that remain
unanswered.
36. Suspense. Suspense created by a combination
of uncertainty about and intense interest in the outcome
of an action is absent in many of the existential dramas.
Nor is information necessarily withheld from the audience
to create tension or suspense. Juxtaposition of the comic
to the tragic provokes the audience’s curiosity in the
187
existential drama, e.g., Max Frisch’s Biedermann and the
Firebugs.
37. Symbol. An object or incident that stands for
something else in conventional drama. In existential
theatre symbols are used from objects to allegory, and
personification. Existential drama even may involve the
whole plot and action such as Albee's Tiny Alice or
Everything in the Garden.
38. Theatrical. The existential drama may utilize
the sensational or melodramatic, but not for "effect" on
the audience so much as to solicit awareness from the
audience of contemporary social existence. For example,
LeRoi Jones' Dutchman is sensational and fantastic as it
brings to consciousness racial hatred in modern man's
existence. Man's finitude (mortality) is brought to the
audience's existential awareness by theatrical means.
39. Theme. Generally speaking, a central experi
ence pervades the existential drama rather than a specific
idea. The older play of ideas such as Shaw's Candida are
of little concern to the existential dramatist. He is more
interested in providing the audience with perception into
man's subjective consciousness. This is especially the
case with the existential exposure of man's self-deceit,
188
as well as identity-role-playing in Jean Genet's The Blacks
and The Maids.
40. Tragedy. In existential drama the sense of
the tragic is solicited from the audience by portrayal of
the inner struggles of multiple characters, rather than
between characters or between a protagonist and external
forces as in Aristotelian drama.
Thus, in summation, the foregoing list of existen
tial criteria for the analysis of drama is enumerated as a
basis for analysis of the plays of John Osborne. To the
extent that the criteria can be made applicable, the
present writer employs them in Chapters IV, V, and VII.
However, Chapter VI is a more specific application.
189
CHAPTER IV
OSBORNE'S DRAMATIC CHARACTERIZATIONS
(THE EARLY PLAYS)
To discern Osborne's dramatic characterizations
requires an application of the existential criteria in a
systematic manner to the twenty-one published plays of the
playwright. In a chronological fashion this present writer
seeks to consider the principal characters of each play
from the stance of its existential context and in light of
the criteria cited in Chapter III. Other tools for analy
sis along with their vocabulary and criteria, such as
sociology and psychology, are excluded. In addition, this
writer will interpret various scholarly articles according
to existential principles that pertain to Osborne's
dramatic characterizations.
It is probably a truism to state that Osborne's
characterizations are much stronger than either his plots
or story lines. The Right Prospectus and A Sense of
Detachment are examples of recent plays by Osborne that
190
have a topsy-turvy effect upon audiences: it is difficult
to find a plot line at all. Rather, Osborne is interested
in illustrations of psychic problems through the collage
of interacting characterizations. This basic technique of
dramatic construction seems to hold true for his later
plays as well as his more successful early dramas. While
Osborne experiments with pseudo-Brechtian or semi-Absurdist
methods, his central appeal remains that of examination of
characters in the very pain of life and existence. This
continuity begins with Look Back in Anger and continues
with A Place Calling Itself Rome. Racine’s method of plac
ing characters in a crisis is followed to some extent by
Osborne,
On May 8, 1956, Look Back in Anger opened at the
Royal Court Theatre in London. It signalled the beginning
of a significant new career, as well as a new mode of
drama in the English-speaking theatre. It is a three-act
play with Jimmy and Alison Porter as its central characters.
Jimmy is a university graduate with no job of consequence.
Instead, he ekes out a living in a sweet stall at a local
market. His personal misfortune is symbolic of the larger
disintegration of the postwar English society, as well as
the shrinking British Empire. Jimmy lashes out at his wife
191
constantly, and shouts long tirades against everyone and
everything that comes to mind. Cliff Lewis, Jimmy's confi
dant, shares their attic flat, and seeks to comfort Alison.
Alison is driven from her marriage in despair, while her
old friend, Helena Charles, becomes the mistress of Jimmy
in a similar fashion. Finally, Alison returns to Jimmy as
they both discover the comfort they give each other in the
face of a "lost cause."'*'
Several writers suggest insights into the alienated
characters of this play. The play vividly portrays the
2
boredom of Jimmy, Alison, and Cliff. The implication is
clearly not merely a matter of a tedious Sunday afternoon,
but the "boredom" that is universally felt in Western
society in the modern world. Thus, boredom is symptomatic
of dasein (individual existence) in anxiety. It is the
personality without direction and meaning. Further, the
preoccupation of Jimmy and Alison with a game of squirrels
3
and bears is clearly an existential device to allay fear.
^John Osborne, Look Back in Anger (New York:
Bantam Books, 1971), p. 118.
2
"A Snarling Success," Life, October 14, 1957,
p. 143 .
^Ibid., p . 142.
192
They find comfort and security from the pretension of being
a bear or a squirrel. To pretend (inauthentically) to be
a dumb animal seems more bearable than to confront the fate
of existence consciously.
What distinguishes Jimmy from the other characters
if his insistence on being vitally "alive," in contrast to
the modern tendency to be passive as exemplified in the
characters of Alison, Cliff, and Helena. Jimmy is truly an
existential man because he does not try to desensitize
himself from the pain of love, defeat, or death. He con-
4
fronts life while Alison "accepts” it.
A. E. Dyson sees Jimmy's outrage as an authentic
expression of man's spirit. That is, "sexual fidelity is
infinitely less important to him (Jimmy) than the moral and
5
spiritual fidelity which he fails to find in Alison."
Dyson says Jimmy's anger is jusitified. Jimmy's anger is a
positive "desire that men should be more honest, more
6
alive, more human than they normally are." That is,
4
Nona Balakian, "The Flight from Innocence," Books
Abroad 33 (Summer 1959): 264.
5
A. E. Dyson, "Look Back in Anger," Critical
Quarterly 1 (1959): 320.
6Ibid., p. 321.
193
Jimmy's anger is rooted in existential humanism.
John Mander feels that "Jimmy bullies the world in
7
general and his women in particular for "not caring.'"
Jimmy campaigns "against apathy and complacency and dead-
8
ness." Another critic, Patricia Spacks, interprets Jimmy
as "vividly conscious of his alienation from the society
9
which surrounds him." Miss Spacks further believes that
Jimmy's anger is a yearning to "alleviate the solitude of
the human condition.""^ Thus, in summary, the various
aspects of the existential thinkers is touched upon by
various critics of Osborne's Look Back in Anger: care,
alienation, solitude, insistence upon aliveness as opposed
to apathy, authenticity versus inauthenticity, anxiety, and
boredom.
The characterizations in the text of the play pro
vide numerous examples of the implicit existential context.
Jimmy cries out in Act I for life:
7
John Mander, The Writer and Commitment (London:
Seeker and Warburg, 1961), p. 182.
^Ibid.
9
Patricia Meyer Spacks, "Confrontation and Escape
in Two Social Dramas," Modern Drama 2 (May 1968): 61.
10Ibid., p. 67.
194
. . . Hallelujah! I'm alive! I've an idea. Why don't
we have a little game? Let's pretend that we're human
beings, and that we're actually alive. Just for a
while. What do you say? Let's pretend we're human.
(He looks from one to the other.) Oh, brother, it's
such a long time since I was with anyone who got
enthusiastic about anything.H
To be alive, to be curious, to be vital, even
12
cruel, are the vibrant existential thrusts of Jimmy.
Yet, Jimmy feels acutely the lack of meaning in modern
society, especially his own anxiety in regard to his lack
13
of purpose or the sense of becoming. His game of bears
and squirrels with Alison is part of a conscious endeavor
to overcome alienation in existence by return to the
14
simplicity of nature. His eroticism is part of this
15
yearning for fulfillment of his existence in at-one-ment.
The paradox of Jimmy's alienation from the society
around him, while consciously seeking an existential
commitment through suffering is apparent in a scene with
16
Helena in Act II. The impingement of death impels Jimmy
to the realization of life's significance, especially as
^Osborne, Look Back in Anger, p. 9.
19 13
Ibid., pp. 13, 70. Ibid., p. 36.
14Ibid., p. 34. 15Ibid., pp* 44, 91.
16Ibid., pp. 63-65.
195
17
Jimmy cares about the death of Hugh's mom. By following
the natural inclination of human existence to "care," Jimmy
18
is able to define his own existence. Truly, Jimmy is
not a sociopathic personality, this present writer believes,
but an authentic man. He is authentic because of his
belief in the present, future, and past. That is, Jimmy
19
has an allegiance to memory. Unlike most modern men who
cast their human existence adrift from all tradition and
memories of the past, Jimmy holds on.
The characterization of Alison illustrates the
inauthentic existence of apathy. Jimmy tells her she does
20
not have the courage to be. She fails to perceive her
21
own alienated detachment as a member of the bourgeoisie.
While Alison inauthentically commits herself to Jimmy, her
being is with the accepted pretensions of the middle
22 23
class. She seeks escape from life's pain into peace.“
Alison is existentially alienated from being human,
24
just as Jimmy says. She is lonely, lacking in depth of
17T^
Ibid., p. 74.
18TVi.„
Ibid., p. 99.
19 . ,
Ibid.,
P-
46.
T-U • A
Ibid.,
P •
17.
2 1 .
Ibid., pp . 48-49, 59.
22T. ..
Ibid.,
P-
70.
23Tli.,
Ibid., p. 46.
24
Ibid.,
P-
17.
196
concern, apathetic, and bored. She finds meaning in passion
for Jimmy, and comfort in the game of squirrels and bears.
She cannot really authenticate her existence by commitment.
She only resigns to a momentary solace of Jimmy's lost
25
cause.
The characterizations of Cliff, Helena, and Colonel
Redfern are equally detached and alienated, but with
bursts of searching for authentic existence. The casual
promiscuity of Cliff and Alison indicates the depth of
detachment: authentic feeling is looked for by modern man
2 6
no matter any rule or no matter what source. The fragile
self-belief or faith in each other is constantly in
27
danger. The cry for healing, the hurt of anxiety is
28
testified to in the existence of both Alison and Helena.
Cliff finds meaning in the "brawling and excitement" of
29
friendship with Jimmy.
Helena begins as a detached moralist, but finds
30
salvation in passion for Jimmy. Jimmy's zest for life
25
Osborne, Look Back in Anger, pp. 118-19.
26 , , 27 __
Ibid., p. 19. Ibid., p. 25.
28Ibid., pp. 52, 72. 29Ibid., p. 72.
30
Ibid., pp. 94-96.
197
lends significance to her empty existence. In a predict
able detached manner, Helena casually passes Jimmy back to
Alison in Act III— as both recognize Jimmy as a man of
32
feeling and themselves as lethargic. Even Alison's
father, Colonel Redfern, prefers comfort and peace to
33
Jimmy's seizure of moment-to-moment existence.
Turning to Osborne's second major play, The Enter
tainer , a precis of the plot is in order. As symbol of the
decaying music hall tradition, as well as the waning
British Empire, Archie Rice dances and jokes in a humorless
and demeaning way. His nude accomplices on the music hall
stage are as insipid and seedy as he is. Alternating the
Rice family scenes with the music hall, Osborne joins
together his social commentary and family insight. Archie
mocks his elderly father, Billy, who represents an older
English Edwardian era. Phoebe, Archie's second wife, is a
worn-out boozer, while Jean is the intellectual "lost soul"
of the family. Jean is Archie's daughter from his first
marriage. Archie has had a series of mistresses. .In fact,
Phoebe was his mistress and promptly drove his first wife
31 32
Ibid., pp. 106-107. Ibid., pp. 110-11.
33
Ibid., p. 81.
198
to her death. Archie "entertains hopes of discarding
Phoebe in order to marry a young girl with whose money he
34
hopes to rescue his foundering show." Much of the plot
focuses on the long tirades of Archie, the death of a son,
Mick, and Billy's exposure of Archie, and Billy's subse
quent death.
Lawrence Olivier asked Osborne to write a play for
him, and The Entertainer was born. Olivier respects
Osborne as a playwright who can "express the feelings of
his characters who are unable to communicate with one
35
another." Many critics call attention to the Rice
family's inability to have empathy for one another. The
treatment of the breakdown of personal communication by
Osborne makes him akin to Eugene Ionesco and Samuel
Beckett.
By abdicating responsibility, Archie has no existen
tial commitment in the Sartrean sense. Archie "despises
his wife, sleeps out nightly, and morally murders his
34
John Beaufort, "Olivier and ’Entertainer' on
Broadway," The Christian Science Monitor, February 21, 1958,
p. 6 .
35
"The Entertainer," Review in Time, February 24,
1958, p. 52.
199
36
father by coaxing him back into greasepaint." Yet, the
shriveling of responsibility is apparently related to the
disintegration of "identity," not only for Archie, but for
Western civilization. Osborne weaves Archie's personality
around the nationalistic "identity" of Great Britain.
Truly, The Entertainer suggests the fact that to lose
identity is to lose personal significance and trigger
paralysis of action. ^
Henry Hewes, in Saturday Review, believes that
Archie Rice "cares very deeply about his failure in human
relations and the failure of present-day Englishmen to
38
struggle against the mediocrity of existence." Accom
panying the problem of identity, Osborne is concerned with
the sense of isolation that is so prevalent in all of
Western society.
36
Kenneth Tynan, Curtains (London: Atheneum Press,
1961), p..174.
37
Jean Sudrann, "The Necessary Illusion: A Letter
from London," Antioch Review 18 (Summer, 1958): 240.
38
Henry Hewes, "Sir Archie Rice," Saturday Review,
March 1, 1958, p. 24.
39
K. M. Baxter, Speak What We Feel (London: SCM
Press, 1964), pp. 63; 66.
200
Like the earlier play, Look Back in Anger, The
Entertainer portrays in various characterizations the pain
40
of life, or the anxiety of alienated existence. Finally,
Jean Sudrann discusses the self-conscious myth-making of
Archie Rice: he is able to bear existence because of his
belief in his own syndrome of "personal myth" that has a
"life-giving quality."41
Archie's characterization exhibits the same lack of
courage to be an authentic person in existence as previously
discussed with Alison. Billy describes Archie's detachment
through the comedian's technique:
He patronizes his wife, Phoebe, whom he pities whole
heartedly. It is this which has prevented him from
leaving her twenty years ago. Or, is it simply because,
as many people would suggest, he lacks the courage?
Anyway, he makes no secret of his perennial affairs
with other women— real and fictitious. It is part of
his pity, part of his patronage, part of his personal
myth. He patronizes his elder son Frank, who lacks his
own brand of indulgence, stoicism and bravura, and for
whom he has an almost unreal, pantomime affection. In
contrast, his patronage of his daughter Jean is more
wary, sly, unsure. He suspects her intelligence, aware
that she may be stronger than the rest of them. What
ever he says to anyone is almost always very carefully
"thrown away." Apparently absent minded, it is a
40
Ibid., p. 69.
41
Sudrann, "Necessary Illusion," p. 242.
201
comedian's technique, it absolves him seeming committed
to anyone or anything. ^
Archie's characterization fits the spectrum of
existential perception: he is inauthentic, bored, and
does not care. His life of frustration and failure leads
43
to greater perversity. Archie lives in the future, but
the existential "now" eludes him. He does not communicate
with his family except in sardonic cynicism. Thus, there
is a basic failure for Archie to relate to his present
44
existence. Archie, often as not, enunciates Osborne's
conditions of existence for an earthly paradise as a
combination of Edwardian imperialism, and the economy of
45
empire. Over and over again Archie speaks in terms of
savage self-loathing: his booze is a matter of escape
46
from the pain of existence. Archie awaits actual death:
Billy: What's the matter with your lot?
Archie: We're all just waiting for the little
yellow van to come— ^7
Archie's existence is an anxiety of living death; he tells
Jean:
42
John Osborne, The Entertainer (London: Faber and
Faber, 1958), p. 34.
4? 44
Ibid., pp. 42, 44. Ibid., p. 45.
45 46
Ibid., p. 53. Ibid., p. 54.
47
Ibid., p. 56._
202
You see this face, you see this face, this face can
split open with warmth and humanity. It can sing, and
tell the worst, unfunniest stories in the world to a
great mob of dead, drab erks and it doesn't matter, it
doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because— look at my
eyes. I'm dead behind the eyes. I'm dead, just like
the whole inert, shoddy lot out there. It doesn't
matter because I don't feel a thing, and neither do
they. We're just as dead as each other . . .^8
Basically, the other members of the Rice family
exhibit similar anxieties of modern existence as already
noted in Archie. Billy Rice's existence is really of the
nineteenth century; he constantly sings old fashioned
49
hymns. Thus, Billy's old religion and prejudice is an
50
evasion of authentic existence. The past dominates the
51
present for Billy and has a sense of nonbeing. Billy's
self-faith in his own success and luck acts as a sustaining
influence on the Rice family; but Billy dies as the last
52
sacrifice of Archie's defense of lost meaning. Jean,
Archie's daughter, on the other hand, seeks meaning.
Jean Rice returns from her lonely, alienated
existence in London to the family circle. She is a broken
person because modern urban existence has stripped her of
48
Osborne, The Entertainer, p. 72.
49 50
Ibid., pp. 13, 41. Ibid., p. 14
52
Ibid., pp. 33, 37. Ibid., p. 83
203
53
God, of purpose, of authentic existence. Yet, Jean has
the intelligence that Phoebe lacks. Jean is partially
aware of her own crisis and of the noninvolvement and non-
existential commitment of her family. She tries to commu
nicate and become involved by attending a political rally;
she teaches art to a group of kids in a youth club. The
conflict inherent in the give-and-take of human existence
makes her feel alive, and she moves toward fulfillment.
But, Graham, Jean’s ex-fiance rejected her thrust for
54
authentic life in his presumptuous male chauvinism. She
returns home shattered, but hopeful for new purpose:
Jean: I'm not upset, and I haven't made a decision
about anything yet. I just came up because I wanted to
see how you are. And because I miss you.^5
Jean's sensitivity to the warp-and-woof of life is
reflected in her almost Kierkegaardian "sickness unto
death" awareness of Mick's death:
Jean: What is it? I've had a strange sick feeling
in my stomach all day. As if something was going to
happen. You know the f e e l i n g . 56
53
Osborne, The Entertainer, p. 27.
54 55
Ibid., pp. 28-29. Ibid., p. 39.
56
Ibid., p . 41.
204
But at the end of the play, Jean resigns to despair
and the inauthentic. Intellectually she recognizes her
plight:
Jean: Here we are, we're alone in the universe,
there's no God, it just seems that it all began by
something as simple as sunlight striking on a piece of
rock. And here we are. We've only got ourselves.
Somehow, we've just got to make a go of it. We've only
ourselves.^
Yet, where Jean has a molecule of hope, Phoebe is
in the mire of hopelessness. Phoebe reacts to her faith
less Archie, and continued lack of love by retreat into
58
inauthentic gin and tonics. Phoebe states her anxiety
forthrightly:
Phoebe: I don't want to always have to work. I
mean you want a bit of life before it's all over. It
takes all the gilt off if you know you've got to go on
and on till they carry you out in a box. It's all
right for him, he's all right. He's still got his
women. While it lasts anyway. But I don't want to
end up being laid out by some stranger in some rotten
stinking little street in Gateshead, or West Hartlepool
or another of those dead-or-alive holes!
Jean: Phoebe don't upset yourself, please. Let's
enjoy ourselves—
Phoebe: Enjoy myself! D'you think I don't want to
enjoy myself! I'm just sick of being with down and
R Q
outs, I'm sick of it, and people like him.
57
Osborne, The Entertainer, p. 85.
C O CQ
Ibid., p. 26. Ibid., p. 40.
The minor characters of The Entertainer, such as
Frank Rice, Brother Bill Rice, and Graham Dodd, are
excluded from this analysis. But overall it can be stated
that the characterizations of the play appear acutely aware
of their loss of identity in becoming "nobody," and of the
lack of care or sorge for others as well as themselves.
Capacity to become "somebody" and to care for the self and
others in order to be truly authentic existentialists seems
60
to elude Osborne's characters.
Analysis of Osborne’s Luther is especially fruitful
in the existential context. Osborne transports the
historic Luther to the context of modern agnosticism. In
so doing, Osborne blurs the historical meaning and signifi
cance of Luther's movement, but he manages to clarify the
despair and doubt, the faith and hope of a man in existence.
This latter dramatic portrait is Osborne's perception of
the agonies of dasein (individual in existence) in all
historic periods.
By way of summary of the plot, Act I portrays
Luther as a young monk seeking salvation by rule. Because
of his own propensity for egotism and impatience, Luther
60
Osborne, The Entertainer, pp. 76-77.
206
cannot find salvation in prayer, the basis to monastic life.
In Act II Luther despairs of the Church's means of salva
tion, and finds confidence in the Scripture as a means of
redemption. Act III finds Luther rejecting his own peasant
revolution, and finding meaning in domestic bliss with
61
Kate.
The several critics of Osborne's characterization
of Luther point to Osborne's satire upon the religious
establishment, especially in regard to Luther's humanity of
failings: his "thrusting uncouthness," his "fanatical
violence," his "obsession with sin," his persistent bowel
62
troubles, and his doubt "of the truths he preached."
Susan Sontag has reacted negatively to Osborne's portrait
and calls it "phony." "The Great Spiritual Reformer turns
63
out to be the Great Neurotic."
A critic for Time objects to the convention of the
twentieth century "that a genius must be tortured." The
writer rejects the notion that such a leader must be beset
61
Evelyn Waugh, "'Luther,' John Osborne's New Play,"
The Critic 20 (February-March 1962): 54.
62
"Theatre Notes," English 14 (Spring 1962): 20.
63
Susan Sontag, "Going to Theater," Partisan
Review 31 (Winter 1964): 96.
207
64
by morbid fears, restlessness, pain, despair. To be sure,
this is a significant criticism of Osborne’s immersion of
the historic Luther into the anxieties of the twentieth
century. However, the present writer seeks to show
throughout this dissertation that the existential perspec
tive of man, whether in hope or despair, whether in
authenticity or inauthenticity is applicable to all men in
all ages. Certainly, Osborne's characterization may be
inaccurate historically, or exaggerated in psychological
emphasis, but he hits home at those points of universal
existential concern.
Two critics underscore Osborne's characterization
in that Luther discovers he is not self-made, but created
by man and woman. This discovery of existence or humanity
is the whole point to Luther's marriage in Act III. As
V. S. Pritchett says, "maturity and sanity are achieved by
65
the tragic discovery that one is not self-created."
Richard Gilman makes a strong case for Osborne's
characterization as an existential hero. Gilman asserts
64
"A God-Intoxicated Man," Time, October 4, 1963,
p. 63 .
65
V. S. Pritchett, "Operation Osborne," New States
man, August 4, 1961, p. 163; John Rosselli, "At Home with
Lucifer," The Reporter, October 12, 1961, p. 53.
208
that Osborne admires Jean-Paul Sartre's "existentialist
preoccupation with a search for identity and a repudiation
of the given, unexamined inherited situation which life all
too easily, and society all too ferociously, keep us in so
that we are prevented from becoming what we might truly
66
be." Further, Gilman calls our attention to the fact
that the great existential thinker, S0ren Kierkegaard,
significantly saw Luther as a man who gave "the impression
that lightning was about to strike around him at any
moment.
Osborne's characterization of Luther revolves around
a basic search for identity and significance to the
6 8
Reformer's existence. Luther's sense of guilt, loneli
ness, need for forgiveness and punishment is symptomatic of
this search and his growing alienation from the Roman
69 •
Church. Luther's regret of lost innocence and rejection
of Hans, his father, is further evidence of his anxiety
66
Richard Gilman, "The Stage: John Osborne's
Luther," The Commonweal, October 18, 1963, p. 103.
67Ibid., p. 103.
68John Osborne, Luther (New York: The New American
Library, Inc., 1961), pp. 50-51.
69
Ibid., pp. 20, 28.
209
70
for meaning and purpose. Like Jimmy Porter, Luther wants
71
to take part in life, not be a spectator. Luther finds
72
his manhood of existence in totally immersed leadership.
In Act III Luther marries Kate and tells Staupitz:
Martin: It's a shame everyone can't marry a nun.
They're fine cooks, thrifty housekeepers, and splendid
mothers. Seems to me there are three ways out of
despair. One is faith in Christ, the second is to
become enraged by the world and make its nose bleed
for it, and the third is the love of a woman.
There is no doubt that Kate brings existential life
to Luther's living death. Hans, his father, is especially
pleased in the last Act for Luther's acts of existential
74
faith in marriage and children.
The characterization of Hans, Martin's father, acts
as the force of dasein (individual in existence) as he
75
argues for humanity in Act I, Scene I. Hans is a coal
miner integrated into existence. He sees his son as a loss
from existence, and cut off from carnality. As a practical
man, Hans does not understand why Martin cannot accept his
conditioned state of existence, born of man and woman.
^Osborne, Luther, p. to
71Ibid., p. 67.
72TK. ,
Ibid.,
P •
118.
7*3
Ibid., p. 116.
74
Ibid.,
P-
117.
75
Ibid., pp. 12, 14. Ibid.,
P.
50.
210
Martin Luther's own pride soars to the gods, while Hans
77
notices that Martin's robes make his appear womanly. It
is Martin's "impossible standard of perfection" that stands
over against Hans' discovery that man survives in existence
78
by faith and hope, not good works or perfection in rules.
It is through Hans that Luther learns to take part in
existence as a participant of living faith, and not as a
4- + 79
mere spectator.
The other characterizations in Luther tend to bring
to focus the existential meanings of Luther and his reform.
Tetzel's "image" religion cries out from its superficial
80
schein for a more authentic sein. Cajetan, as orthodox
defender, tells Luther that man's religion helps to with-
81
stand the pain of existence. The appearance of Pope Leo
in hunting regalia in Act II, Scene V clearly enunciates
nonbeing, the contradiction between appearance (schein) and
82
Leo's true being of alienation from the Christ. Staupitz,
Luther’s mentor and confidant, calls our attention to
77
Osborne, Luther, p. 44.
7S 79
Ibid., pp. 64-66. Ibid., p. 76.
80 81
Ibid., pp. 57-60. Ibid., p. 90.
82
Ibid., pp. 94-95.
211
Luther’s existential significance for history:
You've taken Christ away from the low mumblings and
soft voices and jewelled gowns and the tiaras and put
Him back where He belongs.^3
Overall the characterizations of Luther confront
the pains and anxieties of existence, much as the historic
personages likely did. Freedom of the will to decide, and
commitment are two aspects of Sartre's existential thought
that appear to be a part of Osborne's characterizations.
The historic personages acted in commitment to the Christ.
Osborne's heightened dramatization of characters in the act
of choice and commitment bring to the audience's attention
the issue itself: the loss of choice and the failure of
commitment in the twentieth century.
Osborne's fourth major drama, Inadmissible Evidence,
portrays the central existential problems that face most
modern men: "the substitution of fashion for feeling, the
absence of genuine love, the concern with self, the reduc
tion of passion to mediocrity— -all the psychic and spiritual
crimes which maim and deform the human being and yet are
84
not admissible as evidence in court." In essence, the
Q O
Osborne, Luther, p. 122.
84
Allan Lewis, The Contemporary Theatre (New York:
Crown Publishers, Inc., n.d.), p. 321.
212
play treats of a middle-aged philanderer, Bill Maitland,
who is a sex-obsessed lawyer. He is tried during the
course of the play by his own conscience. Much of the
drama is a dramatic monologue with Maitland acting as
prosecutor and defense in "the reality of his office and
85
the courtroom of his mind."
One critic sees Bill Maitland as a sad, compulsive
erotic, with each scene a vision of his confusion, and the
86
entire play as "the summary of an existence." Wilfred
Sheed also sees Bill Maitland as an extension of society's
ills. Maitland, says Sheed, "is victim and executioner,
87
debaser and debased." "Society is to blame for him, but
88
he is equally to blame for it." In other words, Sheed
seems to see Maitland's private hell as a peek at the lack
of meaning in modern existence.
On the other hand, Harold Clurman doubts the
artistic value of Osborne's depressant, downbeat outcries.
85Ibid.
86
"A Man for These Times," Newsweek, December 13,
1965, p. 90.
87
Wilfred Sheed, The Morning After (New York:
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1971), p. 155.
88tu.,
Ibid.
2 1 3
Clurman sees Inadmissible Evidence as lacking passion or
compassion. However, Clurman's criticism inadvertently
does perceive Osborne's portraiture of contemporary exis
tential crisis. Indeed, Clurman states that Maitland "does
89
not want to become other than he is." All becoming has
ended because motivation is crippled and purpose lost.
Osborne exposes the wounds and soul-sickness of modern
human existence.^
Time calls Bill Maitland an "anti-hero" who
flounders for courage to endure existence. Maitland is
seen as "hung up on booze, barbiturates, and the bleak
91
self-knowledge that he is irredeemably mediocre."
Bill Maitland as a characterization is revealed in
his opening confession of how regimentation, progress,
92
technology, and "facts" have oppressed his existence.
In the face of this, Bill says that he is "incapable of
89
Harold Clurman, The Naked Image (New York: The
Macmillan Co., 1966), p. 103.
90
Ibid., p. 102.
91
"Hell's Isolation Ward," Time, December 10, 1965,
p. 76 .
92
John Osborne, Inadmissible Evidence (New York:
Grove Press, Inc., 1965), pp. 10-11.
214
93
making decisions." That is, he has a paralysis of the
will. Maitland's sex obsession is really an alienation
from genuine feeling or sorge. His propensity for
inauthentic "sensation" is indicated in this passage:
Bill: Of course, I forgot you girls don't really
wear make-up nowadays, do you? All leaking eyeshadow
and red noses. Go and put on some lipstick, dear.
What's the matter? Isn't he giving it to you?
Shirley: Finished?
Bill: Don't tell me you're getting too much. I
don't believe it.
Shirley: Oh, knock it off.
Bill: Well, something's made you bad tempered this
morning, and I don't believe that languid pipe cleaner
of an accountant you're engaged to has got that much
lead in his pencil.
Shirley: Do you ever think of anything else?
Bill: Not so much. Probably less than you do
though.
When Maitland says he has "got to keep . . . busy.
Busy, busy, busy," he reveals the work-escape device of
9'
meaninglessness of personal existence in the modern world.
He has no commitment to anyone but himself, and is
absolutely neutral:
. . . I'm not the one who's on any side. I don't have
qa
any idea of where I am. ^
93
Osborne, Inadmissible Evidence, p. 12.
94- 95
Ibid., p. 22. Ibid., p. 26.
96
Ibid. , p. 40.
215
Thus, Bill Maitland is in existence, but living in
detachment without genuine involvement. Therefore, he is
not existential, but alienated from existence. His iden
tity is unknown even to himself. His nonbeing is espoused
97
at every turn, and with every new lie.
The remaining characterizations of this play ful
fill an expected detached and indifferent perspective. Joy
is treated and sees herself as a depersonalized sex object.
Shirley is bored and quits as Maitland's mistress. Hudson
98
leads an equally alienated "living death." Mrs. Garnsey,
a divorce client, exhibits the same directionless confu-
99
sion as her lawyer. But the most important characteriza
tion is Jane, Maitland's daughter, who confronts him in
total silence.Maitland reaches "out for love, but
unable to communicate, he turns to violence, and ends in
frustration and callous rejection of feeling. 1 1
Although Anthony Creighton coauthored Epitaph for
George Dillon with John Osborne, this play is generally
consistent with the usual format of an alienated anti-hero,
97
Osborne, Inadmissible Evidence, pp. 42-43.
98 90
Ibid., pp. 31, 49, 51, 72. Ibid., p. 55.
10°Ibid., pp. 101-107.
^^■'“Lewis, Contemporary Theatre, p. 321.
216
and allied characters that wallow in despair and crisis.
Dillon is an actor-dramatist who walks out on his prosper
ous actress wife, while accusing her falsely. He is taken
in by the Elliot family, and pampered as a budding genius
102
by Mrs. Elliot. George Dillon becomes the substitute
son for Mrs. Elliot's own dead Raymond. But one of the
family, Aunt Ruth, is George's match, and sees through his
sponging, conniving person. George takes from the Elliots,
but is scornful of them. "He poses as one superior to
everyone around him, but in reality he is dependent upon
them for every aspect of his existence: food, shelter,
103
cigarettes, and the chance to play the malcontent."
George seduces Josie, and sells out to commercial play-
writing at the end.
The several critics point to the problem of iden
tity. Certainly, this is a central category of existential
thought. George Dillon seeks a role to play in life and
104
finds many roles in the Elliot family. One crxtxc sees
102
Kenneth Tynan, Curtains (New York: Atheneum,
1961), p. 206.
103
Tom F. Driver, "Earlier Osborne," The Christian
Century, December 10, 1958, p. 1436.
217
George as a "personality of failure," who inauthentically
sees himself as an artist, but is actually in love with the
105
family existence of bourgeois comfort. Mary McCarthy
calls attention to the "belief" of Mrs. Elliot in George.
"To George, her belief is at once grotesque and wonder-
X 0 Q
ful." But George is a faker and calls the dead Raymond
107
a "stupid-looking bastard." Thus, McCarthy calls our
attention to the inauthentic existence, the pretentious
schein of Dillon.
The characterization of George Dillon touches upon
the existential dilemma of the modern era: man's need for
identity with his work, and the necessity of that work to
lend significance to his existence. In Act I, George quits
his clerical job— it has no meaning to him. Yet, any job
or contract for playwriting gives vitality to George, as
well as Mrs. Elliot, who also lives George's vision; he
says to Norah:
105
Thespis, "Theatre Notes," English 12 (Summer
1968): 59.
X 0 &
Mary McCarthy, "Odd Man In," Partisan Review 26
(Winter 1959): 102.
107
Ibid., p. 103.
218
George: . . . The theatre is like a shrine, Norah.
A cathedral. Do you ever go to church, Norah?^®^
Subsequently, George confesses his emptiness in
pursuit of schein:
George: Go on— but don't think you can kill my
confidence. I've had experts doing it for years.
Ruth: I just can't make up my mind about you.
George: Meaning?
Ruth: Do you really have any integrity?
George: What's your verdict?
Ruth: I'm still not sure. It just seems to me
that for someone who makes a religion out of being
brilliant, you must be very unlucky.
George: You don't even begin to understand— you're
no different from the rest. Burning myself out! You
bet I'm burning myself out! I've been doing it for so
many years now— and who in hell cares? At this moment
I feel about as empty and as threadbare as my pockets.
You wonder that I should be tired. I feel played
George lives in the realm of schein and nonbeing—
he ignores his failure while "waiting for success."^^
Yet, if it were not for the Elliots, George would have no
existence.111 George play-acts through life, never quite
sure of the real or unreal, the authenticity or the
112
inauthenticity of existence. He says:
108
John Osborne and Anthony Creighton, Epitaph for
George Dillon (London: Faber and Faber, 1958), p. 41.
109 110
Ibid., pp. 55-56. Ibid., p. 57.
Ill 112
Ibid., p. 60. Ibid., p. 64.
219
"Actor," I said. The moment I uttered that word,
machine-gun fire and bombs all around us, the name of
my calling, my whole reason for existence— it sounded
so hideously trivial and unimportant, so divorced from
living, and the real world, that my fear vanished. All
I could feel was shame. ^ 3
The several characterizations of Epitaph for George
Dillon reflect the various forms of inauthentic existence
provided by the bourgeoisie. Generally the Elliot family
shares the blank and meaningless conformity associated with
the middle class. Josie is the mindless girl that Dillon
finally marries in total abdication to mediocrity.
Mrs. Elliot lives in a dream with her dead son. Percy acts
out his frustration of empty fulfillment by aggressive
114
acts. The proper Mr. Colwyn-Stuart is a caricature of
the smug schein of middle class existence. George pro
nounces on Norah: "Norah doesn't even exist— she's just a
115
hole in the air!" Ruth discovers she is like George and
agrees that the Elliot family's existence is one great
116
cliche. Ruth feels anxiety and boredom in her life and
work. She feels drawn to George because of their common
117
experience of estrangement from the society around them.
113
Osborne and Creighton, Epitaph, p. 63.
„ . , 115.,. . , 114
Ibid., p. 25 . Ibid., p . 60.
116
Ibid., p . 59.
117
Ibid., p. 65.
220
Finally, Barney Evans as the commercial producer exhibits
118
the power of schein over sein in its fullest.
Quite comparable to Epitaph for George Dillon is
Osborne's The World of Paul Slickey. Like George Dillon
Paul Slickey is a phony. He is all exterior in his exis
tence. Slickey is sex possessed in order to give momentary
meaning to boredom. He sings:
We'll be in the desert and alone,
When we find our love has become
overblown,
When the candle’s lost its heat,
There'll be no market left for meat
We'll be in the desert and alone.
We'll be in the desert and alone,
We'll slip out of the cage and the
bird will have flown,
When the springs on the bed start to
rust,
We'll be in the desert and alone.
The day is coming when mass diversions
of the flesh will be launched like new
washing powders by gigantic commercial
empires in fierce competition with each
other.
They'll take the "I" and the "Must”
from our personal
Lust for a voice at a microphone. ^
118
Osborne and Creighton, Epitaph, pp. 73-77.
119
John Osborne, The World of Paul Slickey (London:
Faber and Faber, 1959), p. 22.
221
Slickey also catches the flavor of the late twenti
eth century as he points to the emasculated males, and the
existential problem of the identity of the sexes. Slickey's
own homosexual urges are reflected in this passage in
Act III:
Slickey: . . . Do you hear that nasal blubbering
about little flowers and watching new-born babies cry?
Of loving you, and no one but you? Baby, you're all
mine, all mine through all eternity? That so-called
man in there is making two-thousand pounds a week—
thanks to my wife— for what? For emptying the slop-
buckets of modern love into a microphone, for crawling
and cringing before the almighty tyranny of the
bosom.120
Briefly, the plot of Paul Slickey deals with an
outrageous scoundrel, Jack Oakham, who is the star gossip
writer of the Daily Racket. Like The Entertainer, Paul
Slickey is a musical. Jack Oakham's pseudonym is Paul
Slickey. Slickey's boss sends him to spy on Lord Mortlake
121
at Mortlake Hall to get some gossip for his news column.
It is a critical time for Lord Mortlake as he seeks by
means of a trust fund to save his fortune from taxation.
Slickey also has a second motive: his affair with his
sister-in-law, Deirdre Rawley. But, Michael Rawley, a
120
Osborne, World of Paul Slickey, p. 75.
121
Richard Findlater, "The Case of Paul Slickey,"
Twentieth Century 167 (January 1960): 32.
222
politician, also is having an affair with Slickey's wife,
Lesley Oakham.
The four discover their sexual swap, just as Lord
Mortlake dies in a last fling with his mistress. As an
anti-climax, the fortune is lost due to a tax statute
limitation. Further, Lesley Oakham and Deirdre Rawley
become lesbian lovers, and Slickey quits his job on the
Daily Racket.
Richard Findlater finds Osborne a committed
123
artist. This present writer heartily agrees; if
Osborne's polemical dramas have echoes of the "commitment"
to reform or exposure, then one must judge Osborne as a
writer of existential import. Osborne, says Findlater,
shows "the bankruptcy of the world of Mortlake Hall . . .
in the young people's despairing resort to the novelty of
sex-change. They have no principles, no faith, no guts, no
character. They are lost among the collapsing values of
124
their class."
The characterization of Slickey-Oakham is more of a
caricature than with Maitland or Porter, or Dillon. There
122
Findlater, "Case of Paul Slickey," pp. 32-33.
123 . 124 ..
Ibid., p. 35. Ibid., p. 37.
223
appears to be a gradual progression in Osborne's character
izations away from the realistic to more expressionistic
absurdist types. Slickey becomes really an allegorical
figure of hateful daily newspaper cant and fakery, lies and
deceit, and debasement. Like Maitland and Dillon, Slickey-
Oakham is a phony, filled with plenty of schein, and con
stantly exuding meaningless patter. In Act I, Scene II,
Oakham is in bed with Deirdre, his wife's sister. Sex
125
dominates love, and sensation replaces motivation. The
true identity of Slickey is unknown to himself: his search
, ^ , . 126 „ ,
for authentic being is m a haze of despair. Such a
127
search ends in the climatic "sex changes."
Other characterizations in Slickey exhibit a simi
lar allegorical type illustrating Osborne’s perspective of
alienated humanity. Deirdre is bored with anything but
128
sensation. Mrs. Giltedge-Whyte finds being only in the
129
past. Wendover Williams, a rubber baron, is satirized
in song for his loss of sein and personal humane values:
Osborne, World of Paul Slickey, pp. 20-23.
126 . 127 .
Ibid., p. 06. Ibid., p. 89.
128T, . , 00 129 . ,
Ibid., p. 32. Ibid., p. 33.
224
Fame's the best procuress, that's the
Pattern of success,
You've got to understand the mechanics
of success. 1-30
In other words, appearance of reality (schein) has
become dominant.
Gillian Giltedge-Whyte displays unfeeling as she
131
waits for Lord Mortlake "to kick it off." Lesley's
inauthenticity is illustrated by his professions: director
of a brassiere company, and manager of a pop singer, Terry
132
Maroon. Lord Mortlake1s sex obsession for momentary
meaning is even confused with leers at his own daughter,
133
Freddie. Finally, Father Evilgreene is exposed as a
134
lecher, a denial of authentic faithfulness.
In summation, Osborne's early plays follow a
realistic aesthetic in form for the most part, with
characterization that suggests a gradual move toward the
absurd theatre. It is the presence of alienated characters
that points toward the presence of the existential.
130
Osborne, World of Paul Slickey, p. 39.
131 132 . ,
Ibid., p. 62. Ibid., p. 53.
133 , . . C!_ 134
Ibid., p. 65. Ibid., p. 89.
225
CHAPTER V
OSBORNE'S DRAMATIC CHARACTERIZATIONS
(THE LATER PLAYS)
Just as Osborne's early plays had more of an
aesthetic form akin to realism, his later plays show a
a greater tendency of the author to modify the form into
the absurdist vein. In his early or late plays, the criti
cal problems of modern human existence are treated in the
content, plot, language, and characterization.
One of Osborne's more recent plays, West of Suez,
retains the playwright's usual political and sociological
thunder that England has declined since the Suez crisis of
1956. The central character, an elderly writer, Wyatt
Gillman, who is a symptomatic symbol of Britain's ills, was
aptly played at the Royal Court Theatre in 1971 by Sir
Ralph Richardson. Wyatt is a writer who is cynical, has no
particular conviction, hears what he chooses to hear, and
in tedious discourse reveals an empty vacuousness that is
the basic undertone of the play. Osborne seems to point
226
his dramatic parable to the English state of affairs in the
late twentieth century.
West of Suez is set "on a Caribbean island, formerly
British, now independent, provides a melancholy microcosm
not so much of declining Empire as of Western civiliza
tion. "■*" Wyatt has four daughters who one by one expose
their empty lives in the two acts of the play. The dia
logue is witty and amusing, but often boring as the charac-
terms discuss and discuss, gossip and gossip about one
another. Equally frustrated are the husbands of Wyatt's
daughters; his secretary, Christopher; Harry, an elderly,
dying engineer; Alastair, a young hairdresser; and, finally,
Owen Lamb, a writer. Each one "suffers from inertia, or is
2
resigned, ashamed, reflexively spiteful."
The play opens with Frederica, a favorite of the
four daughters, sparring with her medical pathologist-
husband, Edward. He prides himself on being a "blood and
shit man" (practical), while Frederica fights boredom with
gossip about her sister, Robin, who has recently married
the Brigadier. Mary, Robin, and Evangie complain and drown
^John Osborne, West of Suez (London: Faber and
Faber, 1971), cover jacket.
2Ibid.
227
themselves in work. Finally, Wyatt is preoccupied with
himself. Alastair pokes fun at the American tourists. The
first act ends as Harry makes his entrance.
Act II is largely chit-chat, with its central focus
on the interview by Mrs. James of Wyatt. Obviously Osborne
uses Wyatt as a disguised mouthpiece for the dramatist's
commentary on contemporary social and political problems.
Wyatt is basically detached and uninvolved with his fellow
man.
The second scene of Act II provides a melodramatic
tirade of an American tourist, Jed, who denounces the
British lethargy, while warning of the triumph of the USA.
Wyatt is shot down by several islanders, as to suggest a
symbolic need for Britons— now weary of life and the world.
Absent in West of Suez is Osborne's older form of
an anti-hero with lengthy monologues. In its place is a
collage of crippled alienated people. The bland monotony
runs throughout. Robin is dull. Edward is practical and
3
earns a living. There is an aura of restless detachment
in the existence of Frederica and Edward. Evangie uses
4
work as a substitute for authentic life. Wyatt exhibits
3
Osborne, West of Suez, pp. 16-17.
4
Ibid., pp. 34, 40.
228
no feeling in merriment over his wife’s burial. He does
not trust women— again, the problem of alienation of the
6
sexes. Frederica's eroticism without sorge (care) shows
7
the presence of the inauthentic. The lack of genuine
existence is reflected in Wyatt's statement:
Wyatt: I don't really know why you should want to
talk to me at all. I've got no interesting views or
opinions about anything. Never have done. I don't
believe in much, never have done, never been inspired
by anything. I'm simply overtalkative, vain, corpulent,
and a bit of a played-out hulk, as I think most of the
world knows ... .
Always weary, ineffably bored, always in some
sort of vague pain and always with a bit of unsatisfied
hatred burning away in the old inside like a heartburn
or indigestion.8
Less realistic and conventional is Osborne's A Bond
Honoured, based on Lope de Vega's La fianza satisfecha.
Continuing his constant probing of meaning in existence,
Osborne's central character, Leonido, is "determined to
honour his bond to pay the price for his crimes" lest
9
meaninglessness envelop him.
The plot revolves around Leonido, who is a super
Don Juan who wars on all human tenderness. He commits
^Osborne, West of Suez, p. 44. ^Ibid., p. 47.
^Ibid., p. 50. ^Ibid., p. 70.
9
John Osborne, A Bond Honoured (London: Faber and
Faber, 1966), fly leaf.
229
every self-indulgence possible: incest with his sister,
Marcela; denunciation of virtue; violent acts on impulse
with his servant, Tizon; defiantly strikes his own father,
Gerardo; rejects Christ for Mahomet; rejects the love and
beauty of a Moorish lady, Lidora, in Act II. Thus, Leonido
does what he hates, but, finally, must pay his debt to the
Shepherd-Christ by crucifixion from a tree.
Leonido, the anti-hero is marvelously alive in his
existence of total depravity. It is a portrait by Osborne
that seems to demand life be lived— be damned all conven
tions and rules. Alan Brien sees the play as a modern
parable in that Leonido dares "God to show Himself by
living a life of total evil.1'^ Yet, D. A. N. Jones sees
Leonido, the self-indulgent tormentor, as a dubious
existential hero.^^
The characterization of Leonido is obviously one of
allegory., and the plot a kind of morality. At every turn
he feels: this is especially the case in his passion for
1{^Alan Brien, "Theatre," Vogue, September 1, 1966,
p. 206 .
"^D. A. N. Jones, "Hot Thing," New Statesman,
June 17, 1966, p. 902.
230
1 2
Marcela, and his extreme Impatience with Tizon. He has a
vitality that is willing to defy God and to challenge the
13
boredom of existence. Dasein (individual in existence)
is especially dramatized in this play: life lived to the
14
hilt. He sees the self as god-like. He speaks to the
twentieth century when he says to the Moorish king:
They were all consumed with process. Had no idea of
the unique. Me, I had an overstrong instinct, you
understand and this is an island of over protected
people.
The other characterizations of A Bond Honoured
stand in marked contrast to the existential Leonido.
Marcela cares more for convention and virtue than her true
10 17
feelings. Tizon advises acceptance of the expected.
18
Gerardo invokes the traditional virtues. Lidora advo
cates the inauthenticity of her desire for cruelty— not
19
love. All dwell in dreams while Leonido dwells in harsh
• +. 20
existence.
12
Osborne, A Bond Honoured, pp. 25, 29.
13 14
Ibid., p. 33. Ibid., p. 35.
15Ibid., p. 38. 16Ibid., pp. 20, 25
17 18
Ibid., p. 29. Ibid., pp. 34-35.
19Ibid., pp. 41-42. 2°Ibid., p. 51.
231
Osborne uses an historical incident for an explora
tion of the relations between homosexuality and espionage,
the spirit of the times and the existential problems of
21
debasement and identity. The play is A Patriot For Me.
The plot of Patriot concerns an Austrian officer,
Alfred Redl, who is forced into treason as a spy for
22
Czarist Russia because of his homosexual activity. At
the beginning of the play, Redl is an ambitious young
officer who wishes to succeed in the officer cult and
artificial society of his day. In 1890 he achieves
prestige and power as he attends a fellow officer in a
fatal duel. His relations with women fail, and he turns to
young men. The Russians kept a dossier on him and use him
as a spy. He becomes useless to the Austrians and is forced
to commit suicide. The actual date of the real Redl is
1913.23
The characterization of Redl focuses on his exis
tential problem of sexual identity. As such, the Zeitgeist
21
Richard P. Cooke, "Through Decadent Paces," The
Wall Street Journal, October 7, 1969, cited in New York
Theatre Critic's Review 30 (1969): 244.
22
Richard Watts, Jr., "The Case of an Austrian
Traitor," New York Post, October 6, 1969, cited in New York
Theatre Critic’s Review 30 (1969): 244.
23
Cooke, "Through Decadent Paces," p. 244.
232
(spirit of the times) is manifest in the same disillusion
and search for meaning as manifest in Redl. Like most of
Osborne's protagonists, the characterization of Redl does
not solicit much sympathy from the audience. One can only
conclude that Osborne's aesthetic treatment is one of
alienation and detachment. Jimmy Porter asserted being in
Look Back in Anger, but in A Patriot for Me Redl is over-
24
whelmed by the nothingness of nonbeing.
The play script makes the fabric of social aliena
tion more clear. Mohl warns Redl against "involvement" or
25
concern over a fellow officer in Act I, Scene II. The
military control over marriage and an officer's personal
life indicates the existential inauthenticity for lack of
26
choice. Redl's own contempt for the strumpet, Hilde,
reveals the depth of dehumanization current; Redl calls
27
her "garbage." This detachment is revealed in a conver
sation with the Countess Sophia Delyanoff in Act I,
Scene VII:
24
Walter Kerr, "Why Has Gsborne Taken the Trouble,"
New York Sunday Times, October 12, 1969, cited in New York
Critics's Review, ibid., p. 247.
25
John Osborne, A Patriot for Me (Chicago: The
Dramatic Publishing Co., 1965), p. 23.
^Ibid., p. 29. ^Ibid., p. 31.
233
Countess: Have you ever confided in anyone?
Redl: No.
Countess: Hasn't there ever been anyone? (Pause)
What about another man? I know friendship means a lot
to you . . . What about Taussig?
Redl: (out front but to her) No. At least . . .
only a very, a very little. I did try one evening.
But he doesn't welcome confidences. He doesn't know
what to do with them . . . or where to put them.23
Redl's characterization is one of inhumanity; he
trusts no one. He is truly the modern alienated man. Such
alienation from being most certainly is related to his
. , . 2 9
subsequent perversion.
The many characterizations of this play are of a
similar fabric of estrangement as Redl. For example, the
duel was precipitated by Kupfer as he called Siczynski a
Tew. Yet, Hilde, the whore, has more authentic warmth as a
30
human being than anyone in the play. The Countess, Kunz,
and Mohl simply illustrate soldiers and society without
31
authentic identity: they are all playing parts. The
loss of sorge or concern in love can only lead to lust
perversion as illustrated in the Redl-Oblensky relation-
v , • 32
ship .
28
Osborne, A Patriot for Me, pp. 71-72.
29Ibid., p. 133. 3°Ibid., pp. 44-45.
qi QO
Ibid., p. 57. Ibid., pp. 148-55.
234
In continuing his depiction of disillusion,
Osborne's screenplay for the film "Tom Jones" fills the
order for nostalgia. The film is based on Fielding's
eighteenth century novel. As such the film suggests a
certain eighteenth century taste on the part of Osborne:
perhaps it is his nostalgia for the ordered era when
British imperialism was on the rise. The film's vitality
and whim in characterization are perhaps Osborne’s anti
dotes for the despair of the twentieth century. The film
is perhaps an existential suggestion by way of character
ization portrayal of the zest of life.
Yet, in Osborne's adaptation of Ibsen's Hedda
Gabler, his concern is not of existential vitality so much
as it is of the nonbeing of Hedda's existence. Clearly,
Osborne's version of Hedda Gabler is in the vein of the
twentieth century's experience of estrangement rather than
of Ibsen's nineteenth century's romantic and willful
neurotic. Osborne's interpretation of Hedda is that a
"petty, puny, frigid" woman who is clearly unable to carry
33
through any relationship.
33
John Osborne, Introduction to Hedda Gabler, by
Henrik Ibsen (London: Faber and Faber, 1972), p. 7.
Further, Osborne sees Hedda as a victim, as not
tragic, as "indolently evil" by living off her own fanta-
34
sies. Hedda, says Osborne, is like modern man in that
she is bored. Her human personality is wasted. She is
seen as a frigid person, and only expresses her true feel
ings in "jealousy, possessiveness, and acquisitive
35
yearnings." That is, Hedda is an inauthentic existence
3(
that makes her incapable of initiating situations in life.
The problem of the liberated woman in search of
self-authentication is continued in Osborne's Time Present.
The plot revolves around two mature women of opposite life
styles: Pamela, a resting actress, and Constance, a Labour
M.P. Pamela is an extremely loquacious character, and
seems to be somewhat of a female Jimmy Porter. Much of the
play's action is the self-examination of Pamela and
Constance: that is, there is a tinge of lesbianism
37
hinted. Bernard is Pamela's lover. Murray is
Constance's lover.
34
Osborne, Introduction to Hedda Gabler, p. 7.
^Ibid., p. 8. ^Ibid.
37
John Osborne, Time Present (London: Faber and
Faber, 1968), p. 7.
236
Pamela manages to subjugate her best friend,
Constance, as well as win the love of Murray, Constance’s
partner. As a matter of fact, Pamela becomes pregnant by
Murray. Meanwhile the motivation for the play is the death
throe of Pamela's father, a distinguished actor-manager, in
38
a local hospital. As the play ends, Constance remains
with Murray as Pamela goes with Bernard to the south of
France.
The characterization of Pamela is the typical
Osborne anti-heroine, who has a sort of Electra-complex for
her father, Sir Gideon, a great deal of pretentiousness,
39
and is a bore to herself. She says to Constance:
Oh, of course. Yes, I believe in friendship, I believe
in friendship, I believe in love. Just because I
don't know how to doesn't mean I don't. I don't or
can’t.40
I think there's a certain grace in detachment.41
Yet, Pamela has authentic feeling for her father,
in contrast to her mother, Edith, who only pretends to have
38
John Weightman, "Grousees, Male and Female,"
Encounter 31 (September 1968): 44-45.
39
Ibid., p. 28.
40
Osborne, Time Present, p. 28.
^Ibid. , p . 43 .
237
42
liked her dead husband in Act II. However, it is Edith
who calls attention to Pamela's loss of friends, work, or
43
aim in life. Further, Pamela rejects any further
44
"involvement" with Murray or Constance. She goes off for
an abortion with Bernard.
The characterization of Constance reveals the same
searching for meaningful identity that is so prevalent in
twentieth century existence. She says to Pamela:
Perhaps I've always wanted to be someone like you. To
have long legs, and style. Instead of just making
efforts. But I suppose what is saddening is that you
make it sound all like a rejection.45
Other characters search for meaning too. Edith
’ 46
finds significance in her sex life. Pauline, Pamela's
47
younger sister, finds sein (being) in style and fun.
Dave, Pauline's hippie boy friend, can only find true
48
existence in drugs. Abigail and Edward find vitality in
49
the excitement of parties.
42
Osborne, Time Present, pp. 54-55.
43 44
Ibid., p. 57. Ibid., p. 63.
45 46
Ibid., p. 36. Ibid., p. 17.
47 48
Ibid., p. 23. Ibid.
49
Ibid., pp. 74-77.
238
The presence of nonbeing in our contemporary cul
ture is firmly perceived by Osborne's The Hotel in
Amsterdam, A group of film workers escape from the tyranny
of a producer, K. L., only to discover their mutual misery
in an existence without purpose, or meaning. They spend
the weekend in secret in Amsterdam as they discuss and hate
50
in common K. L., their private devil. It is just such a
devil that provides an existential nonbeing interest to
life.
The characterization of Laurie seems central among
the six friends. He is the epitome of alienation as he
castigates K. L.:
Those he's victimized at one time or another. Oh,
he'll find another spare eunuch knocking around London.
The world's full of hustlers and victims all beavering
away to be pressed into K. L.'s service. Someone
always wants to be useful or flattered or gulled or
just plain whipped slowly to death or cast out into
the knackers yard by King Sham. Well, let him go ahead
and get himself crucified this time. I know him not.®1
Laurie is a film-editor, subjugated to K. L„,
married to Margaret, and lover of Annie. With his cohorts,
Laurie grumbles constantly about their lot and destiny in
50
Weightman, "Grousees," p. 45.
51
John Osborne, The Hotel in Amsterdam (London:
Faber and Faber, 1968), p. 94.
239
52
existence. Barricaded in their hotel room, the six
gossip about K. L. and vent their spleen about their common
lot. The group reveals a basic alienation from authentic
ity in existence, especially in pecking order uneasiness
53
and sexual ambiguity. Kayrue acts as an "uncertain,
54
whisky-dependent little boy of dubious sexuality." In
the end K. L. kills himself, while the six react indiffer-
55
ently— a total estrangement from sorge.
The makeup of the remaining characterizations is
one of frustration and negation. Dan denounces the working
56
class and his mother. Amy hates her inauthentic depen
dence on K. L. as she sardonically suggests K. L. knows her
57
sexual period better than she. Gus1s sexual identity is
58
questioned. Annie reveals her rejection of a "need" for
59
other people— a deliberate inversion from sorge.
Sterility of modern life is reflected in Osborne’s
Under Plain Cover. In form Osborne moves closer to the
52
Weightman, "Grousees," p. 45.
53_, . , 54 .
Ibid. Ibid.
55
Osborne, A Hotel in Amsterdam, p. 143.
5fi 57
Ibid., pp. 90-91. Ibid., p. 95.
ELQ 5 Q
Ibid., p. 97. Ibid., p. 98.
240
absurdists. The plot focuses on Tim and Jenny, as incestu
ous brother and sister, who play doctor and hospital games.
60
She pretends to be a maid, and he pretends to be a lord.
Their play at roles of traditional society makes love
61
possible: as master, he must be able to punish his maid.
Complication arises when the postman and a reporter dis
cover the incestuous relation.
In a series of nonsensical scenes, and even more
"put-on" lines, Under Plain Cover revolts against conven
tions that restrict the human spirit.62 Banter by Tim and
Jenny on "style" suggests the utter emptiness of modern
63
existence. Jenny produces a packaged "baby" in a spec
tacular metaphor of modern sterility— in the Ionesco
64
vein. The news media rescues Jenny from her incestuous
marriage while arranging a more suitable marriage for her:
a postal clerk. Life, or existence seems perverted by
commerce. Human beings are treated as merchandise.
Stanley, the super-commercialist, arranges the exploitation
of TV coverage of Jenny's wedding. However, at the last
60
John Osborne, Under Plain Cover (London: Faber
and Faber, 1963), pp. 83-89.
61 62
Ibid., p. 96. Ibid., pp. 106-107.
63 64
Ibid., pp. 118-19. Ibid., p. 120.
241
scene, Stanley discovers that Jenny and Tim are together
again in their Turner home and have closed the door on the
65
world forever.
Characterization in terms of the recognizable
realistic play is absent here. Osborne has moved to the
realm of the wacky and the absurd to suggest, not state.
It is a virtual impossibility to interpret sense out of
many of the lines of Tim or Jenny. But, the fun-loving
spirit of their marriage comes through: a true and vital
existence. On the other hand, the power and tyranny of the
commerical world to destroy happiness is clearly enunciated.
Equally in the absurdist vein is John Osborne's The
Right Prospectus, written for television as a mocking jibe
■ t
at the anti-education tone of the British school system.
The plot of the play concerns a certain middle-aged couple,
Mr. and Mrs. James Newbold, who decide to enroll as
66
students in a public school. No one notices their age or
sex, and they are promptly subjugated to dullness, confor
mity, and harassment. The various boys, such as Jenkins,
and Heffer, prove to be either devoid of intellect, or act
65
Osborne, Under Plain Cover, pp. 134-35.
66
John Osborne, The Right Prospectus (London:
Faber and Faber, 1970), pp. 9-11.
242
6 7
as clever tyrants. Newbold thinks about the existential
possibilities of the school: "time to read. Time to
think." Yet, instead of Crampton Prep acting as a liberat-
68
ing factor in Newbold's education, it cramps him. The
severity of the rules denies the truth of the existence of
69
Mr. Newbold or Mrs. Newbold as persons. The Newbolds
70
leave the school with no goodbyes or feeling.
The characterizations are in the absurdist and
existential vein. A glance at the cast of characters
reveals the large majority as being "anonymous," suggestive
of the absence of dasein, or individual existence. Many
71
are simply "First Boy," or "Second Boy." Central, of
course, are the Newbolds. Their personalities are denied
72
throughout the play. Her pregnancy is ignored. They are
separated in different houses, but Mrs. Newbold's gender
goes unnoticed. Such an absence of feeling is manifest
73
throughout the play.
67
Osborne, The Right Prospectus, pp. 12-15.
68 69
Ibid., pp. 16-18. Ibid., p. 19.
7°Ibid., pp. 47-48. 71Ibid., p. 7.
72 73
Ibid., p. 17. Ibid., p. 21.
243
The absence of friendships, as well as total
regimentation of the students and teachers in The Right
74
Prospectus reveals a basic nonexistential tone. Reverend
75
Pearce is a martial-minded clergyman. Heller, the student
tyrant-leader, opposes both heterosexual and homosexual
76
activity. Partridge is a boy of feeling and humanity who
befriends Newbold in the atmosphere of repression and
77
sterility. The pathetic meaninglessness of the life at
Crampton Prep is illustrated especially by Partridge:
cigarettes are his only comfort in the face of despair and
alienation. But not even Partridge has enough feeling to
78
tell the Newbolds goodbye on their departure.
Osborne provides further elaboration of his insight
*
into the antithesis of creedal belief versus the facts of
human existence in A Subject of Scandal and Concern. The
plot of the play concerns George Holyoake, a poor young
teacher of Birmingham. He addresses a social missionary
meeting and denies the existence of God; rather, Holyoake
74
Osborne, The Right Prospectus, pp. 26-27.
75 76
Ibid., p. 27. Ibid., p. 28.
77 7R
Ibid., pp. 32-37. Ibid., pp. 46-48.
244
79
advocates socialism and the relief of human suffering.
In fact, this is the "subject" of scandal and concern.
Subsequently, Holyoake is arrested by the police
80
for blasphemy and brought to trial. The jury is stacked
against Holyoake. He is found guilty and sent to jail for
six months. The chaplain of the jail seeks to make Holy
oake recant. Jones, a magistrate, argues with Holyoake.
Meanwhile, Mrs.’ Holyoake is left to fend for herself and
8 X
the child. Word is brought to Holyoake that Southwell,
Holyoake's fellow blasphemer, recanted before his death in
82
prison. Yet, Holyoake holds out firm in his viewpoint,
even as he is told by his wife of the death of their
83
daughter.
Holyoake's rigid beliefs are central to his charac
terization. It is a characterization that returns to a
recognizable realistic theatre aesthetic, but continues to
pose the existential dilemma of belief versus human need.
The audience is led to sympathize with Holyoake at the
79
John Osborne, A Subject of Scandal and Concern
(Chicago: The Dramatic Publishing Co., 1971), pp. 14-15.
80
Ibid., pp. 18-19.
81
Ibid., pp. 29, 44-45, 48-49, 52-53.
82 . 83 , . , __
Ibid., p. 51. Ibid., p. 55.
245
beginning of the play: he is apparently tolerant as
84
opposed to his wife's harsh judgments on him. His ideal
istic socialist views smack with nobility as opposed to the
85
righteous Bartram and Erskine in the courtroom. Yet,
gradually Osborne reveals to the audience the absence of
the existential on the part of the rigid believers, as well
86
as with Holyoake himself.
The irony that the play poses is simply that exis
tence is denied for belief. This is true as Mrs. Holyoake
denies the humanitarian cause of her husband for religious
gy
rules. Minor characters such as Bubb, Cooper, as well
as the Chaplain proceed to try, convict, and jail Holyoake
as if his family did not exist. That is, absolute subjec
tion to a conception was more important in law than the
88
meeting of human need. On the other hand, George denies
the needs of his wife and daughter for his own rigid
belief. The tragedy is that George's daughter died because
of his denial of the existential.
84
Osborne, Scandal and Concern, pp. 10-11, 8.
85Ibid., pp. 32-35. 86Ibid., pp. 55, 49.
8^Ibid., p. 7. 88Ibid., pp. 18-26.
246
The problem of alienation and dehumanization in the
modern world is continued in Osborne's Very Like a Whale.
The plot concerns an export tycoon, Sir Jock, honored by
89
Queen Elizabeth. His wife is part of the "package deal."
Jock is bored with life and escapes through drive and
90
initiative. He takes sleeping pills to sleep. His
ex-wife and a son live in New York. He cares little for
his daughter, Myra. The workers are cold to Jock at his
factory. Jock feels uneasy with his aged father. Jock's
son is indifferent to any suggestion. Barbara, Jock's
ex-wife, has contempt for him. Mellor, Jock's present
91
wife, is fed up.
Jock is stirred to protest the "cost-analysis"
speech of a colleague at an international conference, but
collapses and is taken to a hospital for a "rest." While a
TV interviewer asks Jock about the business outlook, as the
tycoon lies in bed, Jock finally escapes the pain of
92
existence by a fatal heart attack.
89
John Osborne, Very Like a Whale (London: Faber
and Faber, 1971), p. 14.
90
Ibid., p. 16.
91
Ibid., pp. 15, 32-33, 40, 47, 48-49.
92
Ibid., pp. 51-54.
247
Throughout the play the characterization of Jock is
dramatized as one of basic alienation and inauthenticity.
Each of the supporting characters is utilized by Osborne to
buttress this depiction of detachment and absence of feel
ing. The best example is Jock's father who cares more for
93
his dog than he does for Jock. Jock tells Ted, his
doctor:
Jock: Oh, I'll drop in on my father. Just to make
sure he's in an upright position. He won't know if I'm
there or not.
Ted: Is he all right?
Jock: Good for years. We simply don't have much
well, much, no feeling for one another.
Ted: Why go and see him?
Jock: Just to look. Afterwards, I shall go and
look at my sister.^4
Osborne's attention to the inauthentic is continued
in his spoof of royalty, The Blood of the Bambergs. The
plot takes the form of interviews led by commentator, Paul
Wimple, at a cathedral where preparations for a royal
95
wedding are made ready. Lemon, one of the construction
men, shows his blind faith in an obsolete tradition: both
93
Osborne, Very Like a Whale, pp. 40-41.
94
Ibid., p. 40.
95
John Osborne, The Blood of the Bambergs (London:
Faber and Faber, 1963), pp. 13-15.
248
96
royal and ecclesiastical. While Ted Brown, the Minister
of Culture, is interviewed word is received that the Prince
has been killed while driving recklessly in his sports car.
Since there is no successor to the Prince, the proponents
of the monarchial tradition conspire to provide a substi
tute prince: Alan Russell, photographer of the Australian
97
United Press. At gunpoint Russell is forced into the
role: thus, inauthentic pretense of royal blood is more
important than the authentic existence of dead
monarchialism.^
Although Osborne shows the absurdity of the British
monarchial system, he uses more of a conventional realistic
plot mechanism than in The Gift of Friendship or The Right
Prospectus. Russell’s impersonation of the Prince in all
its glorious humdrum boredom is the focal point of the play.
Princess Melanie marries the cheap commoner as a matter of
99
relief from it all.
Russell, the pinch-hitting Prince, is the central
characterization. The identification of the British people
96
Osborne, Blood of the Bambergs, pp. 16-23.
97 9R
Ibid., pp. 36-37. Ibid., pp. 42-43.
99
Ibid., pp. 64-67.
249
with a worn-out royal blood line is at stake. Russell
discovers that he is forced to surrender himself to an
inauthentic existence.433 The schein of royal appearance
is just as well filled by an impostor, Russell, as by a
blood Prince. 434 Russell does it for the money. 433
Other characterizations in The Blood of the
Bambergs exhibit schein rather than sein, inauthenticity
rather than authenticity of existence. Charlie Lemon, the
construction foreman, goes on month after month, year after
year in his purported "dream” of allegiance to monarchial-
103
ism. Minister Brown, Colonel Taft, and Captain Withers
are committed to Royal allegiance and so lend significance
104
to their existence. One woman, Mrs. Robbins, acts
fanatically in her worship of the Prince, only to kill
herself in a moment of hysteria. Such lunacy, Osborne
seems to suggest, arises from a tradition and institutional
inauthenticity that does not heed the English public's true
105
needs of existence. The combination of royalty and
4330sborne, Blood of the Bambergs, p. 46.
101 , , , r. _ 102 .
Ibid., p. ol. Ibid., p. 67.
103Ibid., pp. 16-19. 104Ibid., pp. 24-31.
Ibid., pp. 52-62.
250
nationalism immersed in the aura of religiosity is truly a
monstrosity of schein.
Much of Osborne's A Sense of Detachment pokes fun
at the schein of contemporary society. The absence of
being or sein is basic to understanding the ills of that
society. The plot is somewhat in the Pirandello vein as a
series of characters seek a playwright in a collage of
thrusts and parries at contemporary culture. They include:
Chairman, Chap, Girl, Father, Grandfather, and Older
T ^ 1 0 7
Lady .
The various characterizations spout a stream of
empty gags and nonsensical remarks: truly all are detached.
The contrast of the generations and characterizations is
pointedly made by Osborne: the Girl makes sexual jokes
that degrade her existence; Grandfather sings old-fashioned
hymns that place him in the distant inauthentic past; Chap
brags of conquests that testify to his own dehumanization;
the Older Lady recites a stream of pornographic stories
that suggest her total alienation from sex and authentic
love; the Chairman hints that homosexual perversion is the
- | Q0
Osborne, Blood of the Bambergs, pp. 71-77.
107
John Osborne, A Sense of Detachment (London:
Faber and Faber, 1973), pp. 11-16.
251
108
ultimate in an alienated society.
Grandfather describes the debasement of existence
in the modern era as follows:
They must to keep their certainty accuse
All that are different of a base intent;
Pull down establishment honour;
hawk for news
Whatever their loose fantasy invent
And murmured with bated breath,
as though
The abounding gutter had been Helican
Or Calumny a song. How can they
know
Truth flourishes where the student’s
lamp has shone,
And there alone, that have no
solitude?
So the crowd come they care not
what may come.
They have loud music, hope every
day renewed
And hearties loves; that lamp
is from the tomb.109
The Girl expresses the new creedal formula of
secularism:
People don't fall in love. (to audience)
That idea is no longer effective in the context of
modern techniques. We are part of an efficient, maxi
mum productive Economic Union. And Economic Unions
do not fall in love. They amalgamate. They cut down
. . . We build now. And NOW
X08
Osborne, Sense of Detachment, po. 29, 31-33,
35-36, 39, 41-43, 46.
109
Ibid., p . 51.
252
We are not language. We lingua. We do not love, eat,
or cherish. We exchange. Oh yes: we talk. We have
words, rather: environment; pollution, problems;
issues; . . . H O
Inauthentic existence is also the allegory of
Osborne's adaptation of Shakespeare's Coriolanus. The play
is called A Place Calling Itself Rome. While Shakespeare
depicts the rise and fall of the conceited Consul, Corio
lanus, as exemplary of the Elizabethan vertu of modesty
and moderation, Osborne's portrait focuses upon the exis
tential dichotomy between the "image" of Coriolanus and the
truth of his existence.
The plot of A Place Calling Itself Rome concerns a
legendary Roman general, Coriolanus, who became prominent
because of his victory over the Volscians at Corioli.
Returning to Rome in triumph (Coriolanus) is elected
consul, but opposes the plebeian interests and is
shortly afterwards banished. He joins his former
enemies the Volscians against Rome, but is finally
persuaded to give up the siege by the entreaties of
his wife and mother.H2
^"^Osborne, Sense of Detachment, p. 58.
■^^John Osborne, A Place Calling Itself Rome
(London: Faber and Faber, 1973), pp. 40-55.
112
The Reader's Encyclopedia, ed. William Rose
Benet (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1948), p. 242.
253
Coriolanus' double-cross of the Volscians prompts his own
murder.
Osborne's Coriolanus is a detached elitist who
looks at the .mob of Roman people in contemptible alienation.
He seeks to rule without the faith and confidence of the
113
people, which becomes an existential impossibility. The
114
cold arrogance of Coriolanus causes his alienation. The
inauthentic flattery of Coriolanus' characterization is
reflected in this conversation:
Second Police Officer: They all say Coriolanus
will have his way, in spite of all this.
First Police Officer: Oh, he's brave enough and
clever enough— he loves no one here today, that's for
sure. If any day. And shows it what's more.
Second Police Officer: There have been plenty in
the past to govern the people without liking them; let
alone loving them. They've flattered without even
hating them, like Coriolanus does.H^
Yet, Coriolanus, like modern man, sells out his
commitment to his own people, as well as to Aufidius.
Coriolanus must pay for it, just as modern man must pay for
116
it in terms of spiritual hollowness.
113
Osborne, A Place Calling Itself Rome, pp. 18-21.
114Ibid., pp. 24-25. 115Ibid., p. 40.
116Ibid., p. 75.
254
Whereas Coriolanus is a characterization of detach
ment, the Volscian general, Aufidius, is a character of
117
commitment and existential decision. Menenius counsels
Coriolanus to be wise in the ways of existence: for faith
and confidence of the people, for the sense of true
118
community, for friendly persuasion— all to no avail.
Volumnia, Coriolanus' mother, and Virgilia, his wife, seek
119
to calm Coriolanus' passion, but to no avail.
Osborne continues his thesis of modern man's
estrangement from feeling, and alienation of the self into
isolation in his recent play The Gift of Friendship. It is
a very short television play that treats the empty life of
one literary lion, Jocelyn Broome. Broome invites an old
friend, Bill Wakely, for dinner to confer upon him the title
of executor of Broome's literary estate. Subsequently,
Broome kills himself, and Wakely discovers the deep hatred
that Jocelyn apparently felt for him.
The characterization of Jocelyn Broome is of the
120
usual Osborne fabric: silent, sardonic and alienated.
117
Osborne, A Place Calling Itself Rome, pp. 74-75.
118Ibid., pp. 18-19, 44. 119Ibid., p. 54.
120
John Osborne, The Gift of Friendship (London:
Faber and Faber, 1972), pp. 9-15, 16.
255
There are hints that ?/akely and Jocelyn had a homosexual
121
relationship in World War II. Jocelyn's boredom with
himself, lack of trust of anyone, and secretiveness even
from his wife, Edwina, indicate the typical modern man's
dilemmas with meaninglessness.122
Bill Wakely and his wife, Madge, display an
123
estrangement of feeling from one another. Both admit
that Wakely and Jocelyn didn't like one another. The
dinner, the executorship, the attendance by Wakely at
Jocelyn's funeral— all were inauthentic acts and denials of
124
the true feelings of their existence.
In summation, the characterizations of Osborne's
early plays followed a general depiction of the alienated
anti-hero as protagonist, as he confronted the meaningless
ness around him. On the other hand, Osborne's later plays
vary in their treatments, but generally examine a series of
characters that interact in the vacuum of modern meaning
lessness, and without commitment. Osborne uses some
Brechtian techniques of allegory and anonymity of
1 pi
Osborne, Gift of Friendship, pp. 19-20, 30.
199 193
Ibid., pp. 27, 30-31. Ibid., pp. 19-22.
124
Ibid., pp. 31-36.
256
characters but also uses some absurdist methods in fantas
tic and incongruous characters that illustrate the dilemmas
of modern existence.
257
CHAPTER VI
EXISTENTIAL INCIDENT, SCENE DESIGN, AND
STAGING IN OSBORNE'S PLAYS
This chapter carries the existential analysis
further by delineation of the various story lines and inci
dents of the plays within this perspective. In addition,
attention is given to the script and its existential
incarnation on the stage as an intuitive perception of
Osborne. The various reviews of Osborne's plays are drawn
upon to gain understanding of the ''life'' of the dramas,
while the existential criteria are correlated with the
staging techniques to determine their validity as dramatic
devices.
By and large the multiple scenes of Look Back in
Anger are couched by Osborne to suggest the sense of
meaninglessness to the audience.^ The battle of Jimmy and
Alison as to the "meaning" of church attendance is
^John Osborne, Look Back in Anger (London: Faber
and Faber, 1957), p. 10.
258
2
suggestive of the characters reaching for significance.
Further, the elaborate stage directions of Osborne hint to
Osborne's attempt to solicit from the audience the verve
and vitality of existential life, especially as Cliff
mentions:
. . . we're used to brawling and excitement. Perhaps
I even enjoy being in the thick of it. I enjoy
these two people very much . . .3
There is no question that Osborne seeks audience
involvement in Look Back in Anger. Such a theatre aesthetic
can be construed as existential because of its solicitation
4
of emotional involvement. Yet, even as Osborne subse
quently treats of the various problems of existentialism—
alienation, inauthenticity, schein— in his various plays,
he remains more basically Aristotelian in theatre aesthet
ics, than in a detached Brechtian aesthetics that appeals
to reason. Brecht calls for a kind of existential commit
ment to communism, but Osborne's Jimmy and Alison search
for a cause to be existentially committed. Look Back in
Anger involves an audience emotionally— in their existence,
2
Osborne, Look Back in Anger, p. 65.
3
Ibid., p . 72.
4
John Kershaw, The Present Stage (London: Fontana
Books, 1966), pp. 13, 28.
259
not minds.^
The scenes of the play are more concerned "with the
6
people involved in its story than with the story itself."
There is a solicitation by Osborne for sympathy for "what
is being said," by humor but not for the central protago-
7
nists. This is true with most of his plays: the audience
identifies with the sorrowful existential dilemmas of his
characters, but not with an empathy of abandon. Look Back
in Anger seems to pitch an appeal to the audience in an
urgent fashion for "participation" in life rather than
passive resignation— an obvious existential dramatic
8
construction.
While Osborne depends on the verbal for his drama
in Look Back in Anger, he also uses nonverbal moments of
silence, or subtle means of communicating human charity in
9
bears and squirrels— all suggestive of the existential.
5
Kershaw, The Present Stage, p. 32; Anthony Hartley,
"Angry Romantic," The Spectator, May 18, 1956, p. 688.
6
Kershaw, The Present Stage, p. 33.
7
Ibid., pp. 40-41.
Q
"Profile of John Osborne," The Observer, May 17,
1959 .
9
Osborne, Look Back in Anger, pp. 68-72; Richard
Hayes, "The Stage: The Last Romantic," The Commonweal,
November 22, 1957, p. 208.
260
His characters reveal their existence by talking, but the
staging for acts of passivity and vitality are equally
important.1^ The loss of community as a problem of modern
existence is part of the total impact of the play, espe
cially as the characters are presented as utterly separated
from the society around them.'*''*'
One must realize that Look Back in Anger, as well
as many of Osborne's other plays, derive their existential
insights from their basic commitment to social realism.
The existential is one step farther than realism in
12
aesthetic terms. Dramatic inevitability is largely
13
absent and the play simply fades away. Whereas the older
realistic drama abstracted the characters from their social
settings, Osborne places his characters squarely in their
social context that tends to emphasize the existential.
This new realistic drama is "episodic, blatantly biased
socially, [and calls] for critical political, as well as
10Henry Hewes, "The Unquiet Englishman,” Saturday
Review, October 12, 1957, p. 30.
■^Patricia Meyer Spacks, "Confrontation and Escape
in Two Social Dramas," Modern Drama 2 (May 1968): 69.
12
A. Alvarez, "The Anti-Establishment Drama," The
Partisan Review 26 (Fall 1959): 610.
1 3
Ibid., pp. 610-11.
261
14
humane, judgements from an audience." Whereas the older
realistic plays show the emotional relations of characters
to one another, and invite the audience to approve or
sympathize with the emotional trials of the characters in
the Sardou-Ibsen tradition of the well-made play, the new
realism of Osborne seems to show the emotional relation
ships of the characters to themselves and one another in
the social context of modern anxiety. Further, Osborne
invites the audience to empathize with the character's
15
existential dilemmas rather than surface emotions.
In correlation with the existential criteria of
Chapter III, existential self-conflict is present in all
the characters of Look Back in Anger. But rather than
illustrating an existential problem in allegory, e.g. in
Ionesco's Exit the King, Osborne's realistic characters
verbalize or visually depict their sense of alienation.
Osborne's characters in Look Back in Anger make up a kind
of self-chorus: they constantly comment about themselves
in an interpretive manner.
14
Clive Barker, "Look Back in Anger— the Turning
Point," Zeitschrift fur Anglistik Und Amerikanistik, 14
(1966): 369.
1 5
Ibid., p. 367.
262
Denouement, rising action, climax are largely
absent in Osborne’s play. He replaces these with an
intensive series of episodic hammer blows, and comparable
momentary relief from the turbulence. There is only a
posing of problems and growth of awareness rather than a
specific denouement of event.
Osborne also uses the interior monologue of "talk-
ing at” another character, i.e. Jimmy and Alison, to dis
close the "isolation” of human life. The apparent absence
of motivation of Osborne in his characterization of Alison
seems deliberate: her apathy in existence. Jimmy Porter's
angry motivation seems to illustrate his search for meaning.
Finally, while Osborne follows a linear plot line in Look
Back in Anger, it is submerged to emphasize the problems of
human existence illustrated by the characters.
Osborne's scene design instructions for The
Entertainer can be taken as a parallel of the existence of
the modern era: down-at-the-mouth Rice house in a coastal
resort area. Osborne says: "This is a part of the town
the holiday makers never see— or, if they do, they decide
16
to turn back to the pleasure gardens.” The several
16
John Osborne, The Entertainer (London: Faber and
Faber, 1957), p. 11.
263
scenes of the play seem to suggest the "non-existence" of
modern life, especially by means of the fragmented scene
script construction. Archie sings and dances directly to
17
the audience in somewhat of the Brechtian epic fashion.
The family scenes are designed to convey to the audience
the perception of the disintegration of family ties: that
X8
is, the loss of meaning in relationships.
Again, as in Look Back in Anger, Osborne wrote The
19
Entertainer with minor attention to the plot. Character
ization under the pressure of existence reminds us of
Racine. By departure from the dominance of the well-made
play in English theatre, Osborne tries to make his dramas
20
existential within the traditional realistic aesthetic.
Whereas the French theatre experimented with the absurdists
to gain perception of the modern complexities, Osborne's
early plays keep the traditional linear plot, but with
emphasis upon character in crisis. Osborne's The
17
Osborne, The Entertainer, pp. 23-25.
1 R
Ibid., p. 47.
19
T. C. Worsley, "England, Our England," New States
man , September 21, 1957, p. 344.
20
John Osborne, "That Awful Museum," The Twentieth
Century 169 (Fall 1961): 212-13.
264
Entertainer can be construed as an attack upon "that awful
museum" known as the English theatre. Osborne's emphasis
upon episode and characterization is an attempt to make the
21
theatre relevant to contemporary life.
To be sure, Osborne's theatre aesthetics also rests
upon the nonverbal in perception of the problems of modern
existence. He says that "drama rests on the dynamic that
is created between characters on stage. It must be con
crete and it must be expressed, even if it is only in
22
silence or a gesture of despair." Heidegger's concept of
"sorge" or care as a prerequisite of the existential is
also a part of Osborne's aesthetics. He says: "the
theatre must be based on care, care for how people feel and
,,23
live."
The shabby stage scene of the music hall, along
with the tacky appearance of Archie and the other Rices
tends to leave a nonverbal impact upon.the audience. It
has an existential meaning: "the death of the community
21
Osborne, "That Awful Museum," pp. 212-13.
22
John Osborne, "The Entertainer," Writers’
Theatre, ed. Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall (London:
Heinemann, 1967), p. 51.
23
John Osborne, "Introduction,” International
Theatre Annual 2 (1957): 10.
265
24
sense." The smirks of Archie, as well as his brittle
voice and hollow laughter convey an existential sense to
the audience that is verbal and nonverbal. Archie's
"failure" is his lack of humanity. He is dead behind his
25
eyes and has lost care (sorge).
Osborne's own commentary about The Entertainer
comes close to the existential perspective. In an article
on "Sex and Failure" Osborne states that neurosis and
anxiety are a sign of "vitality" and "aliveness" in exis-
26
tence. Meaningful symbols to live by are brought into
27
question in The Entertainer in regard to the monarchy.
G. K. Hunter, on the other hand, reminds us that Brother
Bill, in his well-dressed and well-heeled image of scene
twelve, achieves success and efficiency only by cutting off
sympathetic responses in a negation of meaningful
24
Graham Martin, "A Look Back at Osborne," Univer
sities and Left Review 7 (1955): 38.
25Ibid., p. 39.
26
John Osborne, "Sex and Failure," in Protest, ed.
Gene Feldman and Max Gartenberg (London: Souvenir Press,
1959), p. 317.
27
John Osborne, "Declaration," Playwrights on Play-
writing, ed. Toby Cole (New York: Hill and Wang, 1960),
p. 142.
266
existence.
In correlation with the existential criteria we
discover that the episodic design of the play tends to
emphasize the self-conflict of the characters as they
ponder their hollow destiny. Inauthenticity remains for
most of the characters because of their failure to make
choices of commitment to causes beyond themselves. We
might designate The Entertainer an existential allegory
because the play as a whole concerns characters who act out
their search for meaning.
Osborne uses realistic staging to some extent, but
the presence of direct-audience contact is interspersed
throughout, especially in Archie's music-hall sequence. We
can recognize certain characteristics of the older dramatic
conventions: linear-plot, climax with Billy Rice's death,
or multiplicity of verbal and nonverbal cliches in Archie's
monologues. Yet, deus ex machina is not used in The
Entertainer to manipulate the play extraordinarily as an
Ionesco might. However, Osborne does motivate his charac
ters in existential despair, and he does leave the audience
in the final scene with a denouement of posing the problem
28
G. K. Hunter, "The World of John Osborne,”
Critical Quarterly 3 (Spring 1961): 80.
267
of Archie's search for meaning.
Osborne's scene design and staging for Luther
continues this "search," but now it is in a more expression
ist ic vein. In Act I, Scene II, Luther "comes out of a
cone surrounded by darkness, above him a great knife
29
approaching the naked torso of a man." All of which
seems to suggest visually the existential man walking the
blade of being, but forever confronted by nonbeing.
Further, Osborne gives directions for a delineation
from Act I and Act II that makes clear the private versus
the public. Whereas Act I is designed in decor to give the
effect of the personal and the "particular man in the
unconscious," Act II is designed for the caricature of "men
30
in time." In other words, the dasein or existence of
Luther is examined in Act I, while the sein or being of
existence of the sixteenth century is treated in Act II.
Undoubtedly, the acting for Luther, such as that of Albert
Finney or others, is stylized to suggest in pause and
grimace the inner anxiety of the Reformer.
29
Katharine J. Worth, "The Angry Young Man's John
Osborne," in Experimental Drama (London: G. Bell and Sons,
Ltd.), p. 167.
30
John Osborne, Luther (New York: The New American
Library, Inc., 1963), p. 56.
268
Application of the existential criteria to Luther
reveals that the central focus is upon the self-conflict of
Luther, although Hans acts as referent point for this
examination of Luther’s existence. Ideas of Hans or ideas
of Luther are never central to the play so much as their
inner anxieties and struggles. There is a linear progres
sion, but rising action and climax are not the point of
Luther so much as the positing of questions that remain
unanswered. Luther finds "meaning” in his new life with
Kate .
However, John Osborne's Bill Maitland in Inadmis
sible Evidence is staged in a dream sequence that not only
points toward his yearning for significance, but reflects
31
the techniques of the Absurdists. This dramatic por
trayal of Maitland's dasein or existence is made manifest
through absurdist methods throughout the play. The scene
design for Act I is a collage of a solicitor's office, a
prisoner's dock, and the benches of a court of justice.
Osborne describes it as "a site of helplessness, of
oppression and polemic. The structure of this particular
dream is the bones and dead objects of a Solicitor's Office.
31
Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd (New
York: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1969), p. 379.
269
32
It has a desk, files, papers, dust, books, . . ."
Act II suggests in its staging the same ambiguity
of reality versus dream. Maitland talks on a phone, almost
as if it were dead, that is, whether "the person at the
33
other end exists.” Further, Osborne utilizes the same
actress to play a series of divorcees, Mrs. Anderson,
Mrs. Garnsey, and Mrs. Tonks, in order to give a semblance
of universality to the crisis of the modern family and the
34
institution of marriage.
Ronald Bryden sees the play as a modern allegory
akin to the medieval drama, Everyman. He says that
"Osborne has gathered all the anxieties into a single image
35
of cathartic collapse." One by one his strengths and
friends desert him, but for a different set of reasons than
with the medieval play. Bill Maitland's existence of
selfishness drives all away, and what talent he held
withers away. Inadmissible Evidence is allegorical in the
sense that Osborne "is driving at everything in modern
32
John Osborne, Inadmissible Evidence (New York:
Grove Press, Inc., 1965), p. 9.
33 34
Ibid., p. 63. Ibid., p. 82.
35
Ronald Bryden, "Everyosborne," New Statesman,
September 18, 1964, p. 410.
270
society that demeans the individual, wastes his talent, and
36
punishes his emotional expression."
Osborne captures the breakdown in modern communica
tion in the staging of Bill Maitland and his daughter, Jane,
37
in Act II. She remains silent throughout the monologue.
The staging of alienation by Osborne can be perceived in
Maitland's seeing everybody as the same. The acting of
Nicol Williamson in the original production apparently
captured "the essence of modern man's desperation and
confusion with intricately designed emotional surges and
retreats.
Application of the existential criteria to Inadmis
sible Evidence reveals a certain kinship to the Absurdists
in construction. The exploration of the alienated soul in
Bill Maitland is in the form of the spiral plot rather than
the linear. Maitland certainly is an example of existen
tial self-conflict. The tension of Maitland's guilt may
be construed as existential allegory. The nonverbal
36
Henry Hewes, "Angry Middle-Aged Man," Saturday
Review, December 18, 1965, p. 43.
37
Maureen A. Stack, "Inadmissible Evidence,"
Aylesford Review 7 (1965): 194.
38
Henry Hewes, "Unsubmissive Performance," Saturday
Review, January 8, 1966, p. 96.
271
suggestion is powerfully used in this play to convey to the
audience the hollow loneliness of Maitland. Inadmissible
Evidence explores the subjective existence of Maitland in
all of his self-contradictions, as well as through juxta
position of the comic to the tragic. The play posits
questions about Maitland's existence without a climax or
denouement at the end.
Osborne's preoccupation with man's isolation and
loneliness is continued in Epitaph for George Dillon. He
uses conventional staging of the realistic vein in this
play in all three acts in order to illustrate the emptiness
of the Elliot family, as well as the false illusions of
George Dillon. Part of its conventional structure may be
due to the co-author, Anthony Creighton.
Yet, several scenes are designed by the authors to
illustrate George's insistence on self-belief in his own
existence (dasein) apart from the sein (being) of others.
In Act II Ruth Elliot, George's mental equal, spots his
39
trouble: George's religion is "being brilliant." Earlier
in the same act Geoffrey, the pious religionist, retaliates
against George's sophisticated skepticism by calling
39
John Osborne and Anthony Creighton, Epitaph for
George Dillon (London: Faber and Faber, 1958), p. 55,
272
40
attention to George's existential faith in his own talent.
These two scenes are apparently part of Osborne's design
to verbally illustrate to the audience the extent of
George's Sartrean confidence in his own existence.
The inauthenticity of George's existence by his
lack of care for the being of others is further made
explicit in Act III, Scene I. This scene is a confronta-
41
tion of the anonymous government "man" and George. The
"man" represents the nonidentity of the government, while
George's application for unemployment compensation is a
confession of his humanity. The government "man" makes a
pitch for a conventional nine to five work-home life, while
George is unapologetic in his search for relief. George is
dependent on the system too. The government "man," as well
as George, are equally caught in the common problem of
modern existence of inauthenticity. Apparently, Osborne
has constructed this scene with the intention of verbally
and nonverbally convincing the audience of the complexity
of the set of questions on identity, authenticity, and
42
isolation.
40
Osborne, Epitaph, p. 48.
41 42
Ibid., pp. 70-71. Ibid., pp. 69-71.
273
Charles Marowitz suggests that Osborne's Epitaph
for George Dillon illustrates the playwright's commitment
to "a social and humanist conviction and not an allegiance
43
to maintain the fashion of the irate, verbose radical."
It is in this sense that Osborne has an existential commit
ment, yet there is a certain vagueness as to precisely what
this involves. He seems committed to Edwardian Imperialism
according to some, and consequently to dead issues of the
past. In any event, Osborne has no apparent consciousness
of philosophic existentialism, although his intuitive
dramaturgy is steeped in its incarnation.
In the initial productions of Epitaph for George
Dillon, Robert Stephens plays George and his search for
identity. Stephens' characterization of George "hides his
heartbreak behind a laugh. (George's) slumping figure, his
nasal delivery of lines, indicate a man who realizes that
he is incapable of fulfilling the destiny he has envisioned
for himself .
43
Charles Marowitz, "The Ascension of John Osborne,"
Tulane Drama Review 7 (Winter 1962): 179.
44
Robert Coleman, "'Epitaph for George Dillon' Not
to be Missed," New York Daily Mirror, November 5, 1958
quoted in New York Theatre Critics' Reviews 29 (1958): 220.
274
Osborne's preoccupation with the problem of
identity is reflected in his prose writings. Writing on
the American theatre, Osborne was appalled by the "loss of
personal individuality" on a visit to New York City in
1959. He says that "people all the time seem to be experi
encing life not so much through their own emotions and
ideas but through somebody else's ideas and what they
45
think and feel.”
The existential criteria applied to Epitaph for
George Dillon indicate that Osborne has followed his most
realistic format, probably due to Creighton's contribution.
Posing of the existential is brought to bear in characteri
zation and in scene construction. Scenes, as mentioned,
focus upon identity and inauthenticity. Regular linear
plot, progression to climax in the several acts, and a
denouement are present. Dillon lapses into the bourgeois
success syndrome in a very conventional ending.
The success syndrome and its import of existential
nihilism become central for Osborne's musical satire, The
World of Paul Slickey. This play departs from conventional
realistic staging to utilize exaggerated scenic effect to
45
John Osborne, "The American Theatre," Encore,
6 (March-April 1959): 17-18.
275
point out the presence of the inauthentic. For example, in
Act I, Scene I, twelve journalists dance with newspapers
as a backcloth becomes a newspaper with the words and
46
pictures of Paul Slickey. The schein of Slickey is
readily communicated to the audience. The subsequent songs
of the music heighten the cynical hopelessness that is
47
incarnate in Slickey’s fakery.
In application of the existential criteria to The
World of Paul Slickey, one finds that Osborne uses a blend
of musical comedy and absurdist tactics to heighten the
anxiety of the various characters' "being." For example,
Lesley manages a brassiere company, as well as a pop
singer, and turns lesbian while fellow characters belt out
songs that emphasize the problem of sexual identity in
modern Western society.
The play is existential because of the deemphasis
on plot and action in favor of perception of character
angst. The imagination of the audience is appealed to
rather than their senses. There is no rising action, or
climax, or denouement as such. Slickey bares his threadbare
AG
John Osborne, The World of Paul Slickey (London:
Faber and Faber, 1959), p. 11.
47Ibid., pp. 15-16, 17, 29, 47-48, 80, 94.
___________________________________________________________276
existence without any resolution because "plot,” "forward
progression,” or "specific theme" is not as important as
the audience's awareness of Slickey's schein without sein.
It could be argued that Osborne's adaptation of
Henry Fielding's Tom Jones for Tony Richardson's film
continues the playwright's probe of schein without sein.
In one respect Osborne's film script is inappropriate for
this dissertation since the aesthetics of the film is con
siderably at odds with the aesthetics of the stage. Never
theless, the existential criteria are largely inoperable
in this instance. Yet, it is apparently the case that
Osborne's script leaves out the Christian vision of life
that underlies Fielding's novel, but does recreate the
48
eighteenth century's spirit and manner. This is typical
of Osborne. The very existence of life is depicted in the
film, but without the ideas of a Shaw or the passionate
conviction of a Brecht. In contrast, Osborne's script
(verbal) and Richardson's film (nonverbal) have no more
purpose than "to prefer Tom's animal vitality and ingenu
ousness to the conniving of Blifel, or the pretentious
48
Martin C. Battestin, "Osborne's Tom Jones:
Adapting a Classic," in Man and the Movies, ed. W. R.
Robinson (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1967), p. 36.
277
metaphysics of Square, or the brutal Pharisaism of Thwackum,
49
or the jaded sexuality of Lady Bellaston." The existence
of the characters is examined at the expense of plot. The
episodic structure reminds us of Luther and The Enter
tainer . ^
Furthermore, the modern audience is more unwittingly
oriented to a commitment to the human needs of existence,
rather than to a Christian conflict of vice versus
51
virtue. That is, Blifel, Thwackum, and Square are
heightened as allegorical types by Osborne's script to
suggest their inauthenticity. The actors, also, add a
hyperbolic characterization as they satirize by nonverbal
52
means the schein of affectation and pretense.
Also, Osborne's film script has a certain existen
tial "now" quality to it: it concerns a young man who
lives moment-to-moment to the fullest. Apparently, this
sardonic quality catches the modern sense of humor, while
the novel has a perspective of taking seriously the vice
49
Battestin, "Osborne's Tom Jones," p. 34.
50
John Osborne, Tom Jones: A Film Script (London:
Faber and Faber, 1964), p. 122.
51
Ibid., pp. 69, 142.
52
Battestin, "Osborne's Tom Jones," p. 38.
278
versus virtue conflict.
Equally inappropriate for application of the exis
tential criteria in analysis is Osborne's adaptation of
Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. The scene design and staging direc
tions remain essentially those of Ibsen. Yet, Osborne does
reduce them to the direct and brusque manner that charac
terizes his adaptation of the dialogue. Reformulation of
the verbal and nonverbal elements of Ibsen's play by
Osborne actually means that modern man's psyche and exis
tence are being taken into account.^
The emptiness of modern man's existence is brilli
antly brought across in the scene construction, scenic
design, and staging of Osborne's recent play, West of Suez.
Set "in the garden of a villa in the West Indies,"
Frederica and Edward Wyatt lounge about restlessly and
54
express their dissatisfaction "with things in general."
Osborne has made the audience aware of the contradiction of
a "Christmas holiday in the sun" and the vague unhappiness
of the Wyatts in the scene design suggestive of pleasure
53
John Osborne, Adaptation of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler
(London: Faber and Faber, 1971), pp. 11-21.
54
John Weightman, "Post-Imperial Blues," Encounter,
37 (November 1971): 56.
279
and contentment.^
The boredom of the idyllic setting, as well as the
tensions within the family all testify to anxiety of exis
tence present in the play. In fact, the family’s loss of
direction and meaning seems to serve as a microcosm for
56
the larger family of mankind in the West. Various scenes
are constructed and staged by Osborne to suggest the
inherent pursuit of meaninglessness: the empty spirit of
the American tourists, a soulless anarchistic hippy, and
the coloured natives who shoot down the self-seeking fox,
57
Wyatt.
Correlation with the existential criteria shows
West of Suez as a fairly conventional play with a realistic
format. However, the presence of verbal penetration of the
characters' lot of existential anxiety and alienation
belies any notions of the well-made play of surface
reality.
Using a kind of neo-realism, but with a multiplic
ity of scene episodes, is Osborne's A Patriot for Me. Much
55
Ibid.; John Osborne, West of Suez (London: Faber
and Faber, 1971), p. 11.
56
Weightman, "Post-Imperial Blues," p. 56.
57
Ibid., p. 58.
280
of the purpose of the scene construction that treats the
anti-hero, Redl, is designed to show the basic alienation
of feelings in the German officer corps that finally pushes
the protagonist into homosexuality. The noninvolvement
5 8
advocated by Mohl in Act I is basically anti-existential.
Further, Scene VI of Act I illustrates in a conversation
between Mohl, Kunz, and the Countess the inauthenticity of
59
the soldier's loss of identity. Maximilian Schell por
trayed Redl in the original production as "a not very
attractive or sensitive man, (who) neither seeks nor gets
60
much sympathy from the audience." Thus, the scenes of
the play grip the audience in regard to the problem of
dehumanization.
Jocelyn Herbert staged the original production
"with enormous back-projections" and "mobile decor" that
seemed to suggest rather than assert in the bric-a-brac of
realistic props. Yet, the long tale of Redl is tediously
58
John Osborne, A Patriot for Me (Chicago: The
Dramatic Publishing Co., 1965), p. 23.
59
Ibid., p . 57.
60
Henry Hewes, "Theatre Paprika," Saturday Review
October 18, 1969, p. 20.
61
Ronald Bryden, "Osborne at the Ball," New States
man , July 9, 1965, p. 58.
281
drawn out in story form, but not always dramatized. It is
as if he felt that the problems of human existence are best
perceived in a theatrical aesthetic other than plain
62
realism.
Osborne has regular dramatic structure in A Patriot
for Me, including rising action, complication, climax, and
denouement. But there is a decisive presence of the drama
tization of the existential, especially through character
ization, and by the grand scene of the ball of military
homosexuals. Alienation, despair, and inauthenticity are
implied.
Equally an expose of modern man's meaningless
plight with loss of ethical value and direction is Osborne's
A Bond Honoured. This adaptation of Lope de Vega's play is
done without scenery, and with the actors sitting in a
circle throughout the play unless the action calls for them
to rise and take part in it. Further, the acting style is
one of exaggerated violence, "even in the most extravagant
or absurd moments.
ao
Geoffrey Reeves, "A Patriot for Me," Encore 3
(1965): 43.
63
John Osborne, A Bond Honoured (London: Faber
and Faber, 1966), p. 15.
282
The scene construction of A Bond Honoured enhances
in a series 6f episodes the ultimate Osborne rebel: he
"rejects society, God, and nature and goes unrepentant to a
64
humanist crucifixion." Lope de Vega's original play,
La fianza satisfecha, focuses on sin and redemption, while
65
Osborne adapts it to the estrangement of modern life.
Leonido is amoral modern man who can find no rest or
satisfaction in his life. Yet, Osborne is not really a
nihilist or a Brechtian; he merely criticizes as he
66
intuitively perceives the problems. The horrible deeds
of Leonido are really the staging by Osborne of modern
man's inner conflicts. ^
Osborne reverses the construction of the scenes
and incidents of the play. Whereas Lope de Vega's plays
are "forward-looking, interested in what characters will do,
and what will happen to them, next," Osborne's plays,
64
Irving Wardle, "Osborne and the Critics," New
Society, June 16, 1966, p. 23.
65
Henry Tube, "The Tiny World of John Osborne,"
Spectator, January 6, 1967, p. 15.
66
A. V. Carter, Revue beige de philologie et
d'Historie 54 (1966): 973.
67
Daniel Rogers, "'Not for Insolence, but Seri
ously': John Osborne's Adaptation of La fianza satisfecha,"
Durham University Journal 29 (June 1968): 154-59.
283
especially A Bond Honoured, are backward looking. They are
"interested in disclosing how characters have come to be
what they are."^^
There is no question but what Osborne moves toward
the existential and absurdist in form in this play.
Regular Aristotelian motivation of characterization seems
to be absent. We are puzzled as to what motivates
Leonido's acts of cruelty. The answer seems to lie in the
internal crisis of Leonido; the whole play depends upon
the basic existential metaphor of alienation and angst.
Leonido is a law to himself. In an age without faith, life
goes its own way. Osborne creates a highly stylized
allegory that utilizes utterly nonrealistic characteriza
tion. One is reminded of the avant-garde Alfred Jarry's
King Ubu in its insistence upon the need for passion.
In The Blood of the Bambergs Osborne is equally
concerned with the lack of vitality and passion, especially
in regard to the allegiance of a whole people to a stulti-
69
fying tradition of inauthentic monarchialism. In order
to fully implement his perception of existence, Osborne
68
Rogers, "Not for Insolence," p. 163.
69
John Osborne, The Blood of the Bambergs (London;
Faber and Faber, 1963), p. 24.
284
creates scenes that suggest the utter blindness of the
devotion to the royal heritage, as well as staging that
points to its utter absurdity. The substitution of an
ordinary cameraman for the dead Prince Wilhelm is a case in
70
point. The existential anxiety is further seen as
Princess Melanie is made to say: "Oh, my God, I am so
71
bored!" In addition, Osborne wishes to show, apparently,
"the callousness and the advertising techniques behind the
72
facade of modern royalty."
Correlation of The Blood of the Bambergs with the
existential criteria reveals a play that lacks the alien
ated protagonist of earlier Osborne vintage, while portray
ing in a generally realistic fashion characters and scene
construction. Staging includes Paul Wimple acting as
chorus-commentator to cue the audience into the existential
73
import of the action. The play's construction does not
echo the Absurdists, but its ring of satire does seem to
echo the anxiety of characters caught in inauthenticity and
700sborne, Blood of the Bambergs, pp. 13-19, 36-37.
71Ibid., p. 69.
79
Bamber Gascoigne, "From the Head," The Spectator,
July 27, 1962, p. 115.
73
Osborne, Blood of the Bambergs, pp. 13-15.
285
meaninglessness.
However, Osborne’s Under Plain Cover does move into
the form of the Absurd theatre, especially in the "sado-
masochist and fetishist charades" of a suburban married
74
couple. The banter of the incestuous couple, as well as
the staging of their playful games, seem to point to a
larger concern of Osborne: the flux of life and its
75
unpredictable passion in existence. On the other hand,
the staging of the dress dummy prop seems to suggest the
76
boring sterility of modern existence. Further, Jenny and
Tim make reference to their dependence on "relics" of the
77
past, such as knickers.
In addition, in the staging of Under Plain Cover
the juxtaposition of the wedding dress, pregnant padding,
and two babies in one scene suggest symbolically the
denigration of life. Stanley, the reporter, leads an
intrusion of conquest upon the couple: commerce captures
the most sacred experiences of man's existence, and exploits
74
Gascoigne, "From the Head," p. 115.
75
John Osborne, Under Plain Cover (London: Faber
and Faber, 1963), pp. 83-98.
r 77
Ibid., pp. 104-105. Ibid., p. 108.
286
78
them for profit.
Jenny's public repentence of her error of marriage
to her brother as well as her subsequent marriage to a
postal clerk reveals Osborne's Absurdist form in the play.
The drama clearly departs from a recognizable linear plot
line to a spiral repetition in the first scene. There is
no progression, little character development, and climax
and denouement are totally absent. The arbitrary illogic
of Under Plain Cover seems to suggest the topsy-turvy
world of modern existence. Meaning for many in the Western
nations is a commercial meaning. The absence of character
motivation is deliberate on the part of Osborne as he shows
the existential emptiness of those who impose on Jenny and
Tim.
Cast in a more recognizable realistic vein to
examine the life-style existence of two career women is
Osborne's Time Present. Osborne gives elaborate stage
directions for Constance, the M.P., and Pamela, the
79
actress. The basic scene construction for the play seems
to illustrate the existential need of the two women for
78
Osborne, Under Plain Cover, pp. 124-^31.
79
John Osborne, Time Present (London: Faber and
Faber, 1968), p. 13.
287
love and friendship, but, also, their alienation from such
love by free choice. The presence of alienation is under
scored in the nude scene of Pamela, especially as
80
Constance’s lesbian tendencies issue forth.
Alienation is the thesis of Osborne's set for Time
Present. The London production included "a chic London
flat” with "antiseptic whiteness (which) suggested a hospi
tal operating room.” In addition, "the tubular steel
furniture" served as "dehumanized backgrounds for dissect-
81
ing the human psyche." The inability of Pamela to love
anyone, especially herself, serves as the basic existential
82
format for the play’s construction.
Correlation of Time Present with the existential
criteria points toward the more regular realistic format.
The plot moves along on the death of Pamela's father, and
her own resolution in relation to Constance and Bernard.
Rising action, climax, and denouement are recognizable.
But the play depends upon conveyance to the audience of an
awareness of Pamela's existential decision for alienation
80
Osborne, Time Present, p. 69.
81
Tom Prideaux, "Johnny's Dying One-Note," Life
August 2, 1968, p. 10.
82T,
Ibid.
288
from feeling.
Equally preoccupied with alienation is The Hotel in
Amsterdam. Its "set" in the London production was an anti-
8 3
septic hotel suite that suggested dehumanization. K. L.,
the movie producer, is the nemesis of the play from which
all seek to escape and bring peace to their existence in a
foreign holiday.^
The group of three couples banter their fear and
85
dependence on K. L. The camp conversation, "the stale
cliches, the repetitive and apparently unnecessary obsceni
ties" all serve to place an impact on the audience of
86
awareness of "tragic humanity."
Application of the existential criteria indicates
that The Hotel in Amsterdam is of the realistic vein in
form. The conversation of the three couples reveals their
hates and fears, and the anxieties of their beings. The
constant "bitching" does not seem to follow a plot line
8 3
Prideaux, "Johnny's Dying One-Note," p. 10.
84
John Osborne, A Hotel in Amsterdam (London:
Faber and Faber, 1968), pp. 93-95.
8 5
Prideaux, "Johnny's Dying One-Note," p. 10.
86
John Wells, "Music, Music, Music,” Spectator,
July 12, 1968, p. 61.
289
that reveals very much about each characterization. The
inner conflict of each character, as well as the conflict
that each feels for the off-stage K. L. is more important
than any conflict amongst them. There is no climax as
such, but the revelation of the suicide of K. L. is a
denouement of sorts. Osborne uses characterization to
illustrate existential inauthenticity rather than scene
construction.
In the short television play, The Right Prospectus,
the "shots" of ninety-six scenes can not visually be con
sidered existential as such because of the factual detail
that is implicit in the camera. Moreover, the existential
criteria of theatre drama are largely inapplicable to a
television play by the very differences of the medias. Yet,
The Right Prospectus is quite existential in form, largely
because of characterization rather than scene construction
or scene design.
The Right Prospectus is an absurd story of a
middle-aged couple, the Newbolds, who enroll in an English
public school, Crampton, and discover that tyranny, con
formity, anti-sexism, loss of identity rule larger than
290
education. Osborne strikes a note of kinship to the
Absurdists and existentialists, especially Camus's Caligula
or Weiss's Marat/Sade. Like these dramatists Osborne uses
"madness and fantasy, the methodical enlargement of absur
dity, . . . as ways of confronting the arrangements of
civilization, the outrageous ones as well as the ordinary
88
ones, of engaging with and accommodating to them."
An irony in the play is the contrast between what
the characters profess the school to be, and the revelation
in action of what the school truly is. Tester says that
"Crampton is for the human, the particular, the eccentric,
the concrete, the special, the worst of the best and the
89
best of the worst." In fact, this is an existential
definition. However, as the Newbolds discover in Heffer,
90
the school is wholly an atmosphere of alienation.
Equally within the framework of estrangement is
Osborne's recent play, A Sense of Detachment. Here he
87
John Osborne, The Right Prospectus (London:
Faber and Faber, 1970), pp. 9-23.
88
Morris Freedman, The Moral Impulse: Modern
Drama from Ibsen to the Present (Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University Press, 1967), p. 117.
89
Osborne, The Right Prospectus, p. 18.
90 . . oc.
Ibid., p. 25.
291
returns to the media of the stage. It is a nonsensical
drama that is a compilation of wise cracks from characters
in search of characterization, playwright, and play. There
are "razzberries from the balcony," audience complaints
about "decent language from the stage," romantic poetry
readings, recitation of a porno catalogue, "a snippet of a
91
newsreel,"— all moderated by a chairman.
One is reminded of the contemporary German drama
tist, Peter Handke, as he insults the audience. In
Osborne's A Sense of Detachment, Chap even calls it "the
92
theatre of antagonism." Its purpose is to effect a
deliberate alienation between audience and actors/drama to
jar the audience into an awareness of the ills of modern
society, especially dehumanization.
Correlation with the existential criteria shows
scenic devices that aid the aura of awareness of contempo
rary society's spirit of alienation: multiple anonymous
characters, attacks by characters on the respectable
audience, a pop group blaring music to dispell boredom for
91
Jesse Birnbaum, "The Audience as Victim," Time,
December 25, 1972, p. 36.
92
John Osborne, A Sense of Detachment (London:
Faber and Faber, 1973), p. 13.
292
93
audience and stage hands. Obviously the criteria of
regular realistic drama are absent: the characters are
hardly developed, while climax, denouement, and plot are
nonexistent.
Somewhat in harmony with the spirit of estrangement
of A Sense of Detachment is Osborne's short television play,
The Gift of Friendship. However, the latter does have a
recognizable plot and realistic characterization. Both
plays share a common spirit of characterizations who rub
against one another, but care little.
Jocelyn Broome cares little for his wife or Bill
Wakely. Jocelyn invites his former friend to dinner for
the purpose of appointing him executor of the Broome papers.
Bill stays all night only to discover that Jocelyn has
killed himself. In Jocelyn's papers Bill discovers that
Jocelyn hated him and merely placed the papers in Wakely’s
94
hands as preferable to his wife or American professors.
Because of the scenic design for television, the
existential criteria are partly at odds with the media
presentation implicit in the thirty-seven scenes. Yet,
Q ?
Osborne, A Sense of Detachment, pp. 11, 19, 27.
94
John Osborne, The Gift of Friendship (London:
Faber and Faber, 1972), pp. 32-36.
293
the pretense of inauthentic friendship contained in hollow
ritual is clearly apart from the sorge of existence.
Another television play, Very Like a Whale, is also
attentive to isolated and lonely people living an inauthen
tic existence. Jock Mellor is the alienated tycoon,
despised by wives, children, and friends. His pain of
existence is resolved by death.
The fifty-nine scenes of the television drama
illustrate in one fashion or another the existential plight
of Jock and the people around. Again, the existential
criteria are somewhat inoperative because of the media
difference. However, the objection of Jock to a speaker's
espousal of the joys of the industrial technical age is
well taken near the end of the play. After all, Jock is a
victim of that kind of industrial technical alienation of
- , . 95
feelings.
John Osborne approaches the problem of inauthentic
existence from another perspective in A Subject of Scandal
and Concern. It is recognizably realistic in form, but
clearly enunciates the consequent dehumanization that
results from rigidity of belief. A chorus in the person of
95
John Osborne, Very Like a Whale (London: Faber
and Faber, 1971), pp. 50-51.
294
a narrator is used throughout the play to tell the story of
George Holyoake, professed socialist and atheist, who goes
to jail for his belief, but pays the price for his "cause"
by letting his daughter die and his wife starve. Osborne
repeatedly creates scenes that illustrate the rigidity of
those who oppose George’s atheism, as well as scenes that
reveal George's pretensions apart from the truth of his own
existence. For example, George sees himself as a public
96
speaker, but his stuttering belies this.
The scene design is one of basic realism to aid the
scenes of the script that reveal how concept overturns
existence. For instance, Holyoake's jailers only allow him
97
to read Christian books: thus, concept denies existence.
Holyoake illustrates the existential dictum that "existence
precedes essence" rather than the older Platonic perspec
tive that "essence precedes existence." That is, Holyoake
defines his existence by the choices he makes, especially
as he chooses to adhere to a cause no matter the conse
quences. Holyoake prefers to adhere to essence, just as
98
his jailers adhere to essence. Thus, the basic existence
96
John Osborne, A Subject of Scandal and Concern
(Chicago: The Dramatic Publishing Co., 1971), pp. 20-21.
07 98
Ibid., p. 24. Ibid., pp. 26, 44-45.
295
of George Holyoake is denied to himself. His tragedy is
the same as Oedipus Rex; to carry self-blindness forward to
the point of bringing' death to his own daughter. Truly,
the needs of human existence have been denied for the
belief in concepts.^
In application of the existential criteria, .it
appears that A Subject of Scandal and Concern must stand
outside of an Absurdist form in the regular realistic
framework. There is a recognizable plot, forward progres
sion, characterization, climax, and denouement. Yet, the
existential insights are present. They come in the inter
play of characters, and in scene incident.
Egotistical self-blindness is also the principal
thrust of Osborne's A Place Calling Itself Rome, an adapta
tion of Shakespeare's Coriolanus. Osborne modernizes the
scenic incidents by direct and shortened dialogue, but he
further introduces modern scene design with electric
lights, "Roman troops . . . in flak jackets and helmets,"
"Patricians like M.P.'s or high-ranking officers," and
the Rome airport as backdrop.
99
Osborne, Scandal and Concern, pp. 55-59.
■^^John Osborne, A Place Calling Itself Rome
(London: Faber and Faber, 1973), pp. 11, 14, 37.
296
Insofar as application of the existential criteria,
many are inoperable because of the basic Elizabethan
theatre aesthetic that underlies Shakespeare's Coriolanus.
Osborne gives a precis of many of the lines, and heightens
Coriolanus's egotism to the point of contemporary man's
experience of alienation and inauthenticity. But, for
the most part, the play remains Elizabethan with recogniz
able character development, climax, and denouement. By no
stretch of the imagination can we interpret the play, per
se, as Absurdist or Existential.
"^Osborne, A Place Calling Itself Rome, pp. 41-44.
297
CHAPTER VII
OSBORNE'S USE OF LANGUAGE
Let us carry the existential analysis to the lan
guage of the several plays to see how Osborne utilizes
words and thought in this vein. The criteria are correlated
with the language to gain insight to Osborne's artistry.
The sequence of his published works are treated in turn,
along with appropriate insight from various scholarly
studies. The present writer seeks to interpret not only
the language of the plays of Osborne, but pertinent
scholarly material according to existential principles.
Early in his playwriting career Osborne made a
statement that unwittingly enunciates the existential
point of view: "I want to make people feel, to give them
lessons in feeling. They can think afterwards."'1 ' Such a
statement is clearly non-Brechtian in terms of theatre
aesthetics, and, at least on the surface, has a distinct
1John Osborne, "And They Call It Cricket,”
Encounter 9 (October 1957): 23.
298
Aristotelian hint in regard to audience "identification"
with the drama. However, Osborne’s subsequent sentence in
this same article, "And They Call It Cricket," implies that
people in modern England need to "feel" more as a matter
of course, and apparently he was not advocating the tradi
tional Aristotelian theatre aesthetic. The lack of feeling
or manifestation of emotion in ordinary human existence
day by day in modern urban life is obvious to Osborne, or
to anyone who has an acquaintance with Osborne's percep
tions in his dramas.
Osborne's dramatic language seeks to convey to his
audiences the tone and color of perfunctory and routine
monotony of conventional society, as opposed to the vital
language used by certain key characters. As such our
immediate concern is with the verbal aspect of communica
tion in Osborne's dramas, as opposed to the earlier treat
ment of Osborne's treatment of the nonverbal aspects of
dramatic communication in Chapter VI.
Let us consider Look Back in Anger. Osborne's
language in this play has been appraised by critics in
various terms: "crosspatch eloquence, the bright use of
299
2
words." Leslie Corina writes that the play has "richer
spoken language than has been heard on the English stage
for a long time: a language full of the idiom and charac
ter of the real society, recognizable, the most living
3
talk . . Jimmy Porter's language has been called a
"blistering honesty" by one writer who feels Osborne's
forthrightness is unacceptable to many English audiences.
In fact, Leslie Corina thinks that only an archaic Shake-
4
speare can be tolerated by a nation asleep in the past.
But the genius of Osborne's dramas is precisely that he
"speaks out of the real despair, frustrations, and suffer-
5
ings of the age we are living in, now, at this moment."
Indeed, Osborne's vituperative language in Look
Back in Anger is enunciated by the various characters, not
Jimmy Porter alone. At the beginning of Act I, Cliff reads
to Jimmy and Alison from the Sunday papers a statement of
Bishop Bromley concerning an "appeal to all Christians to
2
Alan Pryce Jones, "At the Theatre," Theatre Arts
46 (March 1961): 68.
^Leslie Corina, "Still Looking Back," The New
Republic, February 10, 1958, p. 22.
4
Frederick Lumley, New Trends in Twentieth Century
Drama (London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1956), p. 222.
5Ibid.
300
do all they can to assist in the manufacture of the
6
H-Bomb.” Here Osborne's language presents an ironical
contrast of peaceful religious profession and alienated
practice. Jimmy retorts that Bishop Bromley "denies the
difference of class distinctions," but acts favorable to
7
the rich only. Here Osborne is implying through his
character that true human existence is denied by class
distinction. In this same dialogue, Jimmy relates further
that an American woman at an evangelistic meeting "broke
four ribs and got kicked in the head" in the impersonal
8
mass meeting. Implicit in Osborne’s language is the
ironic contrast of professed love and the dehumanization of
organized religion.
To be sure, Jimmy Porter's continuous barrage of
hostility in words upon Cliff, Alison, and Helena through
out the play suggest a deep demand for recognition of
"identity," as well as a call for an authentic existence in
the face of the contemporary meaninglessness of modern
Western society. There is the presence of a positive self
authentication by Porter in his verbal blasts, especially
0
John Osborne, Look Back in Anger (London: Faber
and Faber, 1957), p. 6.
^"ibid., p. 7. ^Ibid.
301
as he confronts the conformity of Cliff, the apathy of
Alison as she obeys imposed roles of the smugness of com
fortable living without "being alive,” and the passion of
Helena which provides her with a "solution" to her meaning
less existence.
In Act II Jimmy recites a poem to Alison that
perfectly expresses his dilemma of painful boredom of non-
being:
I'm so tired of necking
of pecking, home wrecking,
of empty bed blues— just
pass me the booze.
I'm tired of being hetero
Rather ride on the metero
Just pass me the booze.
This perpetual whoring
Gets quite dull and boring
So avoid that cold python coil
And pass me the celibate oil.®
Again, toward the end of the first scene of Act II, Jimmy
uses metaphorical rhetoric to suggest the "falling out of
being" or loss of meaning in the old religious symbols.
Jimmy speaks of religion in economic terms. Jimmy says:
"She's [Helena] an expert in the New Economics--the
Economics of the Supernatural. It’s all a simple matter of
9
Osborne, Look Back in Anger, p. 57.
302
payments and penalties."^ He also says: "Reason and
Progress, the old firm, is selling out! Everyone get out
while the going's good.”' * ' ' 1 ' Jimmy sees Helena as dreamy
and romantic with echoes of the medieval sense of guilt in
her soul. All in all, Osborne seems to be suggesting that
a new radical commitment of faith in man's existence is in
order because of the present bankruptcy of knowledge with
out passion, or of form without care (sorge).
In Act II, Scene II, Jimmy castigates Helena for
her polite language. Osborne is apparently suggesting that
polite emotional talk is artificial and does not tell the
12
true feelings that make for authentic existence. There
fore, the polite conversation of both Alison and Helena
rings of inauthenticity and is nonexistential. In other
words, passionate commitment to "care" is the cry of Jimmy
Porter.
Cynical disbelief in care is the basic problem of
Archie Rice's alienated existence in Osborne's The Enter-
13
tainer. Archie's language is "racy, close to common
^Osborne, Look Back in Anger, p. 66.
T1 12
Ibid. Ibid., p. 90.
13
"New Plays in Manhattan," Time, October 14, 1957,
pp. 85-87.
303
speech, unafraid of contemporaneity, inventive in a spoken
14
not a literary sense.” Archie spouts strained dirty
jokes, slang of the working class, "scatological reminis
cences, " and raunchy music-hall songs that tell of a lost
soul crying out for meaning and purpose in an era when men
have shrivelled into the whining "hollow men" of T. S.
Eliot.^
Certainly, the "new tone of speech" of Osborne is
accompanied "by a new dramatic form5’ of monologue to reveal
16
his characters. This is clearly the case in The Enter
tainer . Archie reveals in his long monologues the anxiety
of inauthenticity because he is a man who lives by stan
dards that have long ceased to have any conviction for
17
anybody. Archie questions the validity of the Queenly
tradition, but on an existential plane Osborne is really
questioning the symbols by which the English live. "Are
14
E. Morgan, "That Uncertain Feeling," Encore 6
(1959): 18.
15
"Coming Unstuck: The Entertainer," The Spectator,
April 19, 1957, p. 517.
16
Ian Scott-Kilvert, "The Hero in Search of a
Dramatist,” Encounter 9 (December 1957): 28.
^Ibid ., p . 29 .
304
X 8
they truthful and worthwhile?” Archie’s last words of
the play suggest the depth of his despair and alienation
from the vitality of life:
Why should I care,
Why should I let it touch me,
Why shouldn't I?----19
On the other hand, Osborne's own code of theatrical
aesthetics stands in juxtaposition to the characterization
of Archie Rice: Osborne loved his grandparents, and was
especially impressed by their care "for the language they
20
spoke," that is, Southern Welsh. In other words, verbal
language for Osborne is no functional abstraction, but an
intimate conveyor of personality (dasein) in existence.
Apparently, for Osborne, language must convey the heart,
not the expected, the polite, the inauthentic.
Archie’s labored monologues, vernacular out-of-
joint songs, and dated jokes all point to an impingement of
"schein" rather than "sein." Archie's language is inauthen
tic cleverness without the vision of sein. At least Jimmy
Porter could hate with words authentically in true sein,
X8
Osborne, "And They Call It Cricket,” p. 25.
19
Osborne, The Entertainer, p. 89.
20
Osborne, "And They Call It Cricket," p. 29.
305
but Archie Rice's words merely distintegrate into objects
rather than subjects.
The language of the other characters in The Enter-
tainer is equally reflective of the dehumanization process.
Billy Rice's Edwardian sentences smack of the "living death”
21
of the past ruling the "now." Phoebe, Archie's wife,
speaks with words of fear and loss of self-faith:
I was always a dunce at school.
I keep thinking of Archie.
I'm so afraid that he's going
to be disappointed.
That everything will go wrong,
and they won't let Mick
come home after all.^
Finally, Jean Rice comes close to expressing S0ren
Kierkegaard's "Sickness Unto Death" when she says in
Scene 5 of Act II:
I've had a strange sick
feeling in my stomach all day.
As if something was going to
23
happen. You know the feeling.
Osborne's Luther shares some of Rices ' despair,
especially as Luther's rhetoric enunciates the void of a
21
Osborne, The Entertainer, p. 14.
22Ibid., p. 43. 2^Ibid., p. 41.
306
24
cloister. One critic feels that Osborne writes "dramatic
prose designed for the voice and ear,” and that Osborne's
"sentences of Look Back in Anger captured one’s ears with
the clash of tambourines and cymbals; Luther's do it with
25
the lithe and muscular ease of a clarinet.” Frederick
Lumley points out that the language of Luther discloses the
Reformer arguing, praying, cursing "close to despair; he is
26
always afraid, always lonely and always tormented."
Toward the end of Act I, Luther asserts to Hans,
his father, that his only parents were the gospels. Hans'
conversation with his son is basically a reminder of
Luther's creaturehood: "you can't ever get away from your
body because that's what you live in," and "you'd like to
pretend that you made yourself, that it was you who made
27
you--and not the body of a woman and another man."
That is, Osborne's use of dialogue through much of
Luther is to focus on a central problem of existential
24
V. S. Pritchett, "Operation Osborne," New States
man , August 4, 1961, p. 163; Osborne, Luther, p. 20.
25
Bamber Gascoigne, "First Parson Singular," The
Spectator, August 4, 1961, pp. 171-72.
26
Lumley, Twentieth Century Drama, p. 227.
27
Osborne, Luther, pp. 49-50.
307
thought: namely, Luther's denial of his own creaturehood,
of his own finiteness. Osborne portrays Luther as being
like all men: god-like in egotism. The play's dialogue
discloses the hard lesson that Luther must learn ''that he
was created by God. He may learn it, but he never quite
feels it.
Tetzel's long speech at the beginning of Act II
serves to illustrate for the audience the pretense of
inauthenticity, especially illustrated in Tetzel's sale of
indulgences which is suggestive of religious appearances
29
(schein) rather than the truth of sein. Osborne is quite
brilliant in his satire of Tetzel's humbug, especially
since there is a corollary to the present-day fakery of
much organized religion, as well as the deep sense of
despair over the meaning of existence— shared by Luther and
the audience of the twentieth century.
Osborne has Luther to state in Act II, Scene III:
"A man is not a good Christian because he understands Greek
30
and Hebrew." This statement seeks to disclose apparently
28
Lumley, Twentieth Century Drama, p. 227.
29
Osborne, Luther, pp. 57-60.
30
Ibid., pp. 74-75.
308
Osborne's perception of the existential basis of Christi
anity, as well as the assumptions for his play: faith and
hope for meaning to man's existence is far more important
than knowledge. Knowledge, per se, is living death because
of its tendency to abstract life away from being lived.
Like Eugene Ionesco and Samuel Beckett, Osborne is
fascinated with the "non-connection of people": that is,
the "failure of communication” is a basic problem of modern
human existence. Osborne's Inadmissible Evidence portrays
Bill Maitland in constant monologue confession, but with
nobody really listening to him. Maitland's existence is
virtually ignored by everyone: the language used in the
31
play is woven to illustrate this.
Osborne's Bill Maitland speaks in a "heightened
natural speech" with "detonating time bombs" that litter
the play on subjects ranging "from teen-agers to homo-
32
sexuals to the welfare state." Clearly, it is the
language that suggests explicitly in dialogue or in conno
tation the absence of motivation. Here our existential
31
John Osborne, Inadmissible Evidence, p. 14; John
Russell Taylor, "Plays: Inadmissible Evidence," Encore 2
(November-December, 1964): 44-45.
32
Alan Seymour, "Osborne, VC," The London Magazine
5 (May 1965): 72-73; Robert Kotlowitz, "Nothing But Talent,"
Harper's, April 1966, p. 125.
309
criteria can be correlated: Bill Maitland's perverse
confessions point to a searching and yearning for meaning
in the face of alienation.
Osborne's rhetoric is especially dominant in
Inadmissible Evidence. "He creates characters, sprinkles
humor, and tells something of a story, but it is in the
33
very texture of his..language that the true drama resides."
Early in the first act Bill Maitland's lines disclose a
sense of loneliness and emptiness in his existence. He has
no commitment to anyone or anything. He says:
Please forgive me. I have rather a headache. Perhaps
that's why I'm here now. I had too much to drink last
night, that's just the simple truth of it. Well, when
I say that, I mean not much more than I usually have.
Most nights. But that's well, I do drink quite a lot.
Quite a lot? Oh, anyway, I'm what you'd call a serious
drinker. That's to say, I just don't mess about once
I get going— when I do. When I do? I nearly always
do. I can drink a whole bottle of whiskey. Can't
be any good for the heart, can it? It must be a strain,
pumping all that fire and damned rigour and everything
all out again? Still, I’m pretty strong. I must be.
Otherwise, I couldn't take it. That is, if I can take
it. I can't, I'm sorry, I can't find my pills. I
always have three or so in my ticket pocket. So
34
sorry.
33
Stanley Kauffman, Figures of Light (New York:
Harper and Row, 1971), p. 91.
34
Osborne, Inadmissible Evidence, pp. 14-15.
310
Further, the multiple monologues of Maitland convey
through jerky stops and starts, contradictions, and bland
self-appraisal a basic mundane existence. Maitland lives
routinely without passion of commitment to any cause.
Indecision and uncertainty underlie the tone of the
35
syntax.
In Act II Bill Maitland phones one mistress but
inadvertently dials a second mistress, who then matter-of-
factly tells him to contact a third. The rambling tele
phone conversation illustrates Eliot's notion of "dis-
association of sensibility":
Liz? Darling? Did I wake you? . . .I'm sorry . . .
it wasn't you ringing then . . . a few minutes ago . . .
I wasn't sure who it was . . . Oh-I guess it must have
been Anna. Yes, I'm at the office. . . . Well, it's
not like your own bed, as they Say . . . Yes . . . like
a gimlet, the old thing, right up there behind the
eyeballs. . . . How are you? Did you take a sleeping
pill? . . . Three? You're crazy! . . . I know, my
darling, I'm sorry . . . Yes, I should have phoned, I
should have phoned . . . (He starts to take his pill
with soda water.)
Just a minute . . . That's two . . . That's three . . .
Sorry . . . I know I said I'd come round. . . Oh, come
off it, anyway, Shirley walked out yesterday. . . .
Well, I'm not surprised either . . . I know . . . Yes,
well it worried me too, . . . What do you mean Joy can
do the job just as well?^®
36
Osborne, Inadmissible Evidence, p. 59
311
Probably the most powerful language used in the
play which implicitly or explicitly reveals the problems
associated with modern existential thought appear in
Act II. This is the intense scene of Bill Maitland and his
daughter, Jane, as they confront one another in fear,
rejection, and a deep sense of alienation. The entire
scene is a monologue of Bill, while Jane remains silent and
distressed. Maitland rambles on about being ignored by all
around him, being rejected by his father, and being alien
ated from Jane. Further, Maitland describes Jane's hip
generation in the monologue. He feels that Jane's cool
detachment is typical. He points to her lack of feeling
and guilt. For the audience it must be a case of discern
ment of the irony of alienation by Bill Maitland's genera
tion come full circle in the detachment of Jane's
generation. Each is troubled with estrangement from sorge
(care).
The failure of care and commitment is equally
central in the language dialogue of Osborne's Epitaph for
George Dillon. George, the freeloading young playwright,
lends significance to himself by asserting:
— the play I'm writing now is just about in the bag.
I can finish it in no time here. And I've already
312
got someone interested in it— for the West End, I
But it is the words of Mrs. Elliot that disclose a
vital thrust for hope and meaning in the face of impinge
ment of despair. George is the living replacement for her
dead son, Raymond. She says:
You certainly are one for irons in the fire, aren't
you? And to think we shall all come and see your
piece, and sit in the posh seats. That will be nice.
Well, there we are, dear. And if Ray was here now,
I'd be talking to him just as I'm talking to you. What
I'm trying to say is that I want you to feel that you
are taking his place in the home, and if there's any
thing you want— anything— please don't hesitate to ask.
And don't, please, ever go short of money. Ray used
to send me home so much a week when he was in the army,
for me to save for him when he came home. I'd like to
think it's being put to good use at last by helping
you.38
Yet, the gentleman caller of Mrs. Elliot as church
companion, Mr. Geoffrey Colwyn-Stuart, expresses inauthen
tic cliches, as well as theological claptrap. Geoffrey
39
says naively: "Love can change the face of the world.”
However, George, as a modern skeptic tells Geoffrey that:
"I believe in evidence. And faith is believing in some-
40
thing for which there is no evidence.” Geoffrey's reply
37
Osborne, Epitaph, p. 34.
O Q QQ
Ibid., p. 34. Ibid., p. 45.
40
Ibid., p. 48.
313
is ironically a telling assertion of the existential: "You
have faith. You have faith in yourself— in your talent.
. . . You believe in that with all your heart. And your
evidence? Where is that, George? Can you show it to
me?41
In Dillon’s big scene with Ruth in Act II, George
makes assertions concerning the Elliot family's incapacity
to laugh. His statement concerns the family's inauthentic
laughter. Osborne, through his character's speech is mak
ing some observations about the meaning of being "alive"
rather than in the grip of "living death":
I mean the real thing— the sound of the very wit of
being alive. Laughter's the nearest we ever get, or
should get, to sainthood. It's the state of grace that
saves most of us from contempt.^
The "living death" of the Elliots is brought to
dramatic fruition in Osborne's The World of Paul Slickey.
As a matter of fact, the entire play is a compilation of
verse, songs, epithets of inauthentic language. The words
the characters speak seem detached from their true exis
tence. Slickey, or Jack Oakham, asserts in a constant
barrage of verbal nonentities that reflect his empty
commercial existence:
41
Osborne, Epitaph, p. 48.
42
Ibid., p. 61.
314
Why am I here?
What am I doing?
What am I thinking of?
I've got nothing but trouble brewing,
What am I living for?
I'm living from mouth to mouth
Going from your door to your door.
There must be something I can do,
Something to believe,
Something better, something matters,
There's someone to grieve,
Somewhere better, somewhere finer,
There must be something I can do!^3
Further, many of the characters are provided by
Osborne with sentimental lines in order to illustrate
Osborne's insight into the lack of depth in modern exis
tence. Terry says in song in Act II, Scene 10:
I'll tell her that the sun shines
out of her face.
This isn't any madam,
I've known lots of girls before,
And, frankly, I've had 'em.
I'm hers, all hers,
From here to eternity,
I'll dedicate my life to my
pretty little wife,
And hand in hand,
Through love's wonderland,
I'll be hers.
In addition, Terry's songs have a certain quality
of schein (appearance) rather than sein (being). The
43
Osborne, World of Paul Slickey, p. 56.
44
Ibid., p . 85.
315
language conveys a sense of the surface existence, an
exterior mentality of froth and appearances for appear
ance's sake! Terry sings:
I'm hers, all hers.
In health and maternity,
at night we’ll get undressed
In our lovely little nest,
And in a year or two
We'll have a little kid like you,
Which will be hers.
Even when her hair's in curls,
I won't sleep with other girls,
I'm going to be true
Because she'll look like you,
I'm hers, all hers,
I don't want to belong to me,
All my life it's my choice,^5
Perhaps it could be said that Osborne continues his
exploration of schein and sein (appearance and reality) in
his adaptation of Lope de Vega's La fianza satisfecha, but
retitled A Bond Honoured. Osborne seeks "to reinterpret
the Spanish ego in Leonido who is the personification of
46
evil." Leonido is like Jimmy Porter in that as a rebel
lious outsider he spits out verbal invective at a world
45
Osborne, World of Paul Slickey, p. 86.
46
Lumley, Twentieth Century Drama, p. 231.
316
47
"meaningless and valueless." One critic calls Osborne a
new Puritan in his pilgrimage of inflamed cantankerousness:
that is, "like a wayward child Leonido has to smash the
world to find himself, and through himself, meaning and
48
value." The language of Leonido is "a mixture of rhetoric
49
and high pitched naturalism."
In Act I, Scene 6 of A Bond Honoured, Leonido says:
They were all consumed with process. Had no idea of
the unique. Me, I had an over-strong instinct, you
understand and this is an island of overprotected
people. The range of possibilities in living here
shrinks with every year. Soon, it will be every week,
then daily. I am a liar. Lying is inescapable to me.
I understand a liar and I cherish a thief. I think I
have raped thirty women and I don't include my mother,
who hardly resisted. My sister took to it regularly
and easily except on her wedding night. Why I don't
know. Something is wrong. God or myself. *^0
The language and syntax used reflects Leonido's
instinct for being as opposed to the inauthentic existence
of "process-consumed" and "over-protected." From an exis
tential viewpoint, Leonido seeks the "possibility" of
living in spite of any violations of rules. He lies,
steals, and rapes. Osborne's earthy, slangy, stylized, and
47
Gareth Lloyd Evans, "Seven Lives of Jimmy Porter,"
Manchester Guardian, July 23, 1966, p. 9.
48 . , 49 . . .
Ibid. Ibid.
50
Osborne, A Bond Honoured, p. 38.
317
operatic use of language tends to heighten the audience's
51
awareness of "life."
Osborne's A Patriot for Me also has dialogue that
is earthy. But the long monologues of his earlier plays is
absent. He seeks to convey the stiff correctness of German
society in the late nineteenth century by taut conversation,
and emotionless word connotations suggestive of a growing
alienation of feelings from thought. Redl's perversion is
the by-product of an industrial society's dehumanization;
he speaks with a detached and brief syntax. In Act I,
Scene 3, he speaks of a whore in demonic terms:
Waiter: Very beautiful girl, sir.
Redl: Yes.
Waiter: Very popular, that one.
Redl: Garbage often is.5^
Osborne's search of contemporary man's existence
finds a variety of new expressions in his recent plays.
Under Plain Cover stems from Osborne's domestic life of his
various wives. He utilizes some unusual language tech
niques in his exploration of the incestuous Tim and Jenny.
Osborne injects into the dialogue of Tim an ironic metaphor
51
Alan Brien, "A Bond Honoured," Vogue, September 1,
1966, p . 206.
52
Osborne, A Patriot for Me, pp. 30-31.
318
of speaking of knickers as though it were a matter of
53
dramatic criticism. Subsequently, Osborne compares
54
"pure, lingerie" and "pure cinema." Osborne obviously
satirizes the inauthenticity of "critics" in their apprai
sal of man’s existence. Further, Osborne captures the
schein without sein newscast of the wedding by a TV
reporter, "Stanley":
Turner was warmly, fondly welcomed. He shook hands
with the sister, the mother of his babies. He shook
hands with the bridegroom. Somebody gave him a glass
of champagne and he drank the happy couple's health.
The best, the newsiest, the most story-telling picture
of the year had been obtained for the paper. It was
splashed the following Sunday— the picture of the
uninvited guest at the wedding of the girl who married
her brother.5®
In The Blood of the Bambergs, Osborne returns to
his early use of the monologue, especially as he seeks to
illustrate the meaninglessness of the existence of modern
56
English royalty. The formal commentary on the "Prince"
by Osborne seems calculated to express the nonbeing of the
monarch's existence. ^
53
Osborne, Under Plain Cover, p. 117.
54 55
Ibid., p. 118. Ibid., p. 134.
56
Osborne, Blood of the Bambergs, pp. 14-15.
57
Ibid., pp. 20-21, 49.
319
The total dehumanization of the modern businessman
or industrialist is expressed in the clipped, detached, and
colorless dialogue of Osborne's television play, Very Like
a Whale:
Lady Mellor: Why don't you kiss me?
Jock: Because--simply— you no longer care for it.
Lady Mellor: No?
Jock: No.
Lady Mellor: Why do you want to reproduce
yourself?
Jock: I don't. Believe me.
Lady Mellor: You did.
Jock: No more.
Lady Mellor: Well— you have.
Jock: Have I?
Lady Mellor: Haven't you?^
As the complete "commercial man," Jock expresses
the language of efficiency as he shaves himself:
The razor that really cares for you. Discretion.
Efficiency. Beauty. Simplicity. Superb. Untouched
by Human Mind. More or less. Leadership. Co-operation
. . . No place in today's fast-moving, fast-thinking
world for hairy armpits.59
Equally perceptive in composition is Osborne's
television play, The Right Prospectus. Here Osborne's
dialogue exposes the dull, repetitious, monotony of the
English school. Its essence of inauthenticity is its
politeness:
58
Osborne, Very Like a Whale, pp. 28-29.
59
Ibid.
320
Jenkins: Yes, sir.
Mrs. Newbold: Thank you, Headmaster. It's been
quite stimulating.
Head: So glad. Good-bye, again.
Newbold: Good-bye.
Jenkins: This way, sir.
Newbold: Right. Yes. Well, we'll follow you
then . . .60
The hackneyed language of meaninglessness is con
veyed in a monologue of Tester:
. . . as it is the beginning of yet another new term,
I will not waste your time or mine on reflection or
speculation. Holidays, with their undoubted pleasures
are come and gone, past, school is here once again.
In your case, and mine, Crampton is here. The world
will not wait on us long. And, indeed, we do not
expect it, nor shall it. . . . Your houses await y o u .61
Tester's speech continues with an enumeration of ideals
and religious terminology in total contradiction to the
harsh facts of the school's empty program.
Heffer, a tyrannical school-boy leader, makes petty
distinctions' of "terms" and invokes pious prayers in utter
62
contrast to the truth of his existence.
This contradiction of truth in life and profession
of character provokes the laughter of Osborne's adaptation
of Fielding's Tom Jones for the film. Whereas Fielding
wrote to teach a moral lesson, Osborne writes to reveal the
60
Osborne, The Right Prospectus, p. 10.
Ibid., p. 23. Ibid., pp. 25, 32.
321
absence of the moral, which is the lesson we soon learn
63
from discernment of modern man's existential dilemma.
Yet, if Julian JebbVs contention that Osborne's
plays have a common thesis of human suffering is correct,
then it is not surprising for one to perceive Osborne as a
64
modern morality dramatist. His play, A Subject of
Scandal and Concern, explores the dichotomy between hereti
cal disbelief in God and affirmation of belief in the
needs of human existence in terms of socialist politics.
Jebb further states that Osborne's dramas are focused on
"betrayal and loss, neglect and greed, dishonour, isolation
65
and death; . . . to live is to suffer." Holyoake, the
protagonist of A Subject of Scandal and Concern, finds that
words of truth are made false because of their being broken
away from existence. This is revealed in a conversation of
Erskine and Holyoake as liberty is modified in life's
existence to mean "proper" liberty:
Erskine: You must have heard me state the law
that if it be done temperately and decently, all men
are at liberty to state opinions.
63
John Osborne, Tom Jones, pp. 55, 80-81.
64
Roger Manvell, "Interior Things," Humanist 84
(February 1969): 38.
65T, . ,
Ibxd.
322
Holyoake: Then this liberty is a mockery. The
word temperate means what those in authority think
proper.®®
Further, Osborne's character, Holyoake, suffers
from a speech impediment which has the ironic effect of
67
being misconstrued in concept. Finally, Osborne's lan
guage, apt and organically appropriate to his various
characters, is brought to bear on Holyoake and the
Chaplain in Act III:
Holyoake: I am imprisoned on the ground that I
do not believe in God. Would you then take me to
chapel to pray to one?
Chaplain: If you attended the ordinances of grace
it might lead you to believe.
Holyoake: Then I am sorry for you, sir.
Chaplain:. I do not think you understand us,
Holyoake. It is not you we prosecute— it is your
opinions.®®
This latter statement illustrates a profound exis
tential problem of modern man: the dichotomy between
personality and the supposed detached beliefs— all of which
is in an absurdity.
Osborne continues his alienated rhetoric in Time
Present, the study of an aging actress, Pamela, and her
66
Osborne, Scandal and Concern, p. 38.
67 68 ., . „
Ibid., p. 39. Ibid., p. 49.
323
69
M_. P.. roommate, Constance. The long monologue that
Osborne frequently used in his early plays is now used
again. Pamela’s tart tongue makes her comparable to Jimmy
Porter. Pamela speaks the rhetoric of a mad modern society.
Pamela makes a parody on tradition and economics:
Pamela: . . . "Going into Europe." Sounds like
getting into the Pudding Club. Public spending, the
price we have to pay, private sectors, incentive and
exports, both— guess— both sides of industry, produc
tivity, exploiting our resources to the full, readjust
ment. I suppose they're like words you're supposed to
believe in, like your Catechism, I believe in God the
Father, the Holy Catholic Church, forgive us our trade
gaps.70
Pamela uses words of sardonic tone to indict the
"system," education, as well as reflect her own nonintegra
tion and self-detachment:
Pamela: What your fears and desires tell you
together, I imagine. As you say, it's all stuff you
enjoy. I tried writing love letters to someone. For
quite a long time. Then I found my handwriting was
getting like his. I don't know what I can go on
saying. I love you. I need you. I want you. I ache
for you. I need you beside me and in my bed.
Don't let's part like this again. It's more than I
can bear. It's never been like this in my life before.
I never thought it could be. (Pause.) I tried writing
erotica to him. But I.couldn't bring myself to send it
ever. I'd write it down, pages of it. I'd like to.
I want you to . . . I dreamt that. . . . Then make up
69
Manvell, "Interior Things," p. 39.
70
Osborne, Time Present, p. 41.
324
a dream. But it was too explicit. And then it seemed
impersonal. Puritanism, I expect you'd say.^
Osborne's perception of modern nonbeing and detach
ment is further testified in his dialogue of The Hotel in
Amsterdam. Again, Osborne's monologues reveal the modern
temper of callous schein or "appearance." The loss of
vision, and the utter demeaning of human dignity is
reflected in one of Laurie's harangues:
Laurie: Retired rotten, grafting publicans, shop
assistants, ex-waitresses. They live on and on. Hav
ing hernias and arthritic hips and strokes. But they
go on: writing poisonous letters to one another.
Complaining and wheedling and paying off the same old
scores with the same illiterate signs.^
Indeed, here, being is negated in the language
used. Implicit in the context of words is despair and
alienation.
Equally suggestive" of sterility through word sug
gestion and the loss of affirmative confidence in life is
Osborne's West of Suez:
Frederica: That sentence. It had almost a syntac
tical swing about it.
Edward: But not quite.
Frederica: Not bad though.
Edward: "Syntactical" is a pretty poor word to
flash at anyone.
71
Osborne, Time Present, p. 44.
72
Osborne, The Hotel in Amsterdam, p. 126.
325
Frederica: Don't spar with me.
Edward: I wouldn't dream of it. I haven't the
equipment.
Frederica: You haven't.
Edward: Or inclination.
Frederica: Or energy.
Edward: Or stamina.
V * 3
Frederica: Or interest, °
Is Osborne's treatment of the dialogue of Edward,
the dramatist often injects a complicated syntax of words
to hide the lack of content. Emptiness of meaning seems to
be suggestive in this device. Wyatt as a character is a
windbag rhetorician, equally sterile. Osborne's attributes
to Jed, the American tourist, an earthy language that is
simple, and direct. Its spontaneous virility suggests
that possibly Osborne conceives of Americans as vulgar but
74
not alienated from their language.
Osborne's adaptation of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler brings
a language of dialogue that is, also, direct and seems tied
to the very existence of the character. In contrast is
Arvid Paulson's translation which seems more formalistic,
Victorian, and stiff in tone. But, Osborne's version
portrays Hedda as natural in her lines. She uses less
words, and is direct. Her words seem more closely tied
73
Osborne, West of Suez, p. 16.
74
Ibid., p. 83.
326
to her existence.
But if Hedda Gabler's use of words seem immediate
in Osborne's adaptation, his recent play, A Sense of
Detachment explores the disintegration of language in a
chaotic modern society. Osborne moves in somewhat of a
similar fashion as Eugene Ionesco's The Bald Soprano or
The Lesson to show the separation of language from people's
actual existence. What they say is not necessarily related
to how they really feel or act.
A Sense of Detachment consists of a collage of
contrasting speakers who represent various generations in
modern society: Girl, Grandfather, Older Lady, Chap,
Father. Girl speaks in the earthy, vulgar jargon of
76
contemporary youth. Grandfather speaks in the restrain-
77
ing sentimental tone of a Victorian. Chap illustrates
the corruption of language as he parodies hymns, "Yankee
78
Doodle Dandy," or assaults the audience.
75
Osborne, Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, pp. 18-21; Henrik
Ibsen, Hedda Gabler, trans. Arvid Paulson, in The Dramatic
Moment, ed. Eugene M. Waith (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.:
Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967), pp. 308-16.
78
Osborne, Sense of Detachment, p. 12.
77Ibid. , p. 13. 7®Ibid., pp. 22-23.
327
One literary passage seems to suggest that boredom
and monotony associated with a dying social tradition of
tea and conversation; especially as the projection screen
contrasts a scene of passion:
Father: I like a nice cup of tea in the morning
And a nice cup of tea with my tea
And at half past eleven
My idea of heaven is a nice cup of tea.
Chairman (singing): And when it’s time for bed,
There's a lot to be said
For a nice cup of tea!
r y Q
Box Man: For a nice cup of tea. ^
A final insult to the audience is from the Chairman,
apparently designed to jar the listeners into an awareness
of anxiety and alienation present in modern society:
Chairman: So: that's what you'd call your lot.
Our lot. . . . And may the Good Lord bless you and
keep you. Or God rot you. u
Osborne's skill with language is adept in moderniz
ing Shakespeare as well as Ibsen. Osborne adapts Corio-
lanus in Modern English that makes the dialogue clipped,
direct, vital. Shakespeare's word usage no longer seems
divorced and detached from our modern mentality. For
comparison in Act I, Scene I, let us examine Shakespeare's
version:
79
Osborne, Sense of Detachment, p. 48.
8°Ibid., p. 60.
328
1. Cit.: Before we proceed any further, hear me
speak.
All: Speak, speak.
1. Cit.: You are all resolved rather to die than
to famish?
All: Resolved, resolved.
1. Cit.: First, you know Caius Martius is chief
enemy to the people.
All: We know't, we know't.
1. Cit: Let us kill him, and welll have corn at
our own price. Is't a verdict.
All: No more talking on't; let it be done. Away,
away!
2. Cit.: One word, good citizens.
1. Cit.: We are accounted poor citizens, the
0 - 1
patricians good. x
In comparison is Osborne's Coriolanus under the title, A
Place Calling Itself Rome:
Mob: Aufidius— Au-fid-ius— Au-fid-ius!
1st Citizen: Hear me! Will you listen to me!
Mob: Go on then. (etc.).
1st Citizen: We are all, all of us resolved,
determined.
Voice: Get on with it!
1st Citizen: To die, yes, if we have to, rather
than put up with this state of things.
Voice: What state of things!
1st Citizen: What state of things he says!
Voice: Caius Marcius.
(Roar)
1st Citizen: Is that not "state of things" enough
for you!
Voice: More than enough, if you ask me!
Mob: Caius Marcius out! Marcius out! Out! Out!
Marcius out!
81
William Shakespeare, Coriolanus (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1957), p. 1.
82
Osborne, A Place Calling Itself Rome, p. 14.
329
Osborne’s version obviously cuts away any literary
frills, since he seems determined to get at the bare bones
of the egotistical Cariolanus' existence. Osborne keeps
his long pursuit of the poor versus the rich: in this
case, the plebeians versus the patricians. It may be that
the suggestion for the adaptation came from Brecht's
unfinished work on Coriolanus. Brecht saw him as a fascist
83
leader who betrays his people. Osborne may have Nixon in
mind.
While Shakespeare's version places the plebeian
characters in prose, and the patricians in poetry, Osborne
84
makes his Coriolanus a play for all the people. Specific
characters go out of their way to denounce oratory and
85
rhetoric. Further, Osborne's inauthentic Coriolanus
accedes to image-building, much as Shakespeare's characters
indulged in emotion.^
Osborne's most recent drama, The Gift of Friendship,
is equally engaging in its capture of conversational
English in its native form. He grips the sense of frozen
83
Jan Kott, Shakespeare Our Contemporary (Garden
City, N. Y.: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1966), p. 179.
84
Osborne, A Place Calling Itself Rome, pp. 19-20.
85 86
Ibid., p. 17. Ibid., p. 55.
330
feelings in his tense and tight dialogue:
Madge: Oh, do shut up.
Bill: Sure . . .
Madee: Sure . . .
Bill: I've told you before why writers are
uninteresting.
Madge: Don't tell me . . .
Bill: They are absorbed by yesterday and the day
before yesterday.
Madge: You're telling me.**7
In summation, Osborne's dramatic language has power
for our contemporary audiences because he ties his racy
zestful dialogue to the basic existence of his character.
The polite conversation of inauthenticity of earlier plays
is abrogated. Yet, on the other hand, Osborne manipulates
his monologues and direct earthy words to suggest the
multiple problems of modern existence: alienation, schein
versus sein, inauthenticity, dehumanization, presence of
the demonic, nonbeing, etc.
8 7
Osborne, Gift of Friendship, p. 18.
331
CHAPTER VIII
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS
Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West is echoed
in the contemporary events of cultural crisis. This
dissertation seeks to examine that crisis as seemingly
echoed in the plays of John Osborne. Rather than follow
the standard principles of dramatic criticism, spawned in
philosophic realism and nurtured in the social sciences,
this present writer seeks to create a new set of principles
of criticism based on the thought of the several existen
tial thinkers. The Existentialists, per se, are more
readily attuned, it would seem, with the crisis of Western
civilization by the very definition of their endeavor,
namely, modern "existence."
Application of the principles of existential
dramatic criticism to the plays of John Osborne is the
second most important task of this study. Characterization
as authentic or inauthentic, as caught in the dilemma of
choices, as conditioned by meaninglessness, or as driven by
332
the faith of self-confidence is pursued in each play of
Osborne. Incident, scene design, and staging are examined
systematically to discover those inherent artistic styliza
tions that reflect the anxieties of modern existence.
Finally, Osborne's dramatic use of language is treated,
especially because of the lack of meaningful communication
in modern life.
A survey of a portion of the many books and articles
on Osborne's plays follows the dramatist's search for
meaning at a time when many lose communicative care for one
another. The various approaches to Osborne are useful and
full of insight, whether literary, psychological, theologi
cal, sociopolitical, sociopathological, romantic-
allegorical, or Brechtian. But the present writer feels
that existential thought is more oriented to the real
issues at hand: faith versus doubt, hope versus despair,
self-courage versus nihilism. Osborne's dramas, while
realistic, are examined to discover Osborne's perception of
the deeper problems of man’s current crisis, the anxieties
of contemporary existence.
In addition to the books and periodicals, a
previous dissertation touched upon existentialism as a
tool of analysis of Osborne's plays, but the present writer
333
feels that it is inadequate. Robert Moore treats only
superficially of the alienated protagonists of Osborne’s
dramas. A second dissertation by Patrick Conlon focuses
almost entirely on the political and social implications of
Osborne's works, clearly out of the range of existentialism.
Yet, well within the realm of each dramatic genre
is the implicit existence of man, especially the society
that spawns the genre. No matter neoclassicism or roman
ticism, realism or naturalism, even expressionism or
absurdism, the existential can be discerned for them all.
Indeed, the existential can be discovered as an expression
of the Zeitgeist (spirit of the times), even if found in
romanticism or absurdism.
Existentialism as a dramatic genre arose to solve
the objectivity of realism by subjective means. Although
John Osborne is realistic in form, he can be construed as
an existentialist dramatist because he portrays characters
who seek authentic existence by being known, not in the
classical French dramaturgy genre of desiring to know.
Osborne's plays illustrate the existential problems of
conscience, deceit, and crisis.
Existentialism simply attempts to restore feeling
and emotion in an era that tends to cause the alienation
334
of emotions from the self, in a culture that depersonalizes
the individual person for the sake of technical efficiency
or economic profit. Osborne's dramas portray the modern
nihilistic condition, and then through characterization
posit the need for decision in order to affirm the "iden
tity" of the character or assert his "being." Failure to
affirm this identity is to fall into nihilistic nonbeing.
As a kind of secular metaphysics, existentialism
returns to those central issues raised by the Greek
tragedians, the medieval mysteries and moralities, and by
Shakespeare. The nature and destiny of man is again
central to dramatic portrait in Osborne's plays, as well
as for the Absurdist dramatists.
The various existential theorists provide us with a
basis for formulation of existential criteria of dramatic
criticism. Berdyaev celebrates art as the transfiguration
of life. Kierkegaard makes us aware of the extreme
"objectification" of life by technology in our time.
*
Sartre advocates passionate commitment of the self to a
cause in order that "identity" be established, and the self
authenticated. Unamuno reasserts an awareness of death and
the "tragic sense of life." Gabriel Marcel overcomes
estrangement and alienation by a confident "leap of faith"
335
in the mystery of God. Finally, Heidegger believes that
true dramatic art is a matter of release of being (sein) on
the part of playwright, scene technicians, and actors,
rather than the mere appearance of being (schein).
The existential criteria arise as a replacement for
the conventional realistic criteria that had been commonly
accepted for treatment of the boulevard theatre since the
1920s. Rather than linear plot, three acts, rising action,
climax, and denouement, the existential criteria define
"spiral” and "central idea" plots, illogical nonprogression,
reassertion of allegory, characters in self-conflict, use
of the long monologue as confessional to the audience,
as well as use of symbolic and theatrical techniques.
Generally speaking, rising action, climax, and denouement
are absent in Osborne's plays, except in the case of his
coauthored Epitaph for George Dillon.
Osborne's early characterizations are much stronger
than either his plots or story lines. That is, Osborne is
interested in illustrations of psychic problems through the
collage of interacting characterizations. He examines
characters in the very pain of life and existence. His
multiple characters confront boredom, inauthenticity,
alienation, and loss of motivation and care. Some
336
characters find meaning through commitment in suffering.
Some characters continue in an inauthentic existence of
apathy. Failure to be human in an aura of detachment is
the fate of others. Some characters cannot communicate,
while others cannot find "identity." Often as not Osborne's
characters suffer the pain of love, or endure isolation,
or lose self-faith. Hopelessness and meaninglessness are
exemplified repeatedly, while the discovery of humanity in
existence is also reiterated. A few characterizations
illustrate the existential problem of "becoming." Through
out the various plays there seems to be an emphasis upon
the freedom of the will to choose for sein or schein. In
some instances characters have a "paralysis" of the will
and cannot make decisions. Osborne's protagonists tend to
be either wholly detached and alienated personalities, or
wholly involved in the moment-to-moment vitality of life.
Osborne treats "identity" in relation to vocation. Many
of his characters overcome boredom in the pursuit of
sexual sensation.
Osborne's later characterizations indicate a
greater tendency to be allegorical and approach the form
of the Absurdist theatre. These later characterizations
lack the presence of the earlier anti-heroes with their
337'
lengthy monologues. In their place is a collage of
crippled alienated people. Alienation is focused in numer
ous plays on the sexes, and their crisis of identity. Some
characters demand that life be lived— be damned all conven
tions and rules. Many characters are sterile without
motivation, and without vitality. Other characters simply
pulse without vitality. Other characters simply pulse in
the fun of living. Some characters find their own persons
as being denied existence by conformity, dullness, and
harassment.
Often the anonymity of modern life is made concrete
by Osborne's characterizations. Yet, still other charac
ters discover that their rigid beliefs can bring tragic
consequences as these ideas conflict with the demands of
humanity and existence. The dehumanization of life is
illustrated in some of Osborne's commercial characteriza
tions: humanity becomes a matter of the "package deal."
Also, tradition-bound characters are depicted by Osborne
as oppressed by inauthenticity. Further, Osborne juxta
poses the character of detachment with the character of
commitment and existential decision. A number of Osborne's
later plays are especially written for the film or tele
vision, which automatically places their aesthetic nature
338
to some degree apart from the formulated existential
criteria. Finally, these characterizations generally
interact in the vacuum of modern meaninglessness, and
without commitment.
The existential analysis is carried further to the
incidents, scene design, and staging of Osborne's plays.
Osborne's elaborate stage directions indicate his elicita
tion from the audience to be emotionally involved in the
existence of the play's presentation. His theatre
aesthetics tends to be basically Aristotelian in the early
plays, but with a growing tendency for usage of Brechtian
and Absurdist methodology in the later plays. Osborne does
not solicit audience sympathy for many of his characters.
That is, the audience tends to empathize with the
existential dilemmas of Osborne's characters rather than
with the characters themselves.
Osborne uses the nonverbal incident for effectively
communicating the existential to the audience, just as he
uses the verbal. His characters reveal their existence by
talking, but the staging for acts of passivity and vitality
are equally important. Whereas the older realistic drama
abstracted the characters from their social settings,
Osborne places his characters squarely in their social
339
context that tends to emphasize the existential.
Osborne's scene design instructions seem to paral
lel the existence of the modern era: tacky and down-at-
the-mouth realistic props and living rooms. Equally
important is the actor for Osborne's nonverbal staging of
the existential: that is, the player's silence or gesture
of despair. The presence of characters and actors who
portray qualities or abstractions that suggest the problems
of modern existence indicates the plays take on the cast
of allegorical tales. His adaptation of Lope de Vega's
play in A Bond Honoured calls for an acting style that is
exaggerated. The episodic structure of the scenes is
suggestive of the existential rebel. The cone and great
knife in Luther, as provided by Osborne in his scene design
instructions, indicate visual depiction of the dilemmas of
existence.
The usage of multiple dream sequences in Inadmis
sible Evidence reflects the techniques of the Absurdists.
Whereas the collage of solicitor's office, prisoner's dock,
and benches of a court of justice offer a scene design that
indicates helplessness and oppression. The juxtaposition
of comic incident to tragic incident in the play is
Osborne's method of bringing home modern man's tugs at
340
self-contradiction.
In other plays Osborne uses conventional staging
to communicate schein or sein. He sometimes incorporates
musical comedy with Absurdist tactics to suggest the sub
jective aspects of existence. Yet, where emptiness is to
be suggested, Osborne provides sets and design to so indi
cate. Sometimes back-projections and mobile decor are used
in staging to suggest rather than to assert. More radical
props such as the dress dummy of Under Plain Cover point to
the use of Absurdist staging. Boredom and alienation are
suggested in Time Present by a set of "antiseptic white
ness" as the decor of a London flat. Alienation from the
truth of existence is achieved in the staging of The Right
Prospectus by the contrast of verbal profession and the
hypocrisy of the acts of the nonverbal.
In Osborne's A Sense of Detachment, he resorts to
the tactics of the contemporary German dramatist, Peter
Handke, as the characters are staged to engage the audience
in an insulting manner. Its purpose is to effect a
deliberate alienation between audience and actors, and to
jar the audience into an awareness of the ills of modern
society, especially dehumanization.
341
Thus, Osborne, often as not, uses conventional
staging and scene design to effect his verbal and nonverbal
portraits of modern existential dilemmas. But, on the
other hand, he often uses radical innovations in his scene
designs and staging that remind us of Brecht or Ionesco.
Subsequently, the existential analysis is applied
to the dramatic language of Osborne. Thus, Osborne's
dramatic language seeks to convey to his audiences the tone
and color of the perfunctory and routine monotony of con
ventional society, as opposed to the vital language used by
certain key characters. Osborne's characters come alive
because of his talented ear for the spoken vernacular
English. That is, he overcomes the stiff and inauthentic
phraseology of the dramas of yesteryear. Characters use
vituperative language to suggest alienation and sorge
(care).
Some of Osborne's poetic lines suggest boredom,
others point to smugness of comfortable living, while
still others suggest the loss of meaning in the old
religious symbols. Yet, the monologue is Osborne's chief
verbal weapon as the "confession" reveals the individual
soul in existential anxiety. On the other hand, Osborne
manipulates words in play after play to suggest the
342
presence of schein and the denigration of words into hollow
objects rather than subjects. Some words are authentic as
they issue from true existence. Other words are inauthen
tic as they issue from pretense or schein.
Most graphically Osborne illustrates in his plays
the failure of communication of characters. They fail to
understand one another, partly because of the breakdown of
the words themselves. Further, the words disclose the
loneliness, the alienation, the emptiness of modern exis
tence. Indeed, Osborne's frequent use of earthy, slang,
stylized, and operatic use of language tends to heighten
the audience's awareness of "life."
On the other hand, Redl, in A Patriot for Me,
reveals his own dehumanized existence by speaking with a
detached and brief syntax. Further, in his other plays
Osborne captures the mood of existence by the choice of
words and syntax: politeness to suggest the inauthentic;
hackneyed phrases to suggest meaninglessness; efficient
language to point to empty commercialism; dichotomy of
professed belief and the truth of personality; sterility of
existence as suggested in dialogue. That is, Osborne's
language is tied directly to the basic existence of his
character.
343
By way of implication, this dissertation seeks to
suggest a possible alternative to modern dramatic criti
cism by postulating a series of new criteria. It is
entirely possible that the same methodology can be applied
to many other dramatists, both ancient and modern.
344
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