Osborne The Entertainer

Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-30072-3
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 96 Seiten

This play about the life and work of a second-rate music hall comic (brilliantly created by Sir Laurence Olivier in the original production) and staged only eleven months after the opening of Look Back in Anger, secured John Osborne's reputation and has become a classic of 20th century drama.

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

Autoren/Hrsg.

Osborne, John

Leseproben

NUMBER ONE
At the back a gauze. Behind it, a part of the town. In front of it, a high rostrum with steps leading to it. Knee-high flats and a door frame will serve for a wall. The sight-lines are preserved by swagging. Different swags can be lowered for various scenes to break up the acting areas. Also, ordinary, tatty backcloth and draw-tabs. There are two doors L. and R. of the apron. The lighting is the kind you expect to see in the local Empire—everything bang-on, bright and hard, or a simple follow-spot. The scenes and interludes must, in fact, be lit as if they were simply turns on the bill. Furniture and props are as basic as they would be for a short sketch. On both sides of the proscenium is a square in which numbers—the turn numbers—appear. The problems involved are basically the same as those that confront any resident stage-manager on the twice nightly circuit every Monday morning of his working-life. Music. The latest, the loudest, the worst. A gauzed front-cloth. On it are painted enormous naked young ladies, waving brightly coloured fans, and kicking out gaily. Written across it in large letters are the words “ROCK’N ROLL NEW’D LOOK”. Behind the up-stage gauze, light picks out an old man. He walks across the stage from L. to R. As he reaches C. he pauses and looks up. There are shouts and screams. The noise of a woman trying to separate two men—her son and her lover perhaps. Cries of “Oh leave him alone! Don’t! Please don’t! Leave him alone”. He walks off R. and reappears beside the swagging, walking in C. There is a crash and the sounds of blows. He pauses again, then goes on. The woman screams, loudly this time. He pauses again, turns back, and shouts down over the banister rail “Do you mind being quiet down there, please.” He pauses, but there is no response. “Will you kindly stop making all that noise!” He manages to sound dignified, but he has a powerful voice and the noise stops for a moment. He nods and starts moving. A voice shouts “Why don’t you shut your great big old gob, you poor, bloody old fool!” A woman’s sob stabs the end of the sentence and the old man hesitates, turns back and calls over the stairs “Are you all right, Mrs. —?” A man’s voice is heard, urgent and heated. A door bangs, and the noise is muffled. The sobbing is still audible but the situation seems to be more controlled. The old man returns C. and enters through the door-frame. BILLY RICE is a spruce man in his seventies. He has great physical pride, the result of a life-time of being admired as a “fine figure of a man”. He is slim, upright, athletic. He glows with scrubbed well-being. His hair is just grey, thick and silky from its vigorous daily brush. His clothes are probably twenty-five years old—including his pointed patent leather shoes—but well-pressed and smart. His watch chain gleams, his collar is fixed with a tie-pin beneath the tightly knotted black tie, his brown homburg is worn at a very slight angle. When he speaks it is with a dignified Edwardian diction—a kind of repudiation of both Oxford and cockney that still rhymes “cross” with “force”, and yet manages to avoid being exactly upper-class or effete. Indeed, it is not an accent of class but of period. One does not hear it often now. Take up front gauze. He walks down C, laying down a folded newspaper, two quart bottles of beer, and a telegram, which he glances at quickly. He crosses to the fore-stage door R., and goes through it singing sonorously but cheerfully: “Rock of Ages cleft for me Let me hide myself in thee!” He reappears in his shirt sleeves pulling or a heavy woollen cardigan over his waistcoat. Still singing, he sits down, pours himself out a glass of beer, and starts to unlace his shoes. He puts these in a box with tissue paper up-stage C. The noise starts up again from downstairs. He drinks from his glass of beer, takes out a nail file and stands cleaning his nails expertly. This is like flicking off the old, imaginary speck of dust. There is a yell from downstairs. BILLY speaks, gravely, with forethought. BILLY: Bloody Poles and Irish! He sits down and puts on his carpet slippers. Front door slams, he takes spectacles from his case and puts them on. I hate the bastards. He unfolds his newspaper, the doorbell is still ringing. He looks irritated, but he has his feet up and is too comfortable to move. He sings cheerfully, as if to drown the noise of the doorbell. BILLY: Nearer my God to Thee Nearer to Thee! He listens and then goes on. Even though it be a cross That raiseth me He picks up the newspaper and peers at it gravely. Still all my song would be Nearer my God to Thee, Nearer to Thee! He puts down his paper. (Standing). Why don’t they answer the bloody door! He leans his arms on the chair, wondering whether he will have to go after all. Ought to be locked up, some of these people. It looks as though he won’t have to go after all, and he settles back cheerfully, Dirty, filthy lot. (Picks up paper. Pushes paper down suddenly.) My God, there’s a draught! Gets up and goes to door and looks out. I’ll bet they’ve left the front door open. Born in fields, they are. Takes a rug and arranges it against the door. Probably were born in fields. Animals. (Back to chair and sits down). Like animals. Wild animals. He settles down. Across from up L. comes a young girl. Billy pours himself out some more beer. The girl knocks on the door. He listens. Who is it? The girl knocks again. Who is it? Can’t get any peace in this damned house. GIRL: Is that you, Grandad? BILLY: What? GIRL: It’s Jean. BILLY: (rising). Who is it? JEAN: It’s me—Jean. BILLY: (goes to door and stands behind it). Can’t even read the paper in peace. Who? JEAN: It’s your granddaughter. Jean tries to push the door open but the rug prevents it. BILLY: Just a minute! Just a minute! Hold your horses! (He bends down). JEAN: Sorry. BILLY: Hold your horses! He releases the rug and opens the door, revealing Jean Rice. She is about twenty-two, dark, with slightly protruding teeth and bad eyesight. She is what most people would call plain, but already humour and tenderness have begun to stake their small claims around her nose and eyes. Her mouth is large, generous. JEAN: Hello, Grandad. BILLY: I wondered who the hell it was. JEAN: I’m sorry. BILLY: I thought it was some of that mad lot carrying on. Well, come in if you’re coming, it’s draughty standing about in the doorway. I’ve only just sat down. JEAN: (coming in). Did I disturb you, I am sorry. BILLY: I’d just sat down to read the evening paper. It’s a bloody farm-yard this place. JEAN: Well, how are you? BILLY: Bloody farm-yard. They want locking up. And you know what now, don’t you? You know who she’s got upstairs, in Mick’s old room, don’t you? Some black fellow. It’s true. I tell you, you’ve come to a mad-house this time. JEAN: You’re looking very well. How do you...