LOOK BACK IN ANGER

William B. Davis directed John Osborne's Look Back In Anger. Unfortunately the production, scheduled for April 2020 at Studio 16, Vancouver, was cancelled because of covid-19's lockdown.

Look Back in Anger (1956) is a realist play written by John Osborne. It focuses on the life and marital struggles of an intelligent and educated but disaffected young man of working-class origin, Jimmy Porter, and his equally competent yet impassive upper-middle-class wife Alison. The supporting characters include Cliff Lewis, an amiable Welsh lodger who attempts to keep the peace; and Helena Charles, Alison's snobbish friend.

Osborne drew inspiration from his personal life and failing marriage while writing Look Back in Anger, which was his first successful outing as a playwright. The play spawned the term "angry young men" to describe Osborne and those of his generation who employed the harshness of realism in the theater in contrast to the more escapist theater that characterized the previous generation. This harsh realism has led to Look Back in Anger being considered one of the first examples of kitchen sink drama in theater.

The play was received favorably in the theater community becoming an enormous commercial success It is credited with turning Osborne from a struggling playwright into a wealthy and famous personality, and also won him the Evening Standard Drama Awards the most promising playwright of 1956.