Jimmy shares a small, attic apartment with his wife Allison. Cliff, their best friend, is also a tenant. He helps with the sweets stall Jimmy rents to pay the bills. Jimmy (Joey Folsom) is highly educated, but content to make a living this way. He has a habit of disparaging Allison (Devon Rose) sounding as if he’s teasing her. But eventually the jovial tone gives way to barely concealed contempt. It’s almost as if he’s struggling with the impulse to to be verbally abusive. Allison’s friend, Helena, an actress comes to stay with them. She is more assertive than Allison, and there are confrontations between she and Jimmy. She talks Allison into leaving Jimmy, which she does, but curiously, Helena (Rhonda Rose) falls in love with Jimmy, and stays behind.
The question spinning at the hub of Look Back in Anger, is not so much Jimmy’s motivation, but why those around him tolerate his animosity. When Look Back opens, he seems relaxed, congenial and pleasant. He has antics with Cliff, cutting up and tussling. For some reason, Allison is his primary target, and he lays into her parents, who belong to a more privileged class. Allison’s mother seems especially under fire, and while she’s unfriendly towards Jimmy, most would draw the line at hearing her called a “bitch.” There’s no doubt that Cliff and Allison care deeply for Jimmy, but it’s somewhat astonishing how much torment they take. Jimmy has a fire in his belly, a woundedness that seems to emerge from helplessness and pain. He cares too much. Perhaps both Allison and Helena feel sympathy on some visceral level, and attracted to his “rage against the dying of the light”. Despite everything, Jimmy’s anguish tugs at us.
Directed by Jackie Kemp, The Classics Theatre Project’s production of Look Back in Anger is stunning, yet subtle; straightforward, yet complex. Jimmy is not a bellicose bully, his tirades are more nuanced than furious eruptions. Somehow Kemp maintains a powerful, contemplative tone. Avoiding what might have been histrionic, or frenetic. Folsom plays it low key, even when the cyclone is in full force. Devon Rose has a gentle, convivial quality that suggests how she manages to cohabitate with Jimmy. Rhonda Rose is convincing as Helena, the patrician performer who never lets Jimmy intimidate. Socia is endearing and spot on as Cliff, demonstrating that one can be playful and good-natured, and also smart. Francis Henry is enjoyable as Colonel Redfern (Allison’s father) self-assured and paternal.
Look Back in Anger was a watershed, first produced in 1953, and changing every play that came thereafter. John Osborn introduced a genre that came to be known as “kitchen sink theatre” in which the misery and despair of the everyday lives of the working class were depicted.
In the relatively recent history of The Classics Theatre Project, I have stood in awe of their brilliance for staging from the theatre canon, and making them vibrant, accessible and relevant. Their treatments are intelligent and entertaining, with a keen and kinetic spin. Don’t miss your opportunity to catch this rarely seen milestone in the history of contemporary drama.
The Classics Theatre Project presents John Osborn’s Look Back in Anger: playing March 18th-April 9th, 2022. Margo Jones Theater in Fair Park. 1121 First Avenue, Dallas, Texas 75210. www.theclassicstheatreproject.com (214) 923-3619