LOOK BACK IN ANGER, Writers’ Theatre Chicago, and LOOK BACK IN ANGER, Floodlight Theater Company, at Strawdog Theatre Company. When John Osborne’s play opened on May 8, 1956, it shook the British theater establishment to its roots. Set in a dreary one-room flat without running water and filled with unlikable characters–a verbally aggressive protagonist, his mousy wife, her predatory best friend–it’s saddled with a plot so messy, digressive, and pointless it could pass for real life.
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Writers’ Theatre Chicago’s production of the same work shows how to make an old play new again. It’s not just that director Michael Halberstam has packed his show with excellent actors: Thomas Vincent Kelly, Jen Dede, Michael Nanfria. From the production’s first moments, Rick Paul’s wonderfully cramped set and the bluesy notes of Barry Bennett’s sound design make it clear that Halberstam has very specific ideas about Osborne’s characters. As the play’s protagonist, Kelly is given plenty of room for his trademark high-spirited rants, but his speeches never turn into a harangue, nor do we lose sight of the fact that he has some legitimate beefs. Likewise Dede’s performance as the wife never becomes so quiet and masochistic that we lose respect for her: we must believe in her assertion of adult responsibility, which may save both their lives–and their marriage.
