NEW PLAYWRIGHTS
633
so even than the diluted, sentimental, theater Marxism of the pre-war
years. The rebellion of the son Tony against his Bohemian, "demo" at–
t~nding,
banner carrying, Left-Wing Mum, which Mrs. Doris Lessing,
a former Communist and still a Left demonstrating writer, tries sympa–
thetically to understand in
Each His Own Wilderness-the
rebellion of
contemporary English youth is a real one, it is indeed a sympathetic one,
but its very essence is its inchoate, emotional, undefinedly "anarchistic"
tone. It has sheltered under the collective umbrella of "anti-Establish–
ment," but that cover has already worn thin, revealing a very indis–
criminate huddle. Some anti-Establishment men have been already re–
vealed as the New Establishment knocking at the door; these disguised
writers have not played much part in the theater of revolt, they are
more familiar as the heroes of the now passe angry young novels. But
the patently sincere rebels who form the anti-Establishment theater are
as ill-assorted a crew: Left Wing Youth genuinely disgusted at the dead
conformism of the official Left, asking for a new Left revivalism to com–
bat the apathy bred of opportunist "realism" ; young men asking for more
"poetry" in life to combat the spreading suburbanism of prosperity; young
men asking for any sort of noise that is a rude one; young men asking
for less noise and fewer "causes," asking to
be
left alone; and so on; the
patterns of revolt are now all too familiar already. Yet they have pro–
duced a lot of new plays. Some rather indifferent, as it must frankly
be said, are the three included in the Penguin volume; others, for all
their weaknesses, very striking on the stage like Miss Shelagh Delaney's
A Taste of Honey,
or
Roots,
the second and much better play of Mr.
Arnold Wesker, the author of
Chicken Soup with Barley.
The inchoate, sentimental realism of their protest, as it happens,
marries well with their form. None of these plays-and this goes for the
more famous plays of Mr. John Osborne and Mr. Brendan Behan-is
well made; indeed they have the appearance of amateurish improvisation.
In part this is clearly sheer incapacity, lack of knowledge, but in part
it is also purposeful protest against the competence that has been the
mark of death for so long. The rag bag of song, dance, recital, music–
hall effect, direct addresses to the audiences, tag-ends of expressionism,
which clever directors, notably Miss Joan Littlewood of the Theater
Workshop, have devised to cover the shapelessness of these plays may
well be the most "effective theater," to use the favorite jargon, that
can be found for the purpose ; but in nowhere but England would it be
thought new, let alone revolutionary. Yet it is a valuable phase in the
English theater, because only by taking the old competence to pieces
can we hope for anything new to emerge. Yet the dangers are great:
