Look Back in Anger

Half the credit for the power of "Look Back in Anger" belongs to Andreas Teuber; the rest of the credit must be shared among the other members of the Loeb production and the playwright. For Teuber is a brilliant actor, and as Jimmy Porter, the outrageous English rebel, he gives a memorable performance. He swings, dances, and shouts himself across the stage, waging some indefinite angry crusade, more bully than knight, but believable as both. The play itself is almost a twentieth-century Tom Jones, full of dark energy and strong life. This energy is what Teuber captures. "You're just an old Puritan at heart," his friend Cliff tells him. "Perhaps I am at that," he answers in a rare quiet moment. But that Puritan energy, that thrust toward suffering and feeling gives Jimmy's anger its direction. He wants to believe that there's "a kind of--burning virility of mind and spirit that looks for something as powerful as itself." And he shouts as much as he does because he needs company.

In Osborne's drama Jimmy's wife is his foil. Alison, played by Susan Cowles, is the rich girl--beautiful, but poor in spirit--"pusillanimous" Jimmy calls her. Miss Cowles, like everyone else in the play, suffers from comparison with Teuber. But she is lovely indeed, as she is supposed to be, and properly helpless before her husband's eruptions. Her acting is strongest when she confronts Jimmy's taunts and ugly accusations; left to herself or with the other characters the pace very often drags and the scene settles into finger-tapping dullness until Teuber returns. This is a small criticism. Teuber has all the lines, and uses them; the other characters are purposefully less exhilarating.

Another good performance comes from Michael Ehrhardt, who plays Cliff Lewis, the "no man's land" in the war between Jimmy and Alison. Part of Ehrhardt's work was done for him by the script--he need only speak his lines and let the other characters rage against him to be effectively lovable. Happily, Ehrhardt does more. He plays Jimmy's punching bag with a surprising kindness, and his few moments of anger are that much more convincing.

Two more people complete the cast, and thereby wreck the theatrical triangle. Helena, a nice piece of middle-class baggage, replaces Alison for a time in Jimmy's flat. Laurie Gould is an admirable bitch and an excellent actress, in fine control of her role. Ted Daniels, however, does no justice to the part of Colonel Redfern. He seems to be simply someone wearing make-up, and he speaks his lines with unnecessary sincerity. It is in the latter part of the play, when these people are introduced that the plot sags a little. We become confused about some matters of motivation and some consequences, and things move too quickly.

Director Jonathan Black has coached a remarkable cast through a remarkable play. The big Loeb audience cheered them to three curtain calls last night, but there should be even more applause as the run continues. One last note: the set, which was designed by Eric Levenson, is as artful as any the Main Stage has ever carried.