By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Michael Billington notes in The 101 Greatest Plays: From Antiquity to the Present
Plays Analysis
A Summary and Analysis of Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
It has to win the prize for ‘classical play known under the most different titles’. Although not his most famous play, Assemblywomen is one of Aristophanes’ most interesting. It’s been translated as Congresswomen, Women in Parliament, Women in Power, Women Holding an Assembly, A Parliament of Women, and, of course, its most familiar title, Assemblywomen.
A Short Analysis of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Looking back at Look Back in Anger, we are likely to gauge and analyse John Osborne’s approach to masculinity and relationships differently from the way original theatregoers and critics did (such as Kenneth Tynan, who enthusiastically promoted the play). The play was the inspiration for not one but two important new phrases in the English language to describe British post-war theatre: the phrase ‘angry young men’ was coined to refer to a group of British writers of the 1950s who shared Osborne’s desire to rail against the Establishment, while the term ‘kitchen-sink drama’ also has its roots in Look Back in Anger.
The play also inspired the title of an Oasis single ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’. The play’s influence, it would seem, has spread all over the place. But why is it worth reviving, studying, analysing, discussing, and revisiting?
A Short Analysis of T. S. Eliot’s The Cocktail Party
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The Cocktail Party (1949) was T. S. Eliot’s greatest success in the theatre. Loosely based (according to Eliot himself) on Euripides’ Alcestis, the play combines autobiographical aspects from Eliot’s own life with ideas derived from his Christian beliefs, as well as aspects of drawing-room comedy, family drama, and psychoanalysis and psychiatry.