JOHN ARDEN/ARNOLD WESKER

1. John Arden(1930-2012) was an English playwright who at his death was lauded as “one of the
most significant playwrights of the late 50s and early 60s”. He was born in Barnsley to the
manager of a glass factory. He was educated at Sedbergh school in Cumbria, King’s college,
Cambridge and the Edinburgh college of art.

John Arden was one of the pioneers of “epic theatre” in English language. For this idea he was
influenced by German playwright Bertolt Brecht who actually pioneered in “epic theatre” overall after a
playwright named Erwin Piscator. In this type of theatre, theatre was explored as a form for political
ideas. Audience was to be used as a resource not just a passive viewer of the play. These plays did not let
the audience to suspend their disbelief rather force them to see the real world. The play was not there just
to entertain the audience but to engage them directly.

The characters of these plays are intensely responsive to social situations, vitally interested in the
affairs of the world which included city living men and women, croaks and cranks.He did not give his
characters class complexion and treated them as local. He visualized community in a homogeneous
pattern in which different groups and individuals have clashing interests.

According to Arden characters need not be author’s mouthpiece. We have seen many examples in
history of English literature where authors would write semi-autobiographical stories through fictional
characters. The most famous example of this case can be “Doctor Faustus”. All of us know that Faustus is
Marlowe who himself is going through dilemmas of morality and faith. Arden in a way breaks this
tradition. For him the characters need not be in one way or the other related to the author.

He does not allow the audience to sympathize with his characters rather allows or asks the audience
to judge. Even in today’s time the audience looks for relatability in films and fiction. When one
emotionally connects with characters one might turn of one’s brain and not judge the character. Arden
rejects this type of viewing. According to him, the audience should detach itself from the characters and
look at them from a third person perspective and try to analyse them.

David Daiches says about Arden, “ a man with a message, if an uncertain one ”. Arden was known
for his ambiguous messaging. Usually many authors would have a single view and they would try to just
write about it and keep themselves from diverting to contradictory views. Arden was different here, he
never hid his confusion in messaging. In his play “Surjeant Musgrave’s Dance”, a group of British
soldiers sickened by their participation in war have deserted their regiment and made their way back to a
“miming town in the North of England” with skeleton of their dead soldier who belonged to the same
town. He wrote this in order to describe the futility of war. While trying to give the message of pacifism
he himself says, “complete pacifism is a hard doctrine”
2. Sir Arnold Wesker (1932 –2016) was an English dramatist. He was the author of 50 plays, four
volumes of short stories, two volumes of essays, much journalism and a book on the subject, a
children's book, some poetry, and other assorted writings. His plays have been translated into 20
languages, and performed worldwide.

Arnold Wesker was someone who can be called as a part of “Angry Young Men” movement. It
was a group of mostly middle class British playwrights and novelists who became prominent in
the 50s. The movement was identified after WW II as some British intellectuals began to question
orthodox mores. The main issues these men had were impatience with status quo, refusal to be
co-opted by a bankrupt society and had instinctive solidarity with lower class.

This movement was made popular by John Osborne’s play “Look Back in Anger”. After the
popularity of the play the label was applied to describe young writers who were characterized by
disillusionment with the traditional British society. The label, though, did not age quite well as
the writers to whom it was originally applied became more divergent and many of them
dismissed the label as useless.

As far as Wesker is concerned he reversed the former role of the underprivileged characters and
insisted that they be taken seriously. The theme of “Oppressor vs Oppressed ” is very evident in
his plays. These plays were about the people under oppressive industrial environment and being
exploited by the society in every way possible.

In his play Chicken soup with Barley he talks about Jewish inhabitants of London’s East End. His
play were usually amplifies by WW especially for jewish characters in his stories. He showcases
meaninglessness of hardwork when social social and political forces are bent upon curbing all
attempts of the individual to attain those goals. This leads to the themes of socialism in his plays.
Socialism is a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the
means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community
as a whole as opposed to private ownership.

Unlike Arden, Wesker himself sympathizes with his characters. He never looked down upon his
characters like a superior person. It is said about him, “Wesker’s is the sympathy of the man who
belongs to the world he creates”. His characters are heavily autobiographical in nature. Characters
of Harry and Sarah Kahn in the play Chicken soup with Barley represent his parents, Beatie
models his real life wife.

Shakepeare in his play “As you like it” says “All worlds a stage……” but as far as Wesker was
concerned the world for him was like a kitchen where people come and go and cannot stay long
enough to understand each other and friendships, loves and enmities are forgotten as quickly as
they are made. This whole idea of kitchen is what led to this certain type of plays called “kitchen
sink dramas” which showed the dark and gritty realistic picture of life.