last you will hear of N.C. Hunter. His name has been forever erased from theatrical history. He was destroyed by critic Kenneth Tynan, who did away with him — it seems — with some relish, and his usual flair, and in one lethal swipe. I don’t so much blame Tynan, though his review of Hunter’s A Touch of the Sun was infamous for it’s lack of generosity, citing “the vacuity of the author's attitude towards life.” Hunter was guilty of nothing except being old at a time when being young was all that mattered. I don’t so much blame Kenneth Tynan as I do John Osborne, for they were oo-conspirators in the 1950s — heterosexist assholes (if I may be so bold) who plotted and planned to rid London's ‘West End’ of homosexual influence. The pretense was that they would create a new kind of theatre; indeed — they did — as they wished to see fine theatre written by homosexuals replaced by bad theatre written by heterosexuals. Of course they faced no opposition. Osborne and Tynan got rid of not only N.C. Hunter, but also Terence Rattigan, Noel Coward, and the producer Binkie Beaumont (one can’t helping loving him just for his name). These 4 were thought to be a ‘gay theatre mafia’ (Osborne is quite frank about this in his letters) and indeed they were, but this was no reason to destroy them, as in this iteration 'mafia' just means ‘special interest group,’ and indeed the four men had a kind of unwritten pact to pursue a certain kind of theatre, even though they were not particularly friends. Yes of course, Coward’s powers as a writer had waned by the 50s, but it was Hunter and Rattigan’s heyday. And it was Osborne who started the ‘angry young man’ movement in theatre with his horrifying ‘Look Back in Anger,’ and who would not rest until the ‘gay theatre mafia’ was extinguished. I don’t suggest you read Look Back in Anger, as it is a shitty play. The only redeeming thing is Jimmy Porter’s speeches: they have a certain unhinged violence, but are, sadly, lousy with didacticism. In other words Jimmy’s preaching at those who were at the time -- most decidedly not the converted -- is what made the work so-called 'revolutionary.' But if you analyse Osborne's play it is simply a misogynist misreading of A Streetcar Named Desire. Williams gorgeous play was written 9 years earlier, which means that Osborne had time to concoct his sexist retort. Look Back in Anger is essentially Streetcar from Stanley’s point of view. Alison is a Blanche-like, upper-class lady who falls for the sexy, gritty, angry, young, working class Jimmy. He verbally abuses her and eventually does so, physically, too — and utilizes his climactic final speech to justify it. Tennessee Williams had the genius to pit the body and soul against each other (welcome to my life!) -- in the form of Stanley and Blanche -- and then have them fight it out, in a rape, only to leave the audience's judgement suspended (but Blanche really wins, because Williams’ play is fundamentally not didactic; we are seduced by her poetry, and poetry is all that matters). Jimmy in Look Back in Anger -- though somewhat more eloquent than his fellow characters -- is no poet, mainly because he is hectoring us and lecturing us with the author's point of view. I doubt you will ever see a revival of Look Back in Anger, at least not in this 'Post-#Metoo' era. But N.C. Hunter’s A Picture of Autumn has just been released to the Mint Theatre website --
https://minttheater.org/
-- and quite honestly it is worth, well two hours of your COVID-19 lockdown time Yes, it’s a play about old people, set in an old house, and all they do, really is talk. And yes they are rich, highly educated, and upper class, steeped in privilege (sorry). But Hunter’s work is eminently Chekhovian and utterly gorgeous. It may take awhile to grow on you, but what Kenneth Tynan called ‘vacuity’ is actually depth. How could he be so stupid as to confuse the two? But Tynan was only stupid in believing that one had to come out of a play humming it’s moral lesson. A Picture of Autumn is replete with accidentally poignant images, musings, paradoxes, and laughter at human failing, and yes it is to some degree about ageing and death. It offers no resolution; it merely sits in a very sad and funny place, which -- if you think about it -- is where we all sit, really, right now, and ultimately, forever. A Picture of Autumn knows ageing and death are inevitable and quite unpleasant, and it doesn’t offer any way out. There is — in other words — no vaccine. It’s amusing to watch people imagine they have a way out, to fantasize that death is ubiquitous but extinguishable, we will never 'go gentle into that goodnight' because if we follow COVID-19 guidelines, we may avoid night altogether. It’s pleasing that the end of COVID-19 is so near, of course, but one feels the end will forever be just around the corner, and one is never sure if one really wants to chomp on that limp carrot being dangled at the end of that mangy string. The stasis that N.C. Hunter offers is inevitably human, it's something we perennially fight to get out of, but there is no escape. So why would you want to see such a hopeless play? I don’t know how to tell you this, but hope is a panacea; there is no hope, we are all going to die. There is no heaven either, there are only these bodies, which you find, as you grow older, have nothing to do with what lives — so briefly — inside them. As I drag these half dead old legs of mine about I am perpetually astounded by the complete and utter lack of a relationship between the physical body and the human soul. How can my mind be so alive and my body be so dead? But that's the way it goes, existentially speaking, and this life will gradually leave behind a hollow shell, and though I took solace recently in reading Ovid’s Metamorphosis for the very first time, I am absolutely not reassured by the possibility of someday returning as a rock, a flower or a rhesus monkey. The only transformation is this. I have created it for you here -- this fantasy of a cranky old man, who is only a very small part of who I am — you’ll never know me, you’ll only know this. This is a mystery, I am am mystery, you are a mystery, and the biggest mystery of all is art. I didn’t want to say goodbye to the characters in N.C. Hunters play. A Picture of Autumn. No, they are still here. They never actually lived; or did they? But they will not die, because my imagination says so.
