A Chorus of Disapproval

by Alan Ayckbourn

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Critical Overview

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Ayckbourn writes out the English comedic tradition made famous by such luminaries as Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward (Hay Fever). However, in the late-1960s, when Ayckbourn’s career took off, the comedy of manners was no longer fashionable. Critics preferred more abstract writing of the style initiated in the Postwar period by the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot) and, two decades later, his British imitators Harold Pinter (The Homecoming) and Tom Stoppard. Ayckbourn has always been popular with audiences, and critics have also come to value his work. His knighthood in 1987 confirmed his status as one of Britain’s most influential and successful playwrights.

Critical reception of A Chorus of Disapproval’s debut was largely positive, and it has since become known as one of Ayckbourn’s best plays. In his review in the Guardian, Michael Billington praised the play as ‘‘a magnificent comedy,’’ and drew attention to the intricately plotted structure of the play. But his praise for Ayckbourn was not limited to the writer’s technical prowess. Billington also argued that part of the reason that the play was ‘‘heart-breakingly funny’’ was because Ayckbourn’s characterizations were so ‘‘psychologically acute.’’

Irving Wardle, writing in the London Times, emphasized precisely this same quality in Ayckbourn’s writing. His review highlighted the darker elements of the play, particularly the passive nature of Guy Jones. Wardle claimed that Ayckbourn’s characterization of Guy owed a considerable debt to Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. Like the title character in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (1900), Guy is ‘‘a totally passive figure who throws a surrounding and highly assertive society into turmoil. Everyone defines Guy according to their own fantasy: as a lover, a crafty businessman, a Scot, or anything else that springs to mind.’’ In Wardle’s estimation, the play owes as much to the Russian comedic tradition as it does to the British comedic tradition.

Wardle argued the case for Chekhov, but Billington, in a 1990 essay, thought more of the influence of another Russian dramatist, Nikolai Gogol. The play, Billington argued, had an ‘‘unacknowledged source: Gogol’s 1836 Russian comedy, The Government Inspector. In that, a humble St. Petersburg clerk arrives in a small provincial town, is mistaken for the Inspector General and is enthusiastically feted to prevent him exposing the bribery and corruption that is rampant in local government.’’ Billington added, ‘‘Guy Jones . . . is very much like Gogol’s Khlestakov.’’ Given Ayckbourn’s interest and familiarity with the Russian comic tradition—he adapted The Forest (1870), by Russian playwright Alexander Ostrovsky, for the National Theater—either of these claims may well hold true.

Billington also discussed an element that has fascinated other critics: Ayckbourn’s use of the play-within-a-play. The device allows Ayckbourn to explore the lives of provincial townspeople and to emphasize the importance of art in everyday life. Ayckbourn uses the device to demonstrate ‘‘how art consumes, shapes, and organizes life.’’ Billington argued that as well as foregrounding the importance of art, the device of the play-withina- play allowed Ayckbourn to comment upon contemporary society. ‘‘Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera famously demonstrated eighteenth-century low-life aping political corruption; Ayckbourn today shows bourgeois pillars of the community jovially pretending to be highwaymen and behaving with much the same shark-like rapacity when it comes to land deals.’’ Richard Hornby, writing in the Hudson Review, agreed. Ayckbourn, he wrote, targets ‘‘sexual prudery, venality, and hypocrisy.’’ The critic pointed out that even the amusing sub-plot about the BLM land deal had a direct parallel in Gay’s Opera : ‘‘Gay’s song ‘I’m Bubbled,’ refers to the South Sea Bubble, the great land scheme of the time, which is reflected in the shady scheme...

(This entire section contains 756 words.)

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in the outer play.’’ Indeed, most critics found that Ayckbourn’s social commentary was a light-hearted but nonetheless constant undercurrent in the play.

Critical opinion about A Chorus of Disapproval has been remarkably consistent: all have praised Ayckbourn’s rare ability to ‘‘weave so much sadness, pathos and bitterness into a play that is still a comedy.’’ Almost all critics commented upon Ayckbourn’s technical prowess: although he is an entirely different writer from Tom Stoppard the two are often compared for their ability to create plays whose intricate structure and complex plots reveal considerable dramatic acumen. Now that the tide has turned and critics are finally taking Ayckbourn’s talents with more than a pinch of salt, they seem united in the belief that Ayckbourn’s contribution to British theater has been considerable and that A Chorus of Disapproval is rich proof of his achievements.

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