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JOHN OSBORNE’S “A HOTEL IN AMSTERDAM”: A CRITICAL ANALYSISDr. Suman Mohan
Associate Professor (English), Pt. D.D.U., Govt. Degree College, Palahipatti, Varanasi, U.P.
John Osborne (1929-1994) was not only a playwright but also an actor and screenwriter. After writing plays with the theme of anger, he produced “The Hotel in Amsterdam” in a different hue and atmosphere, in which progression of the play‟s mood goes on step by step with drink and merry making.
The play The Hotel in Amsterdam (written in 1968) starts in “the drawing room of a suite in a large, first class hotel in Amsterdam.” (P.87) Here, we are introduced by three couples, Laurie and Margaret, Gus and Annie and Dan and Ami. The leader of the group is Laurie, K.L.‟s writer who cleverly manages to get others to do his work. His wife, Margaret is optimist and her pregnancy causes a little more joy to her. Gus is a good character, he is film-cutter. His wife, Annie is an intelligent lady. This group is incomplete without Amy, K.L.‟s secretary and her husband, Dan. In the play, we hear only one voice - the voice of Laurie, who controls all the situations and characters till the end of the play. In the opening act, we come to know that they are somewhat agitated, something is eating them and are unaware of their destination. They don‟t know where they are going:
Gus: Yes, ah but where are we all going to go? We don‟t, I mean we haven‟t had a look yet.
Laurie: Why don‟t we sort them out and decide afterwards? (Act 1, p.87)
The couples are just like truants from school and they are here to escape for a longtime from K.L. has been pervasive in his physical absence throughout the play and hanging like a shadow over these persons‟ lives. He is either film producer or director. He is identified in the play only by his initials, K.L. which is mentioned near about 40 times in the play. Here, in the first Act, the three couples have arrived in the hotel. They plan here to enjoy for a few days. They chat, drink and prepare plans as well. In this way they can be far and free from the tyrant, K.L. They feel here
totally free and escaped. That is why they plan here to make merry:
Laurie: But we ought to celebrate getting here. After all, we‟re all in one place, we‟re altogether, we‟ve escaped and-
Annie: Nobody knows we‟re here.
Laurie: No one. Absolutely no one. (Act I, p.89)
And they are also confident that here K. L. can‟t reach to dominate their lives, they are unburdened from that
„monster‟.
Amy: K.L. will be pretty astonished when he finds out.
Margaret: Let‟s face it: So are we.
Annie: We do sound a bit amazed at ourown naughtiness.
Laurie: No, we‟re not.
Margaret: Yes, we are. Come on. You are.
Laurie: No, we are relieved, unburdened, we‟ve managed to sloughs off that monster for a few days. We have escaped, we deserve it, after all this time. Just to be somewhere he doesn‟t know where any of us are. Can‟t get near us, call us, ring us. Come round, write. Nothing, Nix. For afew blessed days. No K.L. in our lives.
(Act 1, P.93)
Through K.L. is physically absent in the play, but the whole story revolves only on the axis of him. Gus is his film editor and Amy, his secretary.The persons are tired of their journey. They order for drinks, sip drinks, gossip, makeplan and also decide in which hotel they will have dinner.These couples are always seen in- group. They are married and never seen separated from their partners. In Osborn‟s plays, the characters are usually seen frustrated like Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger, Archie Rice in The Entertainer and Luther are never adjusted to their partners or to the society. While in this play, we observe a sort of reconciliation with individual and society both. The characters feel delight in the company of their wives. The happiness is shared by each individual in the play. Thus, in the play, the females bring happiness in males‟life. In the absence of whichor due to irresponse males are frustrated in
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Osborne‟s plays.They frequently talkabout having escaped from K.L. and also hope that Margaret‟s Sister, Gillian also may not join them.
The atmosphere of Osborne‟s Look Back in Anger is very tense. But here, in The Hotel in Amsterdam, it is not so.
Here, the atmosphere is relaxing. All the characters feel relaxed from any tension in life. It doesn‟t mean that they are exclusively cut off the society or completely indulged or absorbed in the family only. But it is because the males are here with their wives. Osborn hasn‟t written in his earlier plays about any group of cheerful characters relaxing, gossiping and so closed and well- adjusted to each other. In his earlier plays, there is struggle for this adjustment and reconciliation with the partner or the society. In this play, the characters feel unburdened and relieved.
These are „blessed days‟ for them.
In Osborne‟s earlier plays, his characters never had a single „blessed- day‟ in their tense life. Though every character‟s life is full of struggles and frets, but his characters were never hilarious. In The Hotel in Amsterdam even in such a struggling life, the couples are passing their holidays in wonderful moments. But they are also afraid of that moment which they will have to face. How will they face K.L.? This fear is haunting in their mind. This is taken as natural in one‟s life. So, they try to amuse each other, and thus make merry.
Laurie: It would be great if he suddenly walked through that door while we were laughing and joking all together.
Annie: He won‟t.
Gus: What a thought, (p.93-94)
Though K.L. is not present physically in the play. But the audience also enjoys with the couples in the play as if he is also free of such a monster.
Because everything in the play seems to be probable in life. They love each other and enjoy. They are optimist and want tolead a comfortable life.
Laurie: … We all are still all together all friends and who all love each other. After all the things that have happened to us.
Like success to some extent, making money-some of us. It‟s not bad.
Gus: Bloody good.
Laurie: Everyone‟s married couples now- a-days. Thanks heaven we‟re not that.
Margaret: You‟re drunk already.
Laurie: You know what I mean.
Margaret: Yes.
Laurie: To us, and many the Good Lord bless and keep us.
All: To us.
Laurie: And preserve us from that dinosaur film producer. (p.98)
All of them enjoy and appreciate the „splendid hotel and a lovely suite.‟
They are all in the sitting room looking much more relaxed, enjoying the First Drink of the Evening.‟ They talk of togetherness:
Laurie: Yes, But when? Where? How do we arrange it? I don‟t want to go back to London.
Annie: Who does.
Laurie: No. I mean it. What is there, there for any of us? We should all go and live together somewhere. (P.123)
In this act, we note the superb dramatic effect. The act of drinking is broken by arrival of Gillian, who shocks everyone by reminding of London. She looks as in some trouble. She tries to suppress her emotion and goes on chattering. But Laurie makes her to burst into tears: “Gillian, for Christ‟s sake burst into tears.” But the reader is unaware of the fact that has troubled Gillian and made her upset. Margaret takes her in a bedroom. After sometime, Margret comes out of the room and tells that Gillian has committed suicide over the weekend and she has also told K.L. about their where about. After that within a few minutes, the telephone comes and we come to know that K.L. has committed suicide.
“The Hotel in Amsterdam” has literally no action, it is only the existing tension that grips the reader. It is Laurie who determines the mood of the play. In the play, we find that Act II has more action and is more compact than Act I.
throughout the play. It is felt that John Osborne has employed a new kind of dramatic device, That is, the character K.L., who is never seen on the stage but affects the action of the play deeply. The element of terror is always occurring through unseen character. The main object that grips the characters is not action but the tension, anxiety and fear that prevail throughout the play till K.L.,
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who has been hanging like a shadow,commits suicide and dies off stage. Laurie is symbolized as an artist‟s pain and disillusionment which even money and success cannot mitigate.
In the words of Hayman, The Hotel in Amsterdam “is a better play than Time Present with fewer patches of boredom and a more likeable hero. The monologues are quieter, less vindictive and on the whole shorter than those of any other Osborne hero but much better written and much wittier than Pamela‟s. (1) In The Hotel in Amsterdam John Osborne has taken much of his imagery from battle and hunt, hence, terms like kill, destroy, murder, enemy, death, trap, wound, stab, rage etc. are prevailing. In Laurie‟s speech, we can observe some of such vocabulary. “Someone always wants to be useful or flattered or gulled or just plain whipped slowly to death or cast out into the knackers yard by king Sham, Well, let him go ahead and get himself crucified this time. I know him not.” (P.
94)
Animal imagery is also observed in the play to have a letter insight into the basic natures of the characters as well as to make the atmosphere light and cheerful:
Laurie: You can‟t be living friends with a dinosaur.
Annie: What are you then?
Laurie: A mouse-what else?
Annie: Some mouse with the soul of a tiger.
Laurie: A mouse. With the soul of a toothless bear.
Annie: What‟s Gus?
Laurie: Gus? He‟s a walking, talking, living dolphin.
Annies: Amy?
Laurie: An Un-neurotic fellow deer. (p109) In the play, it is noted that at last, language becomes a mode of communication between the characters for each other‟s feelings etc, as a medium for understanding. The play has powerful emotional situations. Each character reveals Osborne‟s deep insight into human nature and his keen observation of the speech, gestures and problems of the characters he likes to portray. His plays depict a variety of characters that reflects his deep accuracy of understanding. At last, in the words of
Chambers, “The Hotel in Amsterdam ends with a classic deus ex machine which could have appeared almost anywhere in the closing stages.” (2)
REFERENCES:
1. Hayman, Ronald. (Sec. Ed.) Contemporary Playwrites. John Osborne, Heimann, London, 1968, P.91.
2. Chambers, Colin& Prior Mike. Playwrights Progress. Patterns of Post War British Drama.
Amber Lane Press, 1987, P.128.
3. Osborne, John. A Hotel in Amsterdam.
