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KITCHEN SINK

DRAMA
ARNOLD WESKER

John Randall Bratby

British painter and writer. Bratby was a


versatile artist: he painted portraits, still lifes,
figure compositions, landscapes, and flower
pieces, and also designed film sets. He is
probably best known for the scenes of drab
domestic life he painted in the 1950s, when he
was a member of the Kitchen Sink School.
Later his work became lighter and more
exuberant. His talent for self-promotion helped
to make him one of the best-known British
artists of his generation. Among his
publications are the novel Breakdown (1960)
and a book on Stanley Spencer (1970).

His paintings reflected everyday


domestic surroundings. Bratby
believed that his paintings were rooted
in general fifties attitudes and
outlooks, being introvert, grim, khaki
in colour, often opposed to prettiness,
and dedicated to portraying a stark,
raw, ugly reality'.

KITCHEN SINK DRAMA


The term Kitchen sink drama is used to
describe a new kind of drama that was
introduced into British stage with
Osbornes Look Back in Anger (1956).
This kind of drama used the working class
setting with the working class characters.
It was usually set in a bed-sit or flat and
focus on domestic issues.

Kitchen Sink dramatists tried to draw a


picture of the working class life.
Arnold Wesker expressed his
dissatisfaction with the society, taking a
social point of view. This earned him
being called Angry Young Men.
Just like John Osborne, Wesker took a
realistic approach in his plays.
Wesker used emphatic endings,
realistically detailed setting, and realistic
dialogues and rounded characters.

Unlike the avant garde theatre and the


theatre of absurd of Samuel Beckett, it
had a social message and ideological
stance , which was largely leftist.
Kitchen Sink Drama depicted the
everyday lives of ordinary people who
struggle against the degredation of
powerlessness, the loss of community or
the deadening influence of the suburbia.
John Osborne, Arnold Wesker, Shelagh
Delaney, John Arden were a part of this
movement but never referred to
themselves as Kitchen Sink Dramatists.

Arnold Wesker himself said: Kitchen


Sink Drama is a lazy description of a
group that didnt exist.I certainly was
not a conscious party to a
countermovement to the drawingroom theatre. We were all so diverse

ARNOLD WESKER
Much of his works take their origin from his
life. He has a working class background.
He was born in Stepney, London, on 24
May 1932. He is the son of Jewish emigr
parents. His father was a tailor and from
Ukraine and his mother Hungarian.
Before he became a playwright, he
worked as carpenter,plumber, bookshop
assistant and a cook.

Wesker founded the Roundhouses


first theatre, called Centre 42 in
1964.

His early works, The Kitchen and


Roots were staged by the Royal
Court Theatre.

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