Inadmissible Evidence (Critical Overview)

Critical Overview

Inadmissible Evidence was a commercial and critical success in London, especially with Nicol Williamson in the lead, but it did not fair as well with U.S. audiences. Many critics conclude that the play is appreciated more by British audiences because of its essentially British character. Harold Clurman, in his review of the play, explains: "The English see in Maitland a ‘hero’ of their day, the present archetype of the educated middle-class Britisher," who has withdrawn from the world due to a sense of personal despair. He notes that several English critics found the play to be more "profound" than Osborne's famous Look Back in Anger because it is "the more universal play — a modern tragedy." Clurman finds that British audiences see themselves in Maitland, and in this, along with the author's "extraordinary faculty for derision in passages of coruscating rhetoric, lies the strength of Osborne's play." Clurman determines that American audiences want a sense of hope in the theater and so tend not to identify with Maitland as readily as those in England.

Many critics praised the structure and themes of the play, including Simon Trussler, in his article on British neo-naturalism, who writes that "Osborne has found his happiest medium so far in the solipsistic" play, and Benedict Nightingale, who declares it is "maybe his finest play."

Others, however, have found fault with its structure and bleakness. Robert Brustein, in his article on the English stage, determines that if Osborne does not "put his wonderful eloquence at the service of consistently worked-out themes, he will remain a playwright of the second rank." Brustein concludes that "after a brilliant first act, [the play] collapses completely into structural chaos as the author introduces rhetorical essays on subjects only remotely related to his theme." In his review of the play, John Gassner wonders "whether, so to speak, Osborne's ingenious game is worth the candle," as he criticizes the play's "essential lack of conflict." While he praises the characterization of Mr. Maple, Gassner insists "that it gives us not much else," which becomes "the mark of its intrinsic failure." Clurman notes that "it crackles with sharp phrases which startle us to a guffaw" but criticizes its negativity and lack of compassion.

Frank Rich, in his review for the New York Times, finds its themes compelling, however, concluding that if the play presents "an evening of almost pure pain, it is honest pain, truthful pain." While he finds the play "by no means flawless" with its "overlong Act II," Rich argues that "one cannot take away the tough-mindedness that Mr. Osborne has brought to the creation of Bill Maitland" and for finding "a common ground where the audience and his hero can meet." Rich insists that "it is Mr. Osborne's achievement that Inadmissible Evidence takes us right up to the edge of that darkest of voids the sweaty fear that we may, in the end, be completely alone in the world."