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丕賱亘丨乇 丕賱兀夭乇賯 丕賱毓賲賷賯
The Deep Blue Sea Terrence Rattigan "The Deep Blue Sea opens with the failed suicide of Hester Collyer, who has deserted her husband for the raffish charms of an ex-fightor pilot. During the play we watch her wrestle with the intensity of her love-and lust-for the younger man, who is having his own problems adjusting to post-war life.
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First published January 28, 1952
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About the author
Terence Rattigan
89听books49听followersSir Terence Mervyn Rattigan, CBE was a British dramatist. He was one of England's most popular mid twentieth century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background. He is known for such works as The Winslow Boy (1946), The Browning Version (1948), The Deep Blue Sea (1952) and Separate Tables (1954), among many others.
A troubled homosexual, who saw himself as an outsider, his plays "confronted issues of sexual frustration, failed relationships and adultery", and a world of repression and reticence.
A troubled homosexual, who saw himself as an outsider, his plays "confronted issues of sexual frustration, failed relationships and adultery", and a world of repression and reticence.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
July 17, 2021
"A great tidal wave of illogical emotions."
The opening scene of this play is a failed suicide bid by a woman, who is found by her neighbours when they notice the smell of leaking gas on their way to work. The irony being she could not complete the task because the gas meter was not fed the necessary shilling to operate properly. Remember, this is set in 1952 when so many utilities were still coin fed.
The play takes place over the course of one day, in the sitting room of a flat in London.
The flat is Hester Collyer's, and through the course of the play we find out what led to this event. Which as it turns out could be considered minor by some. But it's always the little things that niggle the most.
MRS ELTON (angrily): "Whatever possessed you to do a dreadful thing like that?"
HESTER (lying back with her eyes closed): "The devil I suppose...when you're between any kind of devil and the deep blue sea, the deep blue sea sometimes looks very inviting. It did last night."
Hester has left her husband for another. Was it a good move? As she laments ironically to her (still legally wed) husband, her lover's feelings for her haven't changed one bit...they remain "Zero minus zero is still zero." In fact her lover, Freddie, is an immature, selfish brat of a man. Yet Hester loves him. Hester is all fluid emotions, they are what drive her, even when logic says things should be otherwise.
FREDDIE: "My God, how I hate getting tangled up in other people's emotions."
This is such an emotionally complex play. Love where both parties are not equally committed or even remotely interested. One partner driven to drink, the other to suicide. It is beautifully written with a subtle dark humour and underlying pathos that is unmistakably raw in its emotion.
To provide some background to Terrence Rattigan and this play, the forward advises that Terrence Rattigan described this as being "the hardest of my plays to write..." As the "...struggles were not purely literary...The Deep Blue Sea is, in many ways, his most personal work."
Terrence Rattigan was a homosexual in a time when it was still outlawed, and men (and women) were unable to live openly as gay. All reference to any hint of homosexuality in the arts, such as plays, were unable to be performed. It simply would not pass by the Lord Chamberlain's Office (the fun police), who used to censor British Theatre. Owners of venues and writers themselves could be prosecuted for allowing performances of "offensive works" to be staged (which brings to mind a favourite of mine, Joe Orton, but that's a whole different discussion).
Rattigan had a relationship with a young actor, Kenneth Morgan. They fell in love, yet it was a tempestuous relationship with numerous separations. Rattigan refused to break with another (more affluent) lover. This upset Morgan greatly, who in turn left Rattigan for another. Rattigan was convinced that he would return, but instead, sadly, Morgan took his own life. That tragic event is the "inspiration" for this play.
What an inspiration. How the artistic mind works. Life truly is stranger than fiction. Having said that, this is a truly powerful play. With themes which are just as valid today as when the play was written.
I'm going to see this performed on stage next weekend with the glorious Marta Dusseldorp playing the role of Hester Collyer. It will be another amazing STC production. I cannot wait.
Postcript: The performance by the STC was just sublime. It really brought home the complexity of human relationships and unrequited love. What complicated creatures we are. Again, amazing to think that a play that was written in 1953 is still so utterly relevant today.
The opening scene of this play is a failed suicide bid by a woman, who is found by her neighbours when they notice the smell of leaking gas on their way to work. The irony being she could not complete the task because the gas meter was not fed the necessary shilling to operate properly. Remember, this is set in 1952 when so many utilities were still coin fed.
The play takes place over the course of one day, in the sitting room of a flat in London.
The flat is Hester Collyer's, and through the course of the play we find out what led to this event. Which as it turns out could be considered minor by some. But it's always the little things that niggle the most.
MRS ELTON (angrily): "Whatever possessed you to do a dreadful thing like that?"
HESTER (lying back with her eyes closed): "The devil I suppose...when you're between any kind of devil and the deep blue sea, the deep blue sea sometimes looks very inviting. It did last night."
Hester has left her husband for another. Was it a good move? As she laments ironically to her (still legally wed) husband, her lover's feelings for her haven't changed one bit...they remain "Zero minus zero is still zero." In fact her lover, Freddie, is an immature, selfish brat of a man. Yet Hester loves him. Hester is all fluid emotions, they are what drive her, even when logic says things should be otherwise.
FREDDIE: "My God, how I hate getting tangled up in other people's emotions."
This is such an emotionally complex play. Love where both parties are not equally committed or even remotely interested. One partner driven to drink, the other to suicide. It is beautifully written with a subtle dark humour and underlying pathos that is unmistakably raw in its emotion.
To provide some background to Terrence Rattigan and this play, the forward advises that Terrence Rattigan described this as being "the hardest of my plays to write..." As the "...struggles were not purely literary...The Deep Blue Sea is, in many ways, his most personal work."
Terrence Rattigan was a homosexual in a time when it was still outlawed, and men (and women) were unable to live openly as gay. All reference to any hint of homosexuality in the arts, such as plays, were unable to be performed. It simply would not pass by the Lord Chamberlain's Office (the fun police), who used to censor British Theatre. Owners of venues and writers themselves could be prosecuted for allowing performances of "offensive works" to be staged (which brings to mind a favourite of mine, Joe Orton, but that's a whole different discussion).
Rattigan had a relationship with a young actor, Kenneth Morgan. They fell in love, yet it was a tempestuous relationship with numerous separations. Rattigan refused to break with another (more affluent) lover. This upset Morgan greatly, who in turn left Rattigan for another. Rattigan was convinced that he would return, but instead, sadly, Morgan took his own life. That tragic event is the "inspiration" for this play.
What an inspiration. How the artistic mind works. Life truly is stranger than fiction. Having said that, this is a truly powerful play. With themes which are just as valid today as when the play was written.
I'm going to see this performed on stage next weekend with the glorious Marta Dusseldorp playing the role of Hester Collyer. It will be another amazing STC production. I cannot wait.
Postcript: The performance by the STC was just sublime. It really brought home the complexity of human relationships and unrequited love. What complicated creatures we are. Again, amazing to think that a play that was written in 1953 is still so utterly relevant today.
December 25, 2022
It starts with a woman having failed in her attempt at suicide when the gas ran out, something that did happen in England in the 1950s when gas and electricity were coin operated. What follows is a tight drama about relationships and the problem of what happens when one partner is unable to give to the relationship what is required by the other. Rattigan wrote it following the suicide of his lover, Kenny Morgan, after their break-up. I just found it so powerful all the way to its enigmatic and thought provoking conclusion.
August 6, 2016
Description: The Deep Blue Sea opens with the failed suicide of Hester Collyer, who has deserted her husband for the raffish charms of an ex-fightor pilot. During the play we watch her wrestle with the intensity of her love-and lust-for the younger man, who is having his own problems adjusting to post-war life.
June 22, 2022
亘丿賵賳 丕賲蹖丿 夭賳丿诏蹖 讴乇丿賳 賲蹖 鬲賵賳賴 賴賲賵賳 亘丿賵賳 賳丕丕賲蹖丿蹖 夭賳丿诏蹖 讴乇丿賳 亘丕卮賴 ......
March 31, 2013
Achingly beautiful.
The braveness it takes to ask someone to love one back, even as things rapidly unravel. The humilty of putting one's dignity in the hands of the other, hoping against hope that it is returned intact. The braveness in revealing one's vulnerability to the one and only one who can take advantage of it. To be in that unique position to take advantage of and be taken advantage of. To refuse and to be refused. To be broken by love and to be inspired by the one spurned.
Rarely do we come across such wonderful, despairing complexities in a writing as in this one.
It makes one aware of the astonishing simultaneity of human fragilities and strength that we display every now and then in our lives.
And that deep, deep faith we have in our heart's calling.
The braveness it takes to ask someone to love one back, even as things rapidly unravel. The humilty of putting one's dignity in the hands of the other, hoping against hope that it is returned intact. The braveness in revealing one's vulnerability to the one and only one who can take advantage of it. To be in that unique position to take advantage of and be taken advantage of. To refuse and to be refused. To be broken by love and to be inspired by the one spurned.
Rarely do we come across such wonderful, despairing complexities in a writing as in this one.
It makes one aware of the astonishing simultaneity of human fragilities and strength that we display every now and then in our lives.
And that deep, deep faith we have in our heart's calling.
April 2, 2018
Rattigan writes people - real, raw and flawed. He observes and comments on the human condition in such a beautifully tragic way.
March 2, 2025
Continuing the Terence Rattigan reading adventures 馃槉 I decided to read his play 'The Deep Blue Sea' today.
There is a building with many apartments. One day in the morning, there is the smell of gas leaking. The caretaker and one of the tenants try to find out where it is coming from and they find the apartment from where the smell is coming. Inside they find the woman who lives in the apartment unconscious. It appears that she has tried to commit suicide. Why she tried doing that, what is her back story, what happens after that, forms the rest of the story.
I loved 'The Deep Blue Sea'. The first act is spectacular and gripping and grabs your attention and never lets you go. It was like watching a Hitchcock movie. There is a bit of a slack in the second act, but the third act picks up. Towards the end there are fascinating conversations, and some deep lines spoken. I loved the complexity of the main character, Hester, the woman who tries to commit suicide. Another of my favourite characters was Sir William, the judge. A third favourite character was Mr Miller, the doctor.
I think out of the four Terence Rattigan plays I've read till now, my favourite is still 'The Winslow Boy'. But 'The Deep Blue Sea' was so good at the beginning that I thought it would upstage 'The Winslow Boy'. But it didn't. I'd give it second place alongwith 'The Browning Version'. Many critics rate 'The Deep Blue Sea' as his finest play. Terence Rattigan's own favourite was 'The Browning Version', I think. My favourite is, of course, 'The Winslow Boy' 馃槉
I also think that watching the performance of 'The Deep Blue Sea' on stage would be a more powerful experience than reading the play. I normally read plays, because opportunities for watching performances is quite limited in my place, and most good plays are great even if we treat them as a book and read them. But sometimes we forget that plays are written to be performed and there is a huge difference between what is there on the page and what we see on the stage. In some cases, the performance takes the play to a different level. Peggy Ashcroft played the role of Hester when 'The Deep Blue Sea' was originally performed on stage, and her performance was acclaimed and praised by everyone. When the play had a revival in the '90s, Penelope Wilton's performance as Hester was regarded as brilliant and it was widely praised. (Penelope Wilton played the role of Matthew Crawley's mother, Isobel Crawley, in 'Downton Abbey'). I'd have loved to watch these two performances. But, unfortunately, beggars cannot be choosers, and so I should take what I can get, and so I'm happy that I got to read the play.
Sharing one of my favourite parts from the book.
馃挳馃挳馃挳
HESTER (wildly). I know. I know. That鈥檚 what I can鈥檛 face.
MILLER (with brutal force). Yes, you can. That word 鈥榥ever鈥�. Face that and you can face life. Get beyond hope. It鈥檚 your only chance.
HESTER. What is there beyond hope?
MILLER. Life. You must believe that. It鈥檚 true 鈥� I know.
HESTER (at length). You can still find some purpose in living.
MILLER. What purpose?
HESTER. You have your work at the hospital.
MILLER. For me the only purpose in life is to live it. My work at the hospital is a help to me in that. That is all. If you looked perhaps you might also find some help for yourself.
HESTER. What help?
MILLER. Haven鈥檛 you got your work too? (He makes a gesture towards the paintings.)
HESTER. Oh that. (Wearily.) There鈥檚 no escape for me through that.
MILLER. Not through that, or that. (With a wide gesture he indicates the later paintings.) But perhaps through that. (He points to the early painting.) I鈥檓 not an art expert, but I believe there was talent here. Just a spark, that鈥檚 all, which with a little feeding, might have become a little flame. Not a great fire, which could have illumined the world 鈥� oh no 鈥� I鈥檓 not saying that. But the world is a dark enough place for even a little flicker to be welcome.
馃挳馃挳馃挳
Have you read 'The Deep Blue Sea'? What do you think about it? Which is your favourite Terence Rattigan play?
There is a building with many apartments. One day in the morning, there is the smell of gas leaking. The caretaker and one of the tenants try to find out where it is coming from and they find the apartment from where the smell is coming. Inside they find the woman who lives in the apartment unconscious. It appears that she has tried to commit suicide. Why she tried doing that, what is her back story, what happens after that, forms the rest of the story.
I loved 'The Deep Blue Sea'. The first act is spectacular and gripping and grabs your attention and never lets you go. It was like watching a Hitchcock movie. There is a bit of a slack in the second act, but the third act picks up. Towards the end there are fascinating conversations, and some deep lines spoken. I loved the complexity of the main character, Hester, the woman who tries to commit suicide. Another of my favourite characters was Sir William, the judge. A third favourite character was Mr Miller, the doctor.
I think out of the four Terence Rattigan plays I've read till now, my favourite is still 'The Winslow Boy'. But 'The Deep Blue Sea' was so good at the beginning that I thought it would upstage 'The Winslow Boy'. But it didn't. I'd give it second place alongwith 'The Browning Version'. Many critics rate 'The Deep Blue Sea' as his finest play. Terence Rattigan's own favourite was 'The Browning Version', I think. My favourite is, of course, 'The Winslow Boy' 馃槉
I also think that watching the performance of 'The Deep Blue Sea' on stage would be a more powerful experience than reading the play. I normally read plays, because opportunities for watching performances is quite limited in my place, and most good plays are great even if we treat them as a book and read them. But sometimes we forget that plays are written to be performed and there is a huge difference between what is there on the page and what we see on the stage. In some cases, the performance takes the play to a different level. Peggy Ashcroft played the role of Hester when 'The Deep Blue Sea' was originally performed on stage, and her performance was acclaimed and praised by everyone. When the play had a revival in the '90s, Penelope Wilton's performance as Hester was regarded as brilliant and it was widely praised. (Penelope Wilton played the role of Matthew Crawley's mother, Isobel Crawley, in 'Downton Abbey'). I'd have loved to watch these two performances. But, unfortunately, beggars cannot be choosers, and so I should take what I can get, and so I'm happy that I got to read the play.
Sharing one of my favourite parts from the book.
馃挳馃挳馃挳
HESTER (wildly). I know. I know. That鈥檚 what I can鈥檛 face.
MILLER (with brutal force). Yes, you can. That word 鈥榥ever鈥�. Face that and you can face life. Get beyond hope. It鈥檚 your only chance.
HESTER. What is there beyond hope?
MILLER. Life. You must believe that. It鈥檚 true 鈥� I know.
HESTER (at length). You can still find some purpose in living.
MILLER. What purpose?
HESTER. You have your work at the hospital.
MILLER. For me the only purpose in life is to live it. My work at the hospital is a help to me in that. That is all. If you looked perhaps you might also find some help for yourself.
HESTER. What help?
MILLER. Haven鈥檛 you got your work too? (He makes a gesture towards the paintings.)
HESTER. Oh that. (Wearily.) There鈥檚 no escape for me through that.
MILLER. Not through that, or that. (With a wide gesture he indicates the later paintings.) But perhaps through that. (He points to the early painting.) I鈥檓 not an art expert, but I believe there was talent here. Just a spark, that鈥檚 all, which with a little feeding, might have become a little flame. Not a great fire, which could have illumined the world 鈥� oh no 鈥� I鈥檓 not saying that. But the world is a dark enough place for even a little flicker to be welcome.
馃挳馃挳馃挳
Have you read 'The Deep Blue Sea'? What do you think about it? Which is your favourite Terence Rattigan play?
July 25, 2016
From BBC Radio 3 - Drama on 3:
Terence Rattigan's celebrated 1952 play. It is post-war Britain and Hester Collyer has left her husband, an eminent judge, to be with Freddy, an ex-RAF pilot with no prospects. The passion she feels for this younger man is not returned by him, and the play opens as Hester, in a state of despair, has attempted suicide.
Directed by David Timson
A Ukemi production for BBC Radio 3
First broadcast 01/02/2009.
A movie was made based on this book and it's available at
Terence Rattigan's celebrated 1952 play. It is post-war Britain and Hester Collyer has left her husband, an eminent judge, to be with Freddy, an ex-RAF pilot with no prospects. The passion she feels for this younger man is not returned by him, and the play opens as Hester, in a state of despair, has attempted suicide.
Directed by David Timson
A Ukemi production for BBC Radio 3
First broadcast 01/02/2009.
A movie was made based on this book and it's available at
July 7, 2022
Unusual for a play dealing with adultery and suicide attempts, I found this melodrama an excellent mixture of entertainment and moral philosophy. It reminded me of a P. G. Wodehouse novel gone spiffy... the flirtation gone too far, the bright young man slinging lingo but lost, the image of what would have happened if one of his "Algy"s or "Bertie"s had gone for the wrong girl. (Sorry, my benchmarks for everything seem to be Austen, Christie, or Wodehouse). I watched the trailer for the movie. It seems they beefed up Freddy's role considerably and did flash backs. I'm not sure I liked their treatment of it, although the piano soundtrack was absolutely swoony.
March 1, 2025
Kiau拧inio toast vietoj savi啪udyb臈s
March 16, 2023
A play on passion, despair, and persistence. It鈥檚 also a nice portrait of post-war society: upper class judge, working class landlady, broken pilot, etc.
April 13, 2012
Hester Collyer loves Freddie Page. She loves him so much she left her husband Bill to run away with Freddie to Canada, where he worked as a test pilot. She loves him so much she tries to kill herself when he forgets her birthday. She loves him so much she cannot bear the thought that he does not love her as much as she loves him.
So goes "The Deep Blue Sea." The play starts with Hester's failed suicide attempt, which is discovered by her landlady and another tenant who smell gas. While the premise of the play sounds melodramatic, it never really goes over the line. Rattigan shows a woman who is devastated by her love for this seemingly ordinary man that makes her act in a way she never dreamed of. Here is a great story of how love can make people act irrational and detrimental to their health.
While Freddie Page could seem like a right bastard for not sharing the same amount of love for Hester, he is a sympathetic character, and an honest one at that. I love the line: "We are death for each other." In this case it is literally true, but can also be metaphorically true for a couple holding each other back from achieving goals by a distracting relationship.
I also loved the character of Mr. Miller, who embodied that stranger in a person's life, who, with one small act or word, was destined to change someone else's life for better or worse. Very compelling.
So goes "The Deep Blue Sea." The play starts with Hester's failed suicide attempt, which is discovered by her landlady and another tenant who smell gas. While the premise of the play sounds melodramatic, it never really goes over the line. Rattigan shows a woman who is devastated by her love for this seemingly ordinary man that makes her act in a way she never dreamed of. Here is a great story of how love can make people act irrational and detrimental to their health.
While Freddie Page could seem like a right bastard for not sharing the same amount of love for Hester, he is a sympathetic character, and an honest one at that. I love the line: "We are death for each other." In this case it is literally true, but can also be metaphorically true for a couple holding each other back from achieving goals by a distracting relationship.
I also loved the character of Mr. Miller, who embodied that stranger in a person's life, who, with one small act or word, was destined to change someone else's life for better or worse. Very compelling.
January 5, 2019
This is actual a play and I think this playwright was not just a troubled individual, but ahead of his time in his thinking. Sadly, the times he lived in didn't recognize his life style, nor his anguish.
August 22, 2023
Very good. Unrequited love all over the place, and you can just feel the characters' sadness oozing off the page. Mr. Miller is my favorite character.
July 14, 2020
Utterly brilliant!
October 10, 2022
"丕賱毓丕賱賲 賲賰丕賳 賲馗賱賲 廿賱賶 丕賱丿乇噩丞 丕賱鬲賷 賷乇丨亘 賮賷賴丕 亘兀賷 賵賲賷囟 賵賱賵 賰丕賳 氐睾賷乇丕"
March 23, 2017
As entertaining and moving to read as it was to watch.
March 28, 2023
this just reminded me how much i love english dramas
August 2, 2012
A few months ago, Rachel Weisz was on The Daily Show and drama geeked out when talking about her newest movie, an adaptation of this play. As a recovering drama geek, I loved seeing an actress of Ms. Weisz鈥檚 caliber acting like fifteen-year-old me after I first read David Ives (Seriously, he鈥檚 brilliant). I鈥檓 interested to see the movie now, because, as it is, this is a play that鈥檚 meant to be performed live, in front of an audience. It鈥檚 an intimate story that takes place in one day, in one room: it opens with the attempted suicide of Hester Collyer, who left her husband (a wealthy judge) the previous year for an affair with a former RAF pilot. This is a play about consequences and aftermath that leaves plenty of space for actors to bring in their own interpretations of the story and the characters. I can see why Ms. Weisz was so excited. Recommended.
[ETA: The film does not do this play justice and come nowhere close to matching the emotional intimacy of the play. I鈥檓 by no means of purist when adapting stories for different mediums, but I found the film insulting to the original since it strips the play of its depth and uses a few of the story鈥檚 odds and ends to tell a story the director wanted to tell, which I found quite different than the story Terence Rattigan set down over sixty years ago.]
[ETA: The film does not do this play justice and come nowhere close to matching the emotional intimacy of the play. I鈥檓 by no means of purist when adapting stories for different mediums, but I found the film insulting to the original since it strips the play of its depth and uses a few of the story鈥檚 odds and ends to tell a story the director wanted to tell, which I found quite different than the story Terence Rattigan set down over sixty years ago.]
August 25, 2020
I like this play a lot. It feels personal. I saw it in July when it was streamed by National Theatre on Youtube during the covid-19 lockdown. So Helen McCrory's Hester, the set design from that production, and most importantly, the fried egg are still imprinted on my mind. It's incredible what this play achieves, so unassumingly. Having read it now, I'm even more impressed by details which I'd erroneously assumed were the work of the director, and not the playwright. And I mean details like, Hester reaching for the phone and then dropping her hand, allowing it to ring a few times before picking it up. When I watched the play in July, the main theme seemed to be the violence we inflict on each other through our every interaction. Reading it now, I was more attuned to the support Hester receives, from Mrs. Elton, from Ann Page, and of course from Mr. Miller. And also to Hester's performance of normality and how she views herself. Where does Hester end, and where do I begin?
August 22, 2021
A thoughtful, intriguing play from 1952 about struggles between our needs for receiving and giving love. Rattigan (1911-77) was a closeted gay playwright whose work is now getting a renewed appreciation. The premise for this one is based on the suicide of an actor close to Rattigan. He changed the couple to a man and woman, made the suicide attempt (which opens the play) unsuccessful, and created a frighteningly honest character in Hester Collyer. (Rattigan in real life would correspond to the Freddy Page character.) The play hints that the doctor, who seems the least sentimental and most life-affirming character, was struck off the medical rolls because he was gay. A beautifully constructed play in the well-made play tradition.
March 27, 2022
A pretty good play which doesn't deserve the epithet of "great", written within the confines of a "well made play." The premise and theme are captivating: sexual desire, repressed feelings, a failed suicide. But this play, commonly thought Rattigan's best, still cannot escape from the conventions of a "well-made play."
Rattigan does a professional job, but "The Deep Blue Sea" ultimately doesn't plumb the depths of its marine metaphor. Little wonder why Rattigan is now regarded a respected but dated 20th-century playwright.
Rattigan does a professional job, but "The Deep Blue Sea" ultimately doesn't plumb the depths of its marine metaphor. Little wonder why Rattigan is now regarded a respected but dated 20th-century playwright.
February 26, 2016
I won't lie. I read this play mainly due to my obsession with Tom Hiddleston (who plays Freddie Page in the 2011 film adaption). However, I now am absolutely in love with this play. I like it better than the film adaption in fact. I've reread it again and again, and am constantly staggered by the emotional impact Terence Rattigan creates in such a short amount of words, with only dialogue and a one-room stage setting. It's definitely worth a read.
June 21, 2014
This is by far one of the most beautiful plays I have ever read. It is such a simply told story, and yet is so dramatic and hits you like a brick. I was breathless by the end of it. The movie was fantastic, and stayed very close to the play, which was a true blessing, because if Terence Davies hadn't I would have had to send a letter. An absolute classic. Loved every second of it.
June 10, 2019
This is probably one of the most underrated plays from the 20th century, and Hester has to be one of the great parts. For the year it was published, 1953, I鈥檓 blown away at the depth that it handles depression, suicide, patriarchy, and the economic/social limitations women face. Wow. Just wow.
August 9, 2012
Terribly depressing (like the film) yet this got me reading more of his work like Harlequinade and The Browning Version.
April 2, 2018
Rattigan writes people - real, raw and flawed. He observes and comments on the human condition in such a beautifully tragic way.
July 24, 2022
This is a really sad story of a woman who threw her life away for a man she fell for, only for the relationship to be unsatisfying because she loves the man more than he loves her.
Once upon a time, a story about unrequited or misaligned love would have tugged at my heart strings and moved me profoundly. As I get older, all I see are the psychological patterns that I now understand can be addressed. Instead of passion here, I see someone with an anxious attachment style drawn to an avoidant, and instead of naming their fears and learning to be vulnerable, I see each of them hiding from the other. Hester had issues to deal with, but she clings to her men instead of dealing with them. So instead of being moved, I鈥檓 stuck in my head problem solving. I can鈥檛 sink into my heart and feel the story because I know the pain doesn鈥檛 have to be there or be this profound. What redeems this play is the ending: when Hester seems to pull herself out of her slump.
That being said, the story behind the play is most moving. The playwright, a gay man at a time when this had to remain secret, rewrote his own love affair with a lover who committed suicide into this heterosexual triangle. Ratting was the older, more experienced of the two, and he held his younger lover at arm鈥檚 length. His lover couldn鈥檛 bear this and eventually took his life in the same way Hester attempts to. In the play, Hester and Freddie are both pieces of Rattigan. Rattigan is Freddie in the sense that he abandoned his lover by a lack of devotion, but he is also Hester because he seems to be the older and more steady partner. I hope this play brought him solace as he rewrote his lover鈥檚 ending.
Once upon a time, a story about unrequited or misaligned love would have tugged at my heart strings and moved me profoundly. As I get older, all I see are the psychological patterns that I now understand can be addressed. Instead of passion here, I see someone with an anxious attachment style drawn to an avoidant, and instead of naming their fears and learning to be vulnerable, I see each of them hiding from the other. Hester had issues to deal with, but she clings to her men instead of dealing with them. So instead of being moved, I鈥檓 stuck in my head problem solving. I can鈥檛 sink into my heart and feel the story because I know the pain doesn鈥檛 have to be there or be this profound. What redeems this play is the ending: when Hester seems to pull herself out of her slump.
That being said, the story behind the play is most moving. The playwright, a gay man at a time when this had to remain secret, rewrote his own love affair with a lover who committed suicide into this heterosexual triangle. Ratting was the older, more experienced of the two, and he held his younger lover at arm鈥檚 length. His lover couldn鈥檛 bear this and eventually took his life in the same way Hester attempts to. In the play, Hester and Freddie are both pieces of Rattigan. Rattigan is Freddie in the sense that he abandoned his lover by a lack of devotion, but he is also Hester because he seems to be the older and more steady partner. I hope this play brought him solace as he rewrote his lover鈥檚 ending.
July 15, 2020
I watched the National Theater play on YouTube, on the "illogicality of passion". It was revealing, for you have this figure, Hester Collyer, who to you feels absolutely silly, but you also have been her at some point- absurd, devoid of reason, acting out sheer passion, and pride. Of course Helen McRory's performance gave the character a heft and humour that wouldn't have been there had I just read the text. Also the sense of space is so contained and utilized, I marvel at Rattigan's writing for he had to have had the intuition of a playwright. These figures of instinct populate the narrative, all having acquired wisdom from the wrath of love.
September 28, 2019
I did not enjoy this at all - I found all the characters unappealing (and not even in an appealing way..), and the themes of suicide and giving up relationships didn鈥檛 hit the mark for me. Maybe the autobiographical version would have felt more authentic.
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