The Case For Terence Rattigan Playwright

This book asserts the extraordinary quality of mid-twentieth century playwright Terence Rattigan’s dramatic art and its basis in his use of subtext, implication, and understatement. By discussing every play in chronological order, the book also articulates the trajectory of Rattigan’s darkening vision of the human potential for happiness from his earlier comedies through his final plays in which death appears as a longed for peace. New here is the exploration through close analysis of Rattigan’s style of writing dialogue and speeches, and how that style expresses Rattigan’s sense of life. Likewise, the book newly examines how Rattigan draws on sources in Greek and Roman history, literature, and myth, as well as how he invites comparison with the work of other playwrights, especially Bernard Shaw and Shakespeare. It will appeal broadly to college and university students studying dramatic literature, but also and especially to actors and directors, and the play-going, play-reading public.

Originally published: London: Methuen/Nick Hern Books, 1999.

Terence Rattigan examines the ways in which Rattigan's works turn audiences into participants, encouraging intellectual independence and freeing them to decide for themselves the deeper meanings of the works. It examines the unique methods by which he conveys meaning to audiences within a changing sociocultural context.

The theatrical world Terence Rattigan built is vital but disturbing and uniquely constructed. His sentences are not impacted or fractured, and his plots usually obey a linear time sequence. Yet his realism isn't all that real. Though sentence by sentence, his dialogue sounds natural, the creative pulse behind it is idiosyncratic and self-lacerating. As a gay man writing at a time when homosexuality was a felony in the UK, Rattigan wrote at a skewed angle to his culture, making his plays at times easy to follow but hard to fathom. Terence Rattigan: The Playwright as Battlefield examines the ways in which Rattigan’s works turn their audiences into participants, encouraging intellectual independence and freeing them to make decisions for themselves as to the deeper meanings of the works. The playwright’s omission of outright explanations deepens the audience’s emotional commitment to the outcomes of the performance, and walks a fine line between restraint and invention. His works convey subtly and deceptively the cold obstinacy that thwarts our everyday actions in a way which that is felt viscerally by the audience. This book engages works from throughout Rattigan’s early and late career to examine the unique methods by which the playwright conveys meaning to various audiences within an ever-changing sociocultural context.

Terence Rattigan was once regarded as the golden boy of the West End stage but he suffered a sudden and catastrophic fall from favour in the mid-1950s. In this new play, written to mark the centenary of Rattigan’s birth, he is 66 years old, in failing health, and waiting for the curtain to rise on his last play, Cause Célèbre. The Art of Concealment is not only about the demons that haunted one of our great playwrights but about the creative process itself, the loss of youth, the pain of love and the shallowness of fame. How does a playwright judge his own life? Can it be crafted, restructured, or does he have a duty to be honest, finally, about himself? The play received critical acclaim during a sell-out run at the Jermyn Street Theatre in London.

Terence Rattigan's 'Cause Célèbre' is a drama based on the real-life story of Alma Rattenbury, who in 1935 went on trial with her eighteen-year-old lover for the murder of her husband. Rattigan originally wrote the play for radio, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 27 October 1975.

At the Miramar, a villa in a small seaside town on the west coast of France, a group of young men have gathered, ostensibly to learn French. Diana Lake proves a major distraction, manipulating the affections of one after another.Written in 1936.

Rattigan's greatest play, reissued alongside Terence Davies' 2011 film version, is a true masterpiece of 20th century drama.