The Deep Blue Sea

by Terence Rattigan

West London. 1952. When Hester Collyer is found by her neighbors in the aftermath of a failed suicide attempt, the story of her tempestuous affair with a former RAF pilot and the breakdown of her marriage to a High Court judge begins to emerge. Rattigan’s devastating masterpiece is a classic study of forbidden love, suppressed desire and the fear of loneliness.

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Drama, Fiction, Classics, British Literature, Romance

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 1952

About the author

Sir 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.

Reviews

[Nat K · Rating 5 out of 5]

"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. https://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/what...

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.

[Paul Ataua · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00h3ycm

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.

[Mahsa · Rating 3 out of 5]

بدون امید زندگی کردن می تونه همون بدون ناامیدی زندگی کردن باشه ......

[Sukanya · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Nahed.E · Rating 4 out of 5]

اللقاء الثاني مع الأديب الإنجليزي (تيرانس راتيجان) بعد روايته الشهيرة (المائدة رقم 7)

و.. هل حقا أن من الحب ما قتل؟

هل حقا أن الإنسان يمكنه أن يعذب من يحب، أو يتعذب ممن يحب إلي درجة لا يمكن تخيلها من الشقاء؟

وإلي أي درجة يمكننا أن نحتمل الاستمرار في هذا العذاب، فقط لنحافظ علي مشاعرنا التي نود ألا نفقدها في مفترق الأيام، بمرور الأزمات والعواصف وتعب العمر والسنين؟

وكيف يمكن للإفراط في المشاعر الجميلة، أن يحولها إلي درجة لا تحتمل من القبح؟

كل ما يمكنني قوله: إن المشاعر الإنسانية معقدة للغاية، والنفس البشرية بها من الجوانب الخفية ما لا يمكننا توقعه .. ففي كل إنسان تعرفه، هناك إنسان لا تعرفه ... وبين الحب والامتلاك شعرة ضئيلة، ولو أنك امتلكت الجانب الذي رأيته فيمن تحب، فلن تمتلك أبدا الجانب الخفي الذي لم تعرفه قط .. فقط اعلم هذا الجانب موجود، وندعو الله ألا يخذلنا أبدا الوجه الآخر لأحبابنا

فكل شئ يمكن أن يتحول إلى النقيض في غمضة عين .. ومن الصباح إلي المساء، يمكن أن تنقلب الأحوال تماما، فالمستقبل الغامض من الممكن أن يحتل الحاضر فجأة، ويصبح ماضيا قبل أن نستوعب ما قد حل بنا، خاصة إذا كان التوقع هو خطيئتنا التي لن تغفرها لنا عقولنا.. فلقد توقعت القلوب أكثر من اللازم، وسقطت التوقعات من عنان السماء
فلا الآخر استوعب توقعاتنا.. ولا نحن اكتفينا بشرف المحاولة

تيرانس راتيجان، بك من المشاعر ما يذكرني بالأديب الإسباني (أنطونيو باييخو) .. وكذلك يذكرني بالأديب الفرنسي الرائع (جان أنويه)، والأمريكي (تينسي ويليامز)

سعدت معك بهذه المسرحية الجميلة، التي اخترقت فيها حاجز الزمن، ففي يوم وليلة سكن الجميع فيها بطن الحوت، تحولت الأمور .. وانقلبت القلوب، بصورة تذكرنا بواقعنا تماما

[Daisy Leather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rattigan writes people - real, raw and flawed. He observes and comments on the human condition in such a beautifully tragic way.

[Vishy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Continuing the Terence Rattigan reading adventures 😊 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' 😊

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.

💮💮💮

HESTER (wildly). I know. I know. That’s what I can’t face.

MILLER (with brutal force). Yes, you can. That word ‘never’. Face that and you can face life. Get beyond hope. It’s your only chance.

HESTER. What is there beyond hope?

MILLER. Life. You must believe that. It’s true – 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’t you got your work too? (He makes a gesture towards the paintings.)

HESTER. Oh that. (Wearily.) There’s 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’m not an art expert, but I believe there was talent here. Just a spark, that’s all, which with a little feeding, might have become a little flame. Not a great fire, which could have illumined the world – oh no – I’m not saying that. But the world is a dark enough place for even a little flicker to be welcome.

💮💮💮

Have you read 'The Deep Blue Sea'? What do you think about it? Which is your favourite Terence Rattigan play?

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00h3ycm

A movie was made based on this book and it's available at YouTube

[Rytas Sakas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kiaušinio toast vietoj savižudybės

[Illiterate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A play on passion, despair, and persistence. It’s also a nice portrait of post-war society: upper class judge, working class landlady, broken pilot, etc.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[P.S. Winn · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Bobby Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Betül · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly brilliant!

[سناء · Rating 5 out of 5]

"العالم مكان مظلم إلى الدرجة التي يرحب فيها بأي وميض ولو كان صغيرا"

[Steve Mayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

As entertaining and moving to read as it was to watch.

[Kiomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

this just reminded me how much i love english dramas

[Young Amadeus · Rating 5 out of 5]

“To see yourself as the world sees you may be very brave, but it can alshe world’s view of you as a weak-willed neurotic—better dead than alive? What right have they to judge? To judge you, they must have the capacity to feel as you feel. And who has? One in a thousand? You alone know how you have felt. And you alone know how unequal the battle has always been that your will has had to fight.”

I loved this play. It captures shame, love, and the bonds that, to those trapped within them, seem impossible to break.

Through Hester, Rattigan shows how love can lead a person towards disaster. She is bound to a man who is leading her down a path of ruin, yet she remains unable to unshackle herself from him. She cannot accept the helping hands extended towards her, nor can she allow Freddie to leave. She would prefer death to living without him.

Freddie, on the other hand, is placed in an equally difficult position. He is connected to someone who loves him too much, while his own form of love and attachment is far plainer and more level-headed. He is therefore unable to reciprocate Hester’s intensity. Unable to handle the pressure—or the stakes she has attached to their relationship—he tries to escape:

“You and I are death to each other.”

That is one of the play’s great strengths: all the characters are understandable and deserving of empathy. They have all had their encounters with love, shame, guilt, and the pressure created by human bonds. Because of this, they repeatedly recognise parts of themselves in one another, giving rise to some deeply touching conversations.

This is most apparent in the relationship between Miller and Hester. Miller has lost his medical practice and social standing, while Hester has left her husband for Freddie and now finds herself in the process of losing Freddie as well. Both have become outcasts, marked by shame and forced to live beyond the identities they once possessed.

When Miller describes Hester as someone he respects, she is visibly struck by the word:

Miller: Surely I would have a right to feel sad if I were to lose a new-found friend—especially one whom I so much like and respect.

Hester: Respect?

Miller: Yes, respect.

For me, this is the play at its most touching. Hester sees herself as unworthy of respect. She has given up everything for Freddie, including society’s approval, and now believes she cannot survive his inability to love her in the same way. Miller understands her pain because he has experienced his own fall from respectability.

He tries to keep her alive by taking away her pills, but he also attempts to give her a sense of obligation towards another person. If she cannot yet live for herself, perhaps she can remain alive for a new-found friend who would grieve her loss.

She sees herself as someone unworthy of respect: someone who has given up everything for Freddie and is now unable to survive his failure to reciprocate her love.

Philip is another character who connects with Hester through a supposedly similar experience. He tells her about an affair he had with an actress, hoping to demonstrate that the bonds of love can be broken once time and distance provide some perspective. He explains that he was once consumed by this woman but eventually came to see how petty the entire affair had been. In his own way, he is trying to offer Hester hope that she may one day recognise that Freddie was not worth her self-destruction.

I also enjoyed the play’s humour, particularly in the scenes between Freddie and his friend Jackie. Freddie has been placed in an almost darkly comic predicament: he forgot his lover’s birthday, she attempted suicide, and he is now so incapable of handling what has happened that he decides to leave rather than live under the threat—and guilt—of it happening again.

Freddie: Hell, it’s not that I’m not in love with her too, of course I am. Always have been and always will, I guess. But—well—moderation in all things—that’s always been my motto.

Here lies the fundamental mismatch between them. Freddie loves in moderation. Hester loves completely and expects that same completeness in return.

Who, then, is to blame for this relationship—or for any dysfunctional relationship? Two people choose one another and eventually become disappointed by what their union produces. Who is responsible? Perhaps both of them. Perhaps neither.

As Freddie says:

You can’t help being as you are—I can’t help being as I am. The fault lies with whichever of the gods had himself a good laugh up above by arranging for the two of us to meet.

I also loved Hester’s account of how she first fell in love with Freddie. Their love was not born from some grand eruption of passion, but from a moment of vulnerability and ease:

“Freddie and I sat on the verandah together for about an hour. For some reason he talked very sincerely and rather touchingly about himself—how worried he was about his future, how his life seemed to have no direction or purpose, how he envied you—the brilliant lawyer—then quite suddenly he put his hand on my arm and murmured something conventional, about envying you for other reasons besides your career."

“I laughed at him and he laughed back at me, like a guilty small boy. He said, ‘I really do, you know, it’s not just a line. I really think you’re the most attractive girl I’ve ever met’—something like that. I didn’t really listen to the words, because I knew then, in that tiny moment when we were laughing together, I had no hope. No hope at all.”

What ensnares her is not simply what Freddie says, but the intimacy of the moment: his unexpected sincerity, the vulnerability he reveals, and the ease of their laughter. In that tiny moment, she knows the bond has already formed and that she is powerless against it.

I was similarly moved by the sympathy Rattigan grants Hester’s husband, Sir William Collyer. Initially, we expect a cold and brutal authority figure to arrive and reprimand his wife. Instead, he is patient, wounded, and remarkably compassionate. He tries to help her and offers her another chance with him, but no one can rescue Hester from a love she experiences as absolute.

Collyer: How, in the name of reason, could you have gone on loving a man who, by your own confession, can give you nothing in return?

Hester: Oh, but he can give me something in return, and even does, from time to time.

Collyer: What?

Hester: Himself.

That answer contains the entire tragedy. Freddie does not need to give Hester security, social standing, constancy, or even an equal degree of love. His occasional presence is enough. What appears to William as almost nothing is, to Hester, everything.

As with many affairs, there is also the conviction that fate brought these two souls together:

Collyer: You believe in affinities?

Hester: I believe it was fated that Freddie and I should meet.

Collyer: As it’s turned out, a pretty evil fate.

Hester: Well, if there are good affinities there must be evil ones too, I suppose. Here you are.

This is the affinity Hester is struggling to break. Everyone around her wants it broken, including Freddie himself. Despite all the damage it is causing her—and despite how clearly others can see that damage—she remains unable or unwilling to let the bond die.

Collyer: Can’t you give a name to those emotions?

Hester: Yes, I suppose so. Anger, hatred, and shame—in about equal parts, I think.

Collyer: Anger—at Page?

Hester: Yes.

Collyer: And hatred?

Hester: Of myself, of course. Shame at being alive.

Rattigan was right to leave the play on an open-ended note. Hester lights the gas fire while packing Freddie’s belongings. Packing his things suggests that she may finally be accepting his departure and attempting to sever the bond between them. Yet the reappearance of the gas—the instrument of her attempted suicide at the beginning—prevents the moment from feeling entirely reassuring.

We do not know whether Hester will move on or eventually kill herself. At the end of the play, she is taking a practical step towards letting Freddie go, but that does not mean she has overcome the despair that nearly killed her. Both possibilities remain alive.

In either case, a part of her must die. Even if she survives, she must shed the self that believed life without Freddie was impossible and become someone new.

I also found Miller’s advice about living beyond hope rather interesting: the idea that after hope there is still life, and that without hope there can be no despair.

I do not know whether I agree with this sentiment—that one should live without hope. Perhaps abandoning hope protects us from disappointment and allows for a more peaceful existence. But would we not also lose the spring in our step? Our dreams? Our fantasies? Would life not become rather mundane without them?

Or perhaps it would simply become more peaceful.

I’m not sure.

A fantastic play.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

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’s caliber acting like fifteen-year-old me after I first read David Ives (Seriously, he’s brilliant). I’m interested to see the movie now, because, as it is, this is a play that’s meant to be performed live, in front of an audience. It’s 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’m 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’s 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.]

[Glenn Hopp · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Edzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Catie Middleton · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

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’m blown away at the depth that it handles depression, suicide, patriarchy, and the economic/social limitations women face. Wow. Just wow.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Terribly depressing (like the film) yet this got me reading more of his work like Harlequinade and The Browning Version.

[Daisy Leather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rattigan writes people - real, raw and flawed. He observes and comments on the human condition in such a beautifully tragic way.

[Chanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

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’m stuck in my head problem solving. I can’t sink into my heart and feel the story because I know the pain doesn’t 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’s length. His lover couldn’t 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’s ending.

[Prathyush Parasuraman · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Anyway when you're between any kind of devil and the deep blue sea, the deep blue sea sometimes looks very inviting.”

A play of rich emotional complexity and resonance, made all the more personal by the tragedy that inspired Rattigan’s writing. A desecration of British middle class values. It is brutish and terrible and passionate. The fact that Peggy Ashcroft, who played Hester in the first production, protested to Rattigan that she did not enjoy the experience because it was comporable to “walking around naked” says it all.