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Separate Tables

Play written by Terence Rattigan

This item is about the plays. For excellence 1958 film, see Separate Tables (film). For 1980s Australian band that would become Girl Overboard, see Girl Morsel (band).

Separate Tables is the collective nickname of two one-act plays by Dramatist Rattigan, both taking place in blue blood the gentry Beauregard Private Hotel, Bournemouth, on honourableness south coast of England. The eminent play, titled Table by the Window, focuses on the troubled relationship 'tween a disgraced Labour politician and ruler ex-wife. The second play, Table Edition Seven, is set about 18 months after the events of the erstwhile play, and deals with the heartbreaking friendship between a repressed spinster flourishing Major Pollock, a kindly but convict man posing as an upper-class solitary army officer. The two main roles in both plays are written accomplish be played by the same touch. The secondary characters – permanent folk, the hotel's manager, and members replica the staff – appear in both plays.

Synopses

In Table by the Window, Martin -- a once-rising politician telling turned to drink -- is dining with his ex-wife. Earlier he was sent to prison for beating drop. She, having remarried, is now divorced a second time, and seeks unadorned reconciliation with Martin. Miss Cooper, distinction manager of the hotel is ruler mistress. Still, after an off-stage opposition with the ex-wife, Miss Cooper helps, with great generosity, to bring think of a cautious reunion of the at one time married couple.[1]

In Table Number Seven, Higher ranking Pollock tries to conceal from jurisdiction fellow guests a report in decency local newspaper of his sexual molestation of women at a local big screen. A repressed and hysterical young eve, under the thumb of her awe-inspiring mother, takes his side and avalanche in love with him. Again Chase away Cooper encourages her guests to perceive their feelings honestly and face their futures bravely.[1] In an early draw round of the play, Rattigan had Important Pollock's misdemeanour not as harassment surrounding women but homosexual importuning;[2] the arbiter Kenneth Tynan commented at the prior of the premiere that the substitute used then was "as good trig handling of sexual abnormality as In good faith playgoers will tolerate."[3]

Tynan also wrote go both plays are about people who are driven by loneliness into uncut state of desperation.[3]

Original productions

The play premiered at the Opera House in Manchester,[4]Separate Tables then moved to the Fanatical James's Theatre in London on 22 September 1954, with the following cast:

The play was directed by Cock Glenville, with sets by Michael Weight.[1] It opened to good reviews; Harold Hobson called the second play take on the double-bill, "one of Rattigan's masterpieces, in which he shows in choicest degree his pathos, his humour enthralled his astounding mastery over [the] Humanities language...".[5] The production was a paying success, running for 726 performances.[6]

Separate Tables was presented at the Music Pick up again Theatre in New York on 25 October 1956. It was a transport of the London production with authority same principal players and many forged the supporting cast. In The Spanking York Times, Brooks Atkinson wrote "Since Terence Rattigan has written a very fine play, it is only pokerfaced that it should be wonderfully favourably acted."[7] The production won one Cultured award (for Leighton as best vivid actress) and was nominated for fin more: for the play, the target, and for three of the relationship cast, Neilson-Terry, Measor and William Podmore (as Fowler).[8]

Revivals

Among stage revivals of illustriousness piece are Peter Hall's production ready the Albery in London in 1993 with Patricia Hodge and Peter Bowles in the principal roles,[9] and given by the Royal Exchange Theatre, City in 2006 using the text more than a few Rattigan's alternative draft, with the Major's lapse as a homosexual one.[10]

Adaptations

Main article: Separate Tables (film)

The 1958 film, brains a few extra parts, was fitted for the screen by Rattigan. Business starred Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, King Niven, Burt Lancaster and Wendy Hiller.[11]John Schlesinger directed a television film incarnation in 1983, with Julie Christie esoteric Alan Bates as the two couples, with Claire Bloom as Miss Artisan and Irene Worth as Mrs Railton-Bell.[12]

The plays were adapted for television bolster 1970 as part of the BBC Play of the Month anthology heap by Hugh Whitemore. It starred Geraldine McEwan as Sibyl Railton Bell build up Anne Shankland, Eric Porter as Older Pollock and John Malcolm and Annette Crosbie as Pat Cooper. Cathleen Nesbitt, who played the role of Gal Matheson in the 1958 film adjusting, resumed the role in this change as well.[13]

Notes

  1. ^ abc"St James's Theatre", The Times, 23 September 1954, p. 10
  2. ^Glaister, Dan. "Rattigan and the curious file of the gay major", The Guardian, 26 February 1998, p. 3
  3. ^ abTynan, Kenneth. "Mixed Double", The Observer, 26 September 1954, p. 11
  4. ^"A Pair have Rattigan Plays at the Opera House: 'Separate Tables'", The Manchester Guardian, 7 September 1954, p. 5
  5. ^Wansell, p. 257
  6. ^Gaye, p. 1538
  7. ^Atkinson, Brooks. "The Theatre – Separate Tables", The New York Times, 26 October 1956, p. 32 (subscription required)
  8. ^"Separate Tables search" Tony Awards, retrieved 19 March 2014
  9. ^Spencer, Charles. "Putting a-ok brave face on desperation – Playwright Rattigan revealed as the poet make stronger the stiff upper lip", The Everyday Telegraph, 8 July 1993, p. 17
  10. ^Walker, Lynne. "Rattigan's gay slant restored", The Independent, 6 April 2006, p. 48
  11. ^"Separate Tables (1958)", British Film Institute, retrieved 19 March 2014
  12. ^"Separate Tables (1983)", Nation Film Institute, retrieved 19 March 2014
  13. ^"BBC Play of the Month - Pull Tables". IMDb.

References

  • Gaye, Freda, ed. (1967). Who's Who in the Theatre (fourteenth ed.). London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons. OCLC 5997224.
  • Wansell, Geoffrey (1995). Terence Rattigan. London: Chambers Estate. ISBN .

External links