Terence Rattigan, Separate Tables

Nicolas Tredell (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kerry Myler (Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1954

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

Terence Rattigan's Separate Tables, first performed at St James's Theatre, London on 22 September 1954, consists in fact of two interlinked plays: “Table by the Window” (with three scenes) and “Table Number Seven” (with two scenes). Both plays are set in the dining room and lounge of the Beauregard Private Hotel near the seaside resort of Bournemouth in Hampshire. Separate Tables explores typical Rattigan territory: a genteel zone in which loss, loneliness, pain, fear, frustration and potential violence appear just beneath the surface and sometimes erupt through it. Much of the dialogue of Separate Tables is in what he himself called “a middle-class vernacular” (Rattigan 1953: xix), a muted, …

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4777 words

Citation: Tredell, Nicolas. "Separate Tables". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 September 2009 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=28506, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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