Separate Tables by Terence RattiganRandom House, 1955...

Separate Tables by Terence Rattigan

Random House, 1955

 

I was traveling to Brooklyn on the subway and wanted a smaller, easily carry-able book to bring with me, so grabbed this slim volume from my bookshelf.

I believe I had seen the film version of Separate Tables many (many) years ago, but I remember nothing about it except for its poignance and that might have starred Deborah Kerr*.

The play, which is set in the dining room and lounge of a small modest sea-side hotel in Bournemouth England (I think) is comprised of two one-act plays that are cleverly linked but narratively independent.  The first involves a glamorous divorcee from London who comes to the hotel for a "rest" and encounters her first husband, an abusive but sexually charismatic man who beat her.  She, somewhat disturbingly, convinces him that they belong together and should make another try at a relationship that is obviously doomed to violence and heartache.

Curtain.

In the second act, Margaret Leighton, who onstage played the glam divorcee in the first act, plays the mousy, hysterical spinsterish daughter of the reigning queen of the hotel, a horribly bossy and insufferable woman named Mrs. Something-Something.  It is revealed in the local newspaper that another guest, a retired and very proper General, has been arrested for interfering with women in dark movie theaters.  Mrs. Something-Something organizes a campaign to have him immediately exiled, but it is revealed that in addition to having an affair with the proprietress of the hotel, he has been walking out with the mousy hysterical daughter/spinster, who defies her moth and organizes a counter-campaign to allow the molester to stay.  The daughter's campaign wins, much to her mother's chagrin.

So a rather unsavory and disturbing evening at the theater, despite the genteelly-British trappings.  One wonders how the audience was expected to react to these disturbing scenarios, and how, and if,  this play could ever be successfully revived.

 

*In fact in the movie version the two roles that Margaret Leighton played on the stage are divided between Rita Hayworth (glam divorcee) and Deborah Kerr (mousy hysteric spinster), and the two leading male roles, which were played onstage by the same actor (Eric Portman), are divided between Burt Lancaster (charismatic abuser) and David Niven (molesting General).  Which confirms that theatrical actors are more versatile than movie actors.