A Terence Rattigan masterclass.
Wednesday 10th April, at The Barn Theatre, Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance.
A collaboration with The Terence Rattigan Society.
In April, The Contemporary Directions project welcomes the distinguished director Adrian Brown, who will lead a masterclass on Terence Rattigan’s work - in the form of a demonstration rehearsal ofscenes from Rattigan’s plays The Winslow Boy and The Sleeping Prince.
BOOKING details for this event will be announced shortly.
About The Terence Rattigan Society:
THE TERENCE RATTIGAN SOCIETY
President: Princess George Galitzine, MBE
Vice Presidents: Michael Darlow. Greta Scacchi. David Suchet,CBE. Geoffrey Wansell. Chairman: Barbara Longford
The Terence Rattigan Society was founded in the centenary year, 2011, to enjoy, celebrate and study the work of one of the Twentieth Century’s greatest playwrights.
Terence Mervyn Rattigan (June 10th 1911 – November 30th, 1977) was born in London and educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Oxford, and his work to some extent reflects this remarkable and intellectual background. Success as a playwright came early, with the light comedy French Without Tears (1936), which ran for over 1,000 performances and one of its cod French phrases “elle a des idees au-dessus de sa gare” , was quoted by everyone for years afterwards.
Rattigan’s determination to become a more serious writer led to After the Dance (1939), a fine satirical drama about the ‘Bright Young Things’ and their failure to do anything to prevent another war. Unfortunately the war itself scuppered the play’s chances of a long run. Rattigan would alternate between comedies and dramas and after the war he cemented his reputation as one of the major playwrights of the day with: The Winslow Boy (1946), The Browning Version (1948), The Deep Blue Sea (1952) and Separate Tables (1954). A master of craftsmanship and structure, the real genius of Rattigan’s plays lies in their emotional depth and honesty. The utter truth of the pain of his characters is sometimes difficult to bear.
Sadly he fell out of favour after 1956 when John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger, typifying a new kind of “kitchen sink” drama, and giving a voice to working class characters, took London by storm. Suddenly the work of Rattigan, Coward and others appeared old fashioned. The critics turned on them, when Rattigan with churlish interviews and ill-advised comments, seemed to turn himself into the caricature being made of him as conservative and old-fashioned with no sympathy or understanding of the modern world. In fact he was none of these things and some of the better work in the last 20 years of his life, Ross, Man and Boy and In Praise of Love stand up with the finest of his other plays.
In Rattigan’s centenary year, 2011, there were some outstandingly good productions, among them a “world premiere” of the ‘lost play’ Less Than Kind, an earlier, socially-responsible version of something which had been trivialised by its original performers, but once restored was hailed by the press as among his finest plays. Other centenary highlights were Flare Path at the Haymarket, Cause Celebre at the Old Vic, The Browning Version at Chichester, all leading to a complete reappraisal of his work. At last Terence Rattigan has taken his long overdue place in the theatrical canon, and is now hailed as the greatest British playwright of the 20th Century – the English Chekhov.
Membership of The Terence Rattigan Society provides a regular dedicated magazine with articles by leading playwrights, biographers and critics, as well as theatre listings and news and views. We have theatre visits with discount prices and visits to places with a Rattigan resonance, such as his birthplace, his home at Albany and to Harrow school to see the Rattigan archive. His RAF career is also encompassed with events at RAF sites. But perhaps the best benefit of membership is the opportunity of meeting like-minded people who share your enthusiasm for the work and the man.
For further information about The Society, contact: The Membership Secretary
DIANA SCOTNEY, on 01462-623941. e-mail [email protected], or go to www.theterencerattigansociety.co.uk
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