The Deep Blue Sea is a British stage play by
Terence Rattigan from 1952. Rattigan based his story and characters in part on his secret relationship with Kenny Morgan, and the aftermath of the end of their relationship.[1][2] The play was first performed in
London on 6 March 1952, directed by
Frith Banbury, and won praise for actress
Peggy Ashcroft, who co-starred with
Kenneth More.[3] In the US, the Plymouth Theater staged the play in October 1952, with
Margaret Sullavan.[4] The play with Sullavan subsequently transferred to
Broadway, with its Broadway premiere on 5 November 1953, and running for 132 performances.
Prior to Rattigan's coding of his relationship with Morgan into the heterosexual relationship between Hester and Freddie, his first draft of the play more specifically treated the relationship between the lead characters as a homosexual relationship, and also hinted that the reason for the striking off of Miller, the ex-doctor in the play, from the
medical register was Miller's homosexuality.[3][5]
Plot summary
Taking place over the course of one day, the play begins with the discovery of Hester Collyer in her flat by her neighbours, after Hester has failed in an attempt to take her own life by gassing herself. In flashback, sometime before, Hester left her husband, Sir William Collyer, a respectable High Court judge, for a semi-alcoholic former
RAF pilot, Freddie Page. Their relationship was physical and passionate, but his ardour eventually cooled, leaving her emotionally stranded and desperate. Initially unemployed, Freddie eventually takes a post in South America. The aftershocks of her attempted suicide unravel even the remnants of this relationship. By the end of the day, Hester is brought to a hard decision to live, partly through the intercession of another resident of the tenement house, Mr. Miller, an ex-doctor who has been struck off the register for an undisclosed reason. These two outcasts find a curious kinship.
A number of adaptations for other media of The Deep Blue Sea have been made. The
first, for BBC Television, was broadcast live on 17 and 21 January 1954 in the Sunday Night Theatre strand, with Kenneth More as Freddie, and
Googie Withers as Hester. Also, Googie toured Australia and New Zealand in a production presented by JC Williamson Theatres. A further BBC version, in the Play of the Month series was transmitted on 17 March 1974. Directed by
Rudolph Cartier, it starred
Peter Egan (Freddie), and
Virginia McKenna (Hester).
The 2016 National Theatre version of the play, starring
Helen McCrory as Hester, was filmed and shown live in cinemas worldwide on 1 September 2016 as part of
National Theatre Live.[22] This filmed performance was made available for one week on
YouTube in July 2020 during the
COVID-19 pandemic as part of National Theatre At Home.[23]
References
^Sinfield, Alan, Out on Stage: Lesbian and Gay Theatre in the Twentieth Century. Yale University Press (New Haven, Connecticut, US),
ISBN0-300-08102-2, p 160 (1999).
^Williams, Tony, 'Wanted for Murder: The Strange Case of Eric Portman', Chapter 10 from Bad: Infamy, Darkness, Evil, and Slime on Screen (Murray Pomerance, editor). State University of New York Press (Albany, New York, US),
ISBN0-7914-5940-3, p 166 (2004).