After the Dance is a play by Terence Rattigan which premi red at the St James's Theatre, London, on 21 June 1939. It was not one of Rattigan's more successful plays, closing after only sixty performances,^[1] a failure that led to its exclusion from his first volume of Collected Plays.^[2] Critics have tended to attribute this relative contemporary failure to the play's darkness which may have reminded audiences of the approaching European war.

Summary

David and Joan Scott-Fowler were 'Bright Young Things' of the 1920s, whose ambition is to treat everything as trivia and to live lives of pure sensation. They always maintained that they married for amusement and not for love. However, Helen Banner, a serious young woman, has fallen in love with David and is determined to change his lifestyle, free him from Joan, stop him from drinking and re-awaken the serious historian in him. Unfortunately, Joan does indeed love David very deeply and is trapped by her posture of carelessness. At a party they are holding, Joan is bruised by the clash between private agony and public joy and she kills herself. The characters are shattered by the revelation and even though David and Helen plan to get away from this life, the play ends with a clear sign that David will continue as he did.

Revivals

The play remained largely forgotten until a BBC2 television production by Stuart Burge in December 1992.^[3] It was revived by the Oxford Stage Company in 2002 and then at the National Theatre in June 2010, directed by Thea Sharrock.^[4] According to The Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington, reviewing Sharrock's production, the play confirms Rattigan as one of the "supreme dramatists of the 20th century".^[5] The 2010 revival won four Olivier Awards including Best Revival.^[6]

References