Terence Rattigan by Susan Rusinko (review)

Book Reviews ideologue's getting "mugged by history": Lahr's book went to press before the popularly supported Falklands brouhaha and Thatcher's reelection. In the same vein, Lahr denigrates Coward's brief career as a spy (p. 109), sketching a picture rather at odds with, say, William Stevenson's respectful memoir (A Man Called Intrepid [1976], pp. 199-200). Lahr celebrates Coward and dishonors him. Neither approach seems essential to a brief book on Coward's plays. One of the best passages in the book is not Lahr's, but a quotation he wisely chose from an essay by Ronald Bryden (p. 52). It is about Coward's careful way with language and how it works. With an avowedly commercial playwright, we are better off shifting our interest from substance to craft - how, not what, still less why. The pertinent question about Coward is not why he was not Shaw or Brecht, but rather how he managed to fashion boulevard theatre that still has the power to entertain. Lahr remains interesting only to the extent that he clings to that question. RAYMOND J. PENTZELL, HlLLSDALE COLLEGE SUSAN RUSINKO. Terence Rattigan. Boston: Twayne Publishers 1983. Pp. xi, 173. $18.95. The widespread suspicion that popularity and artistic integrity are incompatible persists in spite of the popular success in their own lifetimes of numerous great playwrights. A contemporary victim of this prejudice was Terence Rattigan (191I-1977). Three early Rattigan comedies enjoyed record-breaking runs: French without Tears, While the Sun Shines and Love in Idleness (0 Mistress Mine in the United States). He created the memorable characters in The Browning Version, The Deep Blue Sea, Separate Tables and Ross, which were performed by the most admired actors of their day: Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, Peggy Ashcroft, Margaret Leighton, Alec Guinness and Glynis Johns. Declared a reactionary light­ weight by partisans of the Angry Young Men and Absurdists in the late 1950s, Rattigan has until recently been denied serious critical attention. Before 1977, articles and reviews had sufficed to cover a playwright who produced twenty-one full-length plays and three double bills since 1933. In the year of his death, the first major work to be completed on his dramaturgy was Holly Hill's as yet unpublished dissertation, "A Critical Analysis of the Plays of Terence Rattigan." Until now, the only published volume on Rattigan has been an ambitious, mostly biographical work by Michael Darlow and Gillian Hodson. But in the later 1970s, a reevaluation began of his significance to the theatre and drama. Critically acclaimed revivals of French without Tears, Flare Path, While the Sun Shines, The Browning Version, Harlequinade, The Winslow Boy, The DeepBlue Sea, Separate Tables and TheSleeping Prince had appeared in Great Britain and/or the United States by 1984. And now a considerable step towards his artistic recognition by the academic community has been taken: Rattigan has been given his place in Twayne's Author Series. A drawback of Twayne's format is the book's brevity, but Terence Rattigan Book Reviews provides a good introduction to his work. Susan Rusinko should be lauded for her contribution to Rattigan scholarship. She concentrates on his stage plays, but devotes a section to his major film, radio and television scripts. Professor Rusinko presents each play chronologically. She discusses recurrences in themes and progressions in character development, along with pertinent historical, literary and biographical implications. Plot summaries are kept to a minimum; indeed, Rusinko's plot recounting mostly unfolds through her analyses of the plays' characters. Throughout her book, Rusinko touches upon the several themes that run through Rattigan's dramas. Among the more important are the sexual and emotional needs of characters which result in their humiliation (TheBrowning Version, TheDeep Blue Sea, Separate Tables, A Bequest to the Nation), relations between parents and children (Love in Idleness, Separate Tables, Man and Boy, In Praise ofLove, Cause Celebre), and internal and external conflicts of conscience (The Winslow Boy, Man and Boy, A Bequest to the Nation). Rusinko highlights Rattigan's progress and maturation in characterization. Beginning with Crocker-Harris (The Browning Version), and includ­ ing Hester Collyer (The Deep Blue Sea) and Major Pollock...