After the Dance
by Terence Rattigan
When you know something is going to happen, it makes it seem further off to joke about it.
As the world races towards catastrophe, a crowd of Mayfair socialites party their way to oblivion. At its centre is David, who idles away his sober moments researching a futile book until the beautiful Helen decides to save him, shattering his marriage and learning too late the depth of both David’s indolence and his wife’s undeclared love. But with finances about to crash and humanity on the brink of global conflict, the drink keeps flowing and the revellers dance on.
Why do you all talk of nothing but the old days and the old parties and the things you all used to do and say? Why?
First staged in 1939, After the Dance, now often thought to be Terence Rattigan’s masterpiece, offers a subtle, witty unmasking of the hedonistic 20s generation and a devastating study of repression and the human heart.
It’s the bright young people over again, only they never were bright and now they’re not even young.
