Crescent Theatre Blog

Call me slow on the uptake if you like, but it was only today that I had a moment of realisation as to what these plays might really about, beyond two very good stories … and just how clever Rattigan is, or rather, was. 

 If you’d asked me back at the beginning of rehearsals what he was about, writing two one act plays, I might have been diplomatically dodging my real thoughts which were along the lines … “Well maybe it’s like writing short stories instead of novels  … he had two ideas, both of which he wanted to address, but neither of which warranted a full play … so put them into two one-act plays and called them a pair”.   Not so, my insight of today reveals.  

The keys lie in the title of the piece, Separate Tables, and the closing 60 seconds of each play.  In each, the final scene is set the in the hotel’s dining room, which in turn is set with separate tables … symbolising our separate lives?  But there the similarity between the two plays ends.  We are presented with two different views as to what these separate tables/lives may mean for us, and how we can make sense of them.  Intrigued?  You should be.

 It struck me that Rattigan was in the same territory as John Dunne was when he wrote No Man is an Island … but whether he agrees with Dunne’s conclusion or not you will have to decide for yourself.

 Far from my initial thoughts that the two plays could have been a bit of a convenient cop-out, today I’m left thinking that he has cleverly given us two perspectives on the same question, interwoven in a unique piece of theatre.  Crafty stuff in every sense of the phrase. 

John Whittell

Terence Rattigan’s Separate Tables, which is playing at the Crescent Theatre from 2nd – 9th July, is set in the Beauregard Private Hotel, Bournemouth. Astonishingly, Liz Plumpton who takes on the role of Anne Shankland in the play, told me that her grandparents actually owned and ran a similar hotel in the same town, and in the same period that the play is set! Liz persuaded her father to contribute the following piece on the subject.

“In the late 1950′s my parents bought a hotel, called Langton Hall, near Durley Chine in Bournemouth which they ran for nearly 20 years as a family business. In the summer holidays it would accommodate families and hold about 60 guests, but winters were much quieter, and there were about a dozen permanently resident guests – “the residents” – who lived in the hotel all year round. Most were widowed ladies and most were approaching old age, with sufficient money to live in a hotel and treat it as their home. They must have known the menus off by heart, and would always know when there was a change of chef.

I only recall 3 male residents, one of whom was very old and extremely grumpy and left a huge estate when he died, while the others were a Colonel Watson and a younger man who was apparently his nephew.

The residents were often solitary figures, and maintained a respectable distance from one another, able to eat separately at their own designated tables in the dining room throughout the quiet periods, and thus rarely conversing at meal times. Their chosen newspaper (mostly the Daily Telegraph or Daily Express) would be placed over the back of their dining-room chair for their arrival at breakfast time. Table-sharing arrangements had to be diplomatically negotiated with them when the hotel was busy.

Occasionally the arrival of new younger resident such as Colonel Watson’s nephew would cause a minor stir, but generally I don’t recall any strong or close friendships between residents, and mutual dislike was easier to notice. The only TV in the hotel was in the “TV lounge” where they would sometimes argue with each other about which of the 2 available channels to watch, BBC or ITV. As kids we used to sit on the floor of the TV lounge and hope that our preference would win.

Some lived at the hotel for many years, and had to be gently persuaded to move out when they needed personal care as well as a place to live. One or two even died there in their sleep – found by the chambermaid taking them a tray of early morning tea. The sight of coffins leaving the hotel by the front door – however infrequent – was unsettling for newly-arrived guests and their families.

The hotel no longer exists.”

Nigel Plumpton

If necessity is the mother of invention … she is also the handmaiden of artistic highpoints and the close cousin of chaos.  And all this from setting a few scene changes! 

The problem necessitating a solution?  It’s nothing more than managing the scene changes in Separate Tables, Rattigan’s classic double suite of one act plays set in a hotel in Bournemouth.   The action takes place by turns in the dining room and lounge which presents few staging problems … if you are playing on a full proscenium stage.  Two sets, side by side … no problem.  In the studio the challenges begin.  

“The same space will be used for both, and we’ll shift the furniture.”  Six dining tables, all laid, more chairs, flowers, sofa, arm chair, writing desk, occasional tables etc etc … “It all has to come off and go on in one minute or so”.  The cast are sanguine … this is a problem for the back stage crew … however … 

“We’re not having scene-shifters, you’re going to do the job yourselves,”  the cast is told.   So we spend most of a Sunday devising the three changes needed.  They are artistic, flowing, do the job, look good and one of them adds significantly the drama that Rattigan wrote.  Videos are taken to remind us what to do, but probably they won’t be needed … by the close of play on the Sunday we are shifting furniture like a well oiled machine.  

One week later and that machine needs some urgent servicing … thank goodness for those video clips to resolve the different memories of who is supposed to be doing what!  

But … it will all be alright on the night.  How do we know?  Well, by then we’ll have been in the hands of our SM, and she will make sure it is so.  And anyway, we are competent really. 

The scene changes are going to be wonderful.  The plays even better.  You really mustn’t miss either!

John Whittell

Rattigan wrote variants of Separate Tables, his two linked one-act plays that the Crescent is staging in July. Among other issues, he had wanted to question society’s attitude to homosexuality, yet in the 1950s it was impossible to even to portray a gay orientation on stage. So to get around the Lord Chamberlain he created another socially unacceptable, yet theatrically addressable, trait for his Major Pollock. A few years later in America, and beyond the Lord C’s reach, he tried to get his original ideas in front of the public … unlucky again! This time the producers were not brave enough, and the ‘variants’ lay hidden. But now they have been found, and we have the choice.

Which to do? Stick with the one we started with, the London première version? It’s the ‘original’; it’s delightfully delicately written; it will make audiences question their own prejudices. Or switch to the variant? It’s what Rattigan wanted to stage; it addresses very directly society’s attitudes to homosexuality; it will also make audiences question their prejudices. We batted, debated, and battered these and many more pros and cons for a couple of hours. Some consensus emerged … though not unanimity. A decision was made, and we move on.

Major Pollock reading the paper

Which version are we going to do?

What will be my Major Pollock’s secret?

Well, you’ll have to come and find out. It will be a rewarding evening (or afternoon!).