The Deep Blue Sea - November 2019
Synopsis
DEEP BLUE SEA by Terence Rattigan and directed by Chris Hearn
The play is set in the early 1950s during the course of a single day in September in the sitting room of a furnished flat in London. It is a portrait of a woman caught between forbidden love and the fear of loneliness, or the devil and the deep blue sea. The play opens with an unconscious Hester being discovered on the floor of the Ladbroke Grove flat that she shares with her younger lover, having attempted to end her life. She’s recently left her husband Sir William Collyer, a High Court judge, for Freddie, a charismatic but emotionally remote former pilot, a man numbed by his wartime experiences and unable to adjust to life in peacetime. She loves him in ways he cannot love her, can never love her; she sees this and it eats at her, leading to attempted suicide, only foiled, because she has forgotten to feed the gas meter! At the end of the play, 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 struck off the register for an undisclosed reason. These two outcasts, socially ostracised for their 'excessive' loves, find a curious and moving kinship.
Cast
Hester Collyer - Tamsin Reeve
Mrs Elton - Joyce Wells
Philip Welch - John East
Ann Welch - Madeline Reeve
Mr Miller - Chester Stern
William Collyer - Michael Cooke
Freddie Page - Joe Crisfield
Jackie Jackson - Gordon Drayson
Crew
Director - Chris Hearn
Production Manager - Theo Spring
Stage Manager - Rosemary Stern
Assistant Stage Manager & Props - Phil Wright
Technical Director - Alistair Kennard
Wardrobe - Linda Currion
Set Design & Construction - Alistair Kennard, Doug Wells and team
Lighting - Alistair Kennard
Sound - Andy Nicholson
Make-up - Madeline Reeve
Prompt - Theo Spring & Hazel Mason
Front of House Manager - Claire Connery
Publicity & Photography - Linda Currion & Theo Spring
Bar Manager - Ian Spring
Box Office - Janet Brimble
Past Productions
- Private Lives – November 2024
- Quartet – May 2024
- Anagram of Murder – Nov 2023
- Bazaar and Rummage – May 2023
- Disposing of the Body – Nov 2022
- Present Laughter – May 2022
- Nell Gwynn – Nov 2021
- The Deep Blue Sea – Nov 2019
- The Constant Wife – May 2019
- Season’s Greetings – Nov 2018
- The Admirable Crichton – May 2018
- Dangerous Corner – Nov 2017
- It Runs In The Family – May 2017
- Sitting Pretty – Nov 2016
- Don’t Blame It On The Boots – May 2016
- The Droitwich Discovery – May 2016
- Cat’s Cradle – Nov 2015
- Our Man In Havana – May 2015
- The Circle – Nov 2014
- Pack Of Lies – May 2014
- Pygmalion – Nov 2013
- Out of Order – May 2013
Reviews