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Cause Celebre
Cause Celebre
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Author: Terence Rattigan Publisher: Samuel French (cover may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 78 Pub. Date: 1978 Edition: Acting ISBN-10: 057311059X ISBN-13: 9780573110597 Cast Size: 5 female, 15 male, and 1 boy
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About
the Play:
Cause Celebre is a full-length drama by Terence
Rattigan. Part social drama, part courtroom epic, the events,
seen largely through the eyes of a formidable lady juror, are based
on a sensational 1930s British murder trial concerning an elderly
architect allegedly killed by his much younger wife Alma and George,
their handsome 18-year-old chauffeur. Both Alma and George take the
blame; one was found guilty.
Cause Célèbre, which literally means "celebrated
case" in French, is based on the true and infamous case of the
fun loving songwriter Alma Rattenbury who was put on public trial at
the Old Bailey in 1935 with her 20 years younger lover, George Wood.
Both were charged with murdering her third husband, Francis
Rattenbury. He was an architect, well known for his creation of the
British Columbia provincial legislative buildings and the Empress
Hotel, both in Victoria, but, finally, a pathetic victim of a famous
crime. The headlines – tales of sex, drugs, alcohol and gore
plastered across the papers – created an early tabloid sensation.
Condemned by the public, more for her seduction of a younger man than
for any involvement she may have had in her husband's brutal
bludgeoning death, Alma's fate is left in the hands of Edith
Davenport, the morally upright forewoman of the jury. Edith is forced
to reconsider her initial condemnation of the life-affirming, morally
relaxed Alma. Through these two women, Terence Rattigan's last
play examines the role of love, betrayal, loyalty and obsession in a
study of 1930s English sensibilities.
Cause Célèbre started life as a radio play first
broadcast on the BBC in 1975. It was then adapted by Terence
Rattigan for the stage and premiered in 1977 at The Haymarket
Theatre in Leicester, transferring to Her Majesty's Theatre in the
West End of London. Revived at the Old Vic in 2011 to mark Terence
Rattigan's
centenary, the play has
been
performed in regional, college, and community theatre
productions.
Cast: 5 female, 15 male, and 1 boy
What people say:
"Dial M for marvellous. A
murder story, a morality play and a blazing satire: Rattigans last
play is a triumph." — The Sunday Times
(London)
"No one alive writes with such
understanding of sexual love or with such profound pity for its
victims." — Daily Telegraph (London)
About the Author:
Sir Terence Rattigan (1911-1977) was a popular English
dramatist who wrote some of the most memorable and important plays of
the twentieth century. His plays are generally situated within an
upper-middle-class background. He was that relative rarity among the
ranks of playwrights: a major theatre author who was almost equally
successful as a screenwriter, and one of a very few playwrights of
his era privileged to adapt his own stage work to the screen on a
regular basis.
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