After the Dance, Terence Rattigan

I read After the Dance on the train on the way down to Sheffield last Sunday. I bought it after watching The Rattigan Enigma on the BBC and I had high hopes for it. I wasn't disappointed.

Written in 1939, After the Dance appeals to my pre-/leading-up-to-the War sensibilities and deals with many of the issues prevalent in the latter half of my favourite decade. It showcases Joan and David's lives as they try to maintain the image of The Bright Young Things but the impending war and falseness of their chosen escapism begins to show itself when the beuatiful young Helen sweeps in and changes their lives with her modern, realist (to some extent) views on what they (the Bright Young Things) are trying to do.

The inevitability that is present in many of the late 30s literature is still there in the background; Julia's young friend is conscripted, for example. There isn't much reference to the War but I guess that's the point – they were trying to ignore that it was about to happen. So they keep having their parties and drinking their drinks and telling their jokes and ignoring the life-changing event that lingers at the back of their consciousness.

Not only is this a story of escapism, it's also a story about love and communication. Joan loves her husband but never tells him - instead, she chooses to change her personality during the course of their marriage so that he is what she thinks he wants. I do think that David loves Joan, even though he says otherwise. He reacted rather badly after Joan's death – he refused to let others talk about it in his presence. I don't believe that he loved Helen – given the rest of the play's lack of communication when it comes to love, the fact that he tells Helen he loves her says to me that he doesn't. If he did, he would never have told her. I do think he is infatuated with her; she appeals to his ego and is willing to give up a promising future to be with him. But when it comes down to it, he leaves her – in a way that he never left Joan.

I think it's tellingly important that the play didn't end with Joan's death. Rattigan allows us to see the aftermath, the way that people move on (and the way that some don't). John is forced to grow up after Joan's death - the way that others of the Bright Young Things were forced to grow up during and after the war. David has to reassess his attitude to life and love and his place out of the spotlight once his dance in it is finished.

The play is haunted by one, huge question that, regardless of class, situation sexuality etc. is very poignant.

“Why didn't you say anything?”

I think this question refers to more than simply talking about love, but to the wider contextual situation regarding appeasement and the rise of the Nazis in Germany showing that After the Dance is both a play about love and a play about War.

My two favourite themes.

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see also Autumn Journal, by Louis Macneice