| Front | the Cocktail Party |
|---|---|
| Back | a verse drama Eliot 1949 modes of spiritual reconciliation for individual Christians the unsatisfactory marriage of Lavinia and Edward with the restoration engineered by the knowing psychoanalyst, sir Henry The Cocktail Party is a play by T. S. Eliot. Elements of the play are based on Alcestis, by the Ancient Greek playwright Euripides. The play was the most popular of Eliot's seven plays in his lifetime, although his 1935 play, Murder in the Cathedral, is better remembered today. It was written while Eliot was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey in 1948.[1] The Cocktail Party First edition (Faber & Faber) Written byT. S. EliotCharactersEdward Chamberlayne Lavinia Chamberlayne Celia Coplestone Sir Henry Harcourt-Reilly Miss Barraway Peter Quilpe Julia Shuttlethwaite Alexander MacColgie GibbsDate premieredEdinburgh: August 22, 1949 Broadway: January 21, 1950Place premieredEdinburgh Festival Edinburgh, Scotland Broadway: Henry Miller's Theatre New York City, New YorkOriginal languageEnglishSettingLondon, EnglandFor the novella and play by Okinawan writer Ōshiro Tatsuhiro, see The Cocktail Party. The Cocktail Party was first performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1949. In 1950 the play had successful runs in London and New York theaters (the Broadway production received the 1950 Tony Award for Best Play.) It focuses on a troubled married couple who, through the intervention of a mysterious stranger, settle their problems and move on with their lives. The play starts out seeming to be a light satire of the traditional British drawing room comedy. As it progresses, however, the work becomes a darker philosophical treatment of human relations. As in many of Eliot's works, the play uses absurdist elements to expose the isolation of the human condition. In another recurring theme of Eliot's plays, the Christian martyrdom of the mistress character is seen as a sacrifice that permits the predominantly secular life of the community to continue. |
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