National Theatre Live: The Deep Blue Sea

Rattigan wrote some fine, incisive plays and some that were less so. This play was originally (prior to performance and publication) about his obsessive secret relationship with Kenny Morgan, and their breakup.

Translated to a heterosexual relationship -- a woman wooed away from her marriage by a magnetic cad and now obsessed with him -- it really doesn't offer modern audiences anything noteworthy or new to think about. Possibly it did in 1952 when it was first produced, but not now. The only real insight we get into human nature is from a kind and thoughtful single speech by Miller, the doctor. The rest we've seen for decades on daytime talk shows and on reality shows, not to mention dozens or hundreds of films.

Set solely in the living room of one apartment, it is a talky drawing-room piece that goes nowhere, although it does go round and round. I for one didn't see a lot to rave about in it.

Rattigan has written plays that are infinitely more compelling for 21st-century audiences than this one.