SOURCE: Gross, Robert F. “‘Coming Down in the World’: Motifs of Benign Descent in Three Plays by Terence Rattigan.” Modern Drama XXXIII, no. 3 (September 1990): 394-408.

In the following essay, Gross asserts that Rattigan's three most successful plays—The Deep Blue Sea, Separate Tables, and Ross—reflect the changing identity of England in the post-World War II period.

Although Terence Rattigan first gained recognition for his commercially successful high comedies, French without Tears (1936), While the Sun Shines (1943) and Love in Idleness (1944), the postwar period showed him gaining critical and popular acclaim for realistic psychological dramas. His three greatest successes in the West End, racking up runs of over five hundred performances apiece, were The Deep Blue Sea (1952), Separate Tables (1954), and Ross (1960). All three reflect the changing identity of Great Britain in the postwar period, and address the anxieties of the Theatregoing public during that era.

The years immediately following...