''Love In Idleness'' is a 1944
comedy play
Comedy is a genre of dramatic performance having a light or humorous tone that depicts amusing incidents and in which the characters ultimately triumph over adversity. For ancient Greeks and Romans, a comedy was a stage-play with a happy endin ...
by the British writer
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan (10 June 191130 November 1977) was a British dramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background.Geoffrey Wan ...
. A young man with radical left-wing views returns from Canada to discover to his horror that his mother is in a relationship with a wealthy businessman currently serving as Minister for Tank Production.
It was staged in
New York with the title ''O Mistress Mine''.
Original production
The play opened (following a pre-London tour) at the
Lyric Theatre, London, on 20 December 1944, with the following cast:
*Olivia Brown -
Lynn Fontanne
Lynn Fontanne (; 6 December 1887 – 30 July 1983) was an English actress. After early success in supporting roles in the West End theatre, West End, she met the American actor Alfred Lunt, whom she married in 1922 and with whom she co-starred i ...
*Polton - Margaret Murray
*Miss Dell - Peggy Dear
*Sir John Fletcher -
Alfred Lunt
Alfred David Lunt (August 12, 1892 – August 3, 1977) was an American actor and director, best known for his long stage partnership with his wife, Lynn Fontanne, from the 1920s to 1960, co-starring in Broadway and West End productions. After th ...
*Michael Brown -
Brian Nissen
*Diana Fletcher - Kathleen Kent
*Celia Wentworth - Mona Harrison
*Sir Thomas Markham - Frank Forder
*Lady Markham - Antoinette Keith
References
Bibliography
* John Russell Taylor. ''The Rise and Fall of the Well-Made Play''. Routledge, 2013.
1944 plays
Plays set in London
Plays by Terence Rattigan
West End plays
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