"Each of his dramas is a progressive refinement of that sense of theater of which he spoke so frequently, a sense which insisted on the duality of the playwright as both writer and audience. The loss of touch with the audience which characterized the dramatic experimentation in the revolutionary stage events since 1956 was caused to a certain degree by the elitism of many of the changes. Rattigan never lost touch. To move an audience to laughter and to tears, rather than to confusion or puzzlement, was always his primary goal, and he consistently maintained sight of that goal. Of his contemporary dramatists, he alone survived the upheavals of the 1950s with his traditional approach which renewed itself in his stage comeback of 1970. And before the experimental waves subsided into the mainstream of theater history, Rattigan once more became a part of that stream. His comedies, history plays, and moving dramas about flawed or failed characters course their way unerringly down the moral and emotional mainstream of their troubled times."
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Susan Rusinko, Terence Rattigan (1983), p. 152
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Terence_Rattigan
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Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan (10 June 1911 – 30 November 1977) was an English dramatist and screenwriter. His plays include French Without Tears, The Winslow Boy, The Browning Version, The Deep Blue Sea and Separate Tables, all of which have been filmed. Like other proponents of the well-made play he fell out of fashion with the coming of the Angry young men and the kitchen sink drama.
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