The Deep Blue Sea

Sydney Theatre Company presents a play adapted from Terence Rattigan’s classic, The Deep Blue Sea.

The play centers on the realities confronting Hester Collyer, a socially repressed woman who had left her privileged life, married to a judge to pursue a love affair with a young former RAF pilot. Directed by Paige Rattray this show see Marta Dusseldorp return to the stage to play Hester Collyer, joined by Fayssal Bazzi as Freddie the former pilot, and award-winning Cabaret theatre actor, Paul Capsis as Dr Miller.

Rattigan had created one of the most striking heroines of his era in Hester, as she refuses to conform to the social norms of a 1950s woman. Inspired by the suicide of Rattagan’s secret lover, Kenny Morgan, Hester survives trying to take her own life when Dr Miller, who lives in the same apartment building, intervenes and has subsequent conversations with her.

“I think the play was written with him in mind. But he just changed the gender, and possibly Miller is Rattigan.” Capsis says. “As a writer, a character like Miller allowed him to, in some ways fantasise about a conversation he might have had with the young man who did kill himself.”

Rattigan’s play portrays the importance of how society has changed to include those who were originally excluded for being different. The Deep Blue Sea draws parallel to the contemporary narrative as Rattigan was an outsider in the 1950s reflecting on his time, making it relevant to audiences today.

There isn’t a play quite like this one!