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Title: The Cocktail Party by T.S. Eliot ISBN: 0156182890 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: October, 1988 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.25
Rating: 4
Summary: Survival kit in a schizophrenic society
Comment: In a world of appearances, a new species of peace-makers has been invented. The priest of old has disappeared. The psychiatrist has replaced him. He is there to listen to secrets, to sort out situations and to propose solutions to human problems. The very few that are worth it can become the saints of today, going to foreign desolate countries and helping people out of their difficulties, fighting poverty and diseases, bringing the christian faith to pagan people, living in suffering and dire hardship. The others are helped to adapt to our society, to be successful in this society without feeling the remorse or the fear that come along with it. They just become adaptable, supple enough to fit in a deeply dishumanized society. The psychiatrist is the go-between for such people.
This play is surrealistic and yet perfectly descriptive of reality. It is full of a new type of poetry, his poetry of love and hate, of a new type of drama, his drama of conflict-solving. T. S. Eliot manages to shift from the most superficial bourgeois drama to the deepest and serenest tragedy turned comedy. The path of these people is tragic in a way, but it ends in beauty or at least in harmony.
Yet I think T.S. Eliot would have been better inspired if he had gotten away from this bourgeois aristocratic society that is nothing but vain cocktail parties and superfluous appearances. The great poet he is could have been a better playwright.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
Rating: 3
Summary: Funny-strange, not funny-haha
Comment: Although this play of 1950 was Eliot's first full-length comedy, he had made an earlier stab at the genre in the 1920s: "Sweeney Agonistes," a first-rate work that unfortunately remained unfinished and is now included in collections of Eliot's poetry. "Sweeney" was a jazzy, dark comedy with originality and verve; by comparison, "The Cocktail Party" is tepid indeed.
Even judged on its own merits, however, this play falls short. The first half is enjoyable enough: an unusually well-written English drawing-room comedy with serious overtones. The play begins to fall apart with the bizarre sessions of pseudo-psychotherapy in Act 2, and degenerates into overt Christian flag-waving by the final scene.
Yet the play is still well worth reading. It is more accessible that Eliot's earlier plays and was a surprise hit on Broadway when it first opened. It is still occasionally revived today; one production featured Nancy Walker in the plum role of Julia, a seemingly scatterbrained older woman. ("Salvation! The quicker picker-upper!")
Rating: 5
Summary: Wonderful!
Comment: I am personally not a fan of Eliot, due to the fact that I, most unfortunately, started off with "The Wasteland", which is, as I am sure anyone reading this review will know, is not exactly an easy read, especially at age 12. However, "The Cocktail Party" seems to grasp me still, days after I have finished reading it. It is such a witty, humorous comedy that mocks the modern ages, and pretty much everyone who seems to be a part of this insane, chaotic world (at least as I understood it). I recommend this for anyone looking a good book to do a book report on, or someone looking for the meaning of life and/or in need of serious 'ponder' over the universe in a philosophical, poetic, aesthetic way.
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Title: Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ISBN: 0802130348 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: August, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Homecoming by Harold Pinter ISBN: 0802151051 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: April, 1989 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Designated Mourner by Wallace Shawn ISBN: 0374525269 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: January, 1998 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: An Inspector Calls. by J. B. Priestley, J.B. Priestley ISBN: 0822205726 Publisher: Dramatist's Play Service Pub. Date: January, 1998 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: Look Back in Anger by John Osborne ISBN: 0140481753 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: August, 1992 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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