Photos: IN PRAISE OF LOVE At Orange Tree Theatre

IN PRAISE OF LOVE by Terence Rattigan will be presented 24 May – 5 July 2025. The cast includes Daniel Abelson (Mark Walters), Joe Edgar (Joey Cruttwell), Claire Price (Lydia Cruttwell) and Dominic Rowan (Sebastian Cruttwell). Check out photos from the production.

The creative team includes Director: Amelia Sears; Designer: Peter Butler; Lighting Design: Bethany Gupwell; Sound Designer and Composer: Elizabeth Purnell; Casting Director: Helena Palmer CDG; Production Manager: Pam Nichol.

Honesty between people who love each other is the thing that matters least in this life. England, 1973. Estonian refugee Lydia and her Marxist literary critic husband Sebastian both worked in wartime intelligence. They excel at keeping secrets – from friends, from each other, and even from themselves. But their world is crumbling. The arrival of Lydia’s admirer, a best-selling American author, sparks their complex deceptions into an explosion of family truths.

A perceptive and deeply moving drama, In Praise of Love is Rattigan’s penultimate play, and loosely based on the relationship between the actor Rex Harrison and his wife Kay Kendall. Orange Tree audiences loved Terence Rattigan’s French Without Tears and While the Sun Shines. This is a rare chance to see a haunting and provocative play by one of the twentieth century’s most popular playwrights.