Adventure Story

Adventure Story is a 1949 play by the English dramatist Terence Rattigan. The play tells the story of Alexander the Great and his conquests.

In this play Mr.Rattigan portrays the historical Alexander very faithfully, at the same time revealing that his life was what it was because he was the kind of person who very well might have wept because nothing remained to conquer.

The play focuses on the transformation of Alexander after his conquest of Persia from a military adventurist to an uncompromising despot with grand vision of a world empire which estranges him from his erstwhile friends. Driven by a deep-felt insecurity, he has to kill people close to him including even the father figure Cleitus. He tries to justify his actions in the name of his dreams of the world empire, but is haunted by loneliness in the end

The play holds a deeper significance, that the conquests of Alexander were actually trials to find himself and achieve spiritual enlightenment, through becoming a god (see Theosis).

The play ends with a nihilistic tone, that Alexander was to die and fade after all, his last words in the play are 'Who is to succeed me to the throne of Asia? Who shall I condemn to death?'

The works of Terence Rattigan
Plays
  • First Episode (1933)
  • French Without Tears (1936)
  • After the Dance (1939)
  • Follow My Leader (1940)
  • Grey Farm (1940)
  • Flare Path (1942)
  • While The Sun Shines (1943)
  • Love In Idleness (1944)
  • The Winslow Boy (1946)
  • The Browning Version (1948)
  • Harlequinade (1948)
  • Adventure Story (1949)
  • Who Is Sylvia? (1950)
  • The Deep Blue Sea (1952)
  • The Sleeping Prince (1953)
  • Separate Tables (1954)
  • Variations On A Theme (1958)
  • Ross (1960)
  • Man and Boy (1963)
  • A Bequest to the Nation (1970)
  • After Lydia (1973)
  • Before Dawn (In Praise Of Love II) (1973)
  • All on Her Own (1974)
  • Cause Célèbre (1975/77)
Films and TV
  • The Belles of St. Clements (1936)
  • Gypsy (1937)
  • French Without Tears (1940)
  • Quiet Wedding (1941)
  • The Day Will Dawn (1942)
  • Uncensored (1942)
  • English Without Tears (1944)
  • The Way to the Stars (1945)
  • While the Sun Shines (1947)
  • Brighton Rock (1947)
  • Bond Street (1948)
  • The Winslow Boy (1948)
  • The Browning Version (1951)
  • The Sound Barrier (1952)
  • The Final Test (1953)
  • The Man Who Loved Redheads (1955)
  • The Deep Blue Sea (1955)
  • The Prince and the Showgirl (1957)
  • Separate Tables (1958)
  • The V.I.P.s (1963)
  • The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964)
  • Nelson (1966)
  • Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969)
  • Bequest to the Nation (1973)
  • The Browning Version (1994)
  • The Winslow Boy (1999)
Related works
  • The Girl Who Came to Supper (1963)

Famous quotes containing the words adventure and/or story:

    “There are two kinds of adventurers: those who go truly hoping to find adventure and those who go secretly hoping they won’t.”
    —William Least Heat Moon [William Trogdon] (b. 1939)

    “So every journey that I make
    Leads me, as in the story he was led,
    To some new ambush, to some fresh mistake:
    So every journey I begin foretells
    A weariness of daybreak, spread
    With carrion kisses, carrion farewells.”
    —Philip Larkin (1922–1986)