Private Lives | Themes
Public vs. Private Life
As a "comedy of manners," Private Lives deals with the conventions and social rituals by which a person presents their "public'' self to the world—and with the "private" passions and motivations that lie beneath the veneer of etiquette and respectability. The title comes from a speech Amanda makes early in the first Act. "I think very few people are completely normal, deep down in their private lives," she muses. "It all depends on a combination of circumstances;" given the right conditions, "there's no knowing what one mightn't do." She soon...
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