The Cocktail Party The Cocktail Party The Cocktail Party is a play by T. S. Eliot. Elements of the play are based on "Alcestis", by the Ancient Greek playwright Euripides. The play was the most popular of Eliot's seven plays in his lifetime, although his 1935 play, "Murder in the Cathedral", is better remembered today. It was written while Eliot was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1948. "The Cocktail Party" was first performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1949. In 1950 the play had successful runs in London and New York theaters (the Broadway production received the 1950
The Family Reunion that apart from the chorus of baffled uncles and aunts, "one looks elsewhere in vain for any articulate philosophy." "The Times" commented on the lack of drama in the play, but concluded, "But the play as a whole, though it lacks something of stage force, is still one which Mr Eliot may be proud to have written." The director of the play, E. Martin Browne summed up the critical response: In 1951, in the first Theodore Spencer Memorial Lecture at Harvard University, Eliot criticised his own plays, specifically "Murder in the Cathedral", "The Family Reunion", and "The Cocktail Party". Eliot