The Second Mrs Tanqueray

About the show

The play opens with a late night dinner between the widower Mr Tanqueray and some of his longtime professional friends. All are upper class members of British society, and the friends are disturbed when they learn of the forthcoming second marriage of Tanqueray to a Mrs Paula Jarman, a woman with a "bad reputation". As the play progresses we see the misery of the mismatched couple and their shared efforts to foster a bond between Tanqueray's young and impeccably proper daughter Ellean and her young unhappy stepmother. This is compromised when Mrs Tanqueray learns the identity of her stepdaughter's fiancé; he is the man who ruined her, years ago. She reveals her knowledge to her husband, who prevents the marriage and alienates his daughter. This spreads and husband and wife, father and daughter, step-parent and child are all angered and alienated. When the daughter learns the reasons behind her disappointment she is struck with pity and makes a speech about trying again with her stepmother, only to go to her and find her dead, evidently by suicide.