Lots of great posts

about The Times. A couple of ideas that I would like to pursue tomorrow:

— a comparison between the way "the marriage plot" has evolved in most of our plays to date, and this one (i.e. the secondary position of the Louisa plot; the married status of the main couple);

— class conflict (social climbing, the nouveau riche, etc.);

— a related issue: the social critique (the tawdry banality of "society," etc.) implied in the title;

— the economic focus;

— the use of some familiar tropes: the "blocking figure", the witty servants, the forced marriage.

And how does the end play out all these threads? Is it contained? Open-ended? Does it back-track, as so many endings seem to do?

Finally, is Rizzo correct that Griffith is merely a competent playwright?