The Damask Cheek
by John Van Druten, Lloyd Morris

Costumes, 1909. The literate and charming comedy of manners which delighted New York audiences for months.

The play has to do with a middle-aged and repressed English spinster who is sent to America to live with her aunt in the hope of finding a husband.

Rhoda is secretly in love with her second cousin who treats her as a confidant, with condescension and misappraisal of her virtues.

He fancies himself in love with a slightly tarnished young actress.

But Rhoda, homely and sedate as she is, has feminine resources far greater than has the younger and more superficially glamorous woman.

There is a secondary love story - that of an adolescent girl for a Don Juan much older than herself - and this story is beautifully depicted.

There are also a number of amusing domestic crises, some anti-macassar conventions, some decorous philandering on the sly, and a rousing and very funny brawl involving two of the ladies.

The quick, witty and subtle dialogue is a delight in itself - polished and graceful.