Ross (play)

Ross
1st edition (publ. Hamish Hamilton)
Written by	Terence Rattigan
Characters	T. E. Lawrence
Date premiered	1960
Place premiered	Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London
Original language	English
Genre	Drama
Setting	Dorset & Arabia

Ross is a 1960 play by British playwright Terence Rattigan.

It is a biographical play about T. E. Lawrence and his time in the Royal Air Force.

The play is structured with a framing device set in 1922, when Lawrence was hiding under an assumed name as "Aircraftman Ross" in the Royal Air Force, and is being disciplined by his Flight Lieutenant for alleged misconduct. No one seems to have become aware of his true identity, except for a man named Dickinson, who had seen Lawrence at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and quickly attempts to blackmail him to keep his identity secret. Lawrence, however, refuses, and Dickinson decides to reveal his identity to the Daily Mirror.

After Lawrence has a dream sequence, flashing back to the various figures in his life, the play flashes back to mid-1916. Lawrence is being given an unofficial assignment as a liaison officer to the forces of the Arab Revolt, under Prince Feisal (who, although he is frequently mentioned, never appears as a character). Sir Ronald Storrs, the head of the Arab Bureau, tries to talk him out of the mission, as does Colonel Barrington, a bull-headed intelligence officer. Along with two Arab servants, Hamed and Rashid (similar to Lawrence's real-life companions Farraj and Daud), Lawrence enters the desert, revealing that he feels that the supreme being of the world is "the will", and he believes that he can achieve anything if he puts his mind to it.

Lawrence later meets Auda ibu Tayi, leader of the Howeitat tribe of Bedouin, using flattery to convert him to the Arab cause (he has been paid off by the Turks to support them). Auda and Lawrence soon plan an expedition through the Nefud Desert to capture the Turkish-held port of Aqaba, which is weakly defended from the landward side. Along the way to Aqaba, however, he is forced to execute an Arab for murdering another in a feud.