The Cocktail Hour

The Cocktail Hour
Written by	A. R. Gurney
Date premiered	June 1988
Place premiered	Old Globe Theatre
Original language	English
Genre	Comedy
Setting	1970s

The Cocktail Hour is a comedy of manners by A. R. Gurney. It premiered in June 1988 in San Diego, California at the Old Globe Theatre and, on October 20, 1988, in New York City at the Off Broadway Promenade Theatre. Like many of Gurney’s plays, The Cocktail Hour is a comedy exploring the world of upper-class families in the Northeastern United States. A review in The New York Times described it as "an examination of an overprivileged family that fights domestic battles while downing drinks."

The setting is an upper-class home in the 1970s. The play opens on Bradley and Ann having preprandial cocktails with their middle-aged, ostensibly single son and daughter. The cocktail hour stretches out because "the maid doesn't know how to cook a roast". So the little family carries on consuming increasing amounts of alcohol leading to increasing arguments. Their son, John, is an editor at a publishing company and a part-time playwright. He has written a play that seems to present an unflattering picture of the family, and the parents are upset. The discussion of John's play, which is also called The Cocktail Hour, gives Gurney a lot of opportunity to lampoon the theatre scene.

The play was directed by Jack O’Brien, who at that time was the Artistic Director of the Old Globe. The original cast consisted of:

Playwright Gurney has said the play was "probably the most personal thing I had written up to this time". He also revealed that he promised his parents it would not be produced in Buffalo, New York, his hometown where they still resided, during their lifetimes because "the details are so close to home." He added, "The play tries to work within the traditions of a comedy of manners, and simultaneously challenge those traditions as outmoded if not destructive."

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