So many of the productions currently to be seen on the london stage are concerned with the more violent aspects of life that it is surprising to meet a play about ordinary people caught up in ordinary events.Thomson Sackville’s The Visitor is just such a play——at least, on the surface. It seems to stand well outside the mainstream of recent british drama.In fact the surface is so bland that attention is constantly focused on the care with which the play has been put together, and the clarity withwhich its argument develops; it seems natural to discuss it in terms of the notion of “the well-wrought play.”
如今，伦敦地区上演的戏剧往往都侧重生活中的暴力行为。所以，当我们看到一部戏所描写的是平凡人物的平凡生活时，颇为惊讶。汤姆森.萨克维尔的《访客》就是一部这样的作品——至少，乍看之下的确如此。该剧似乎与时下英国主流戏剧相距甚远。实际上，从表层来看，该剧实在太过平淡无奇，于是，人们的注意力就转移到了其他方面。譬如，这部戏是如何精心构思的，其论点是如何条理清晰地展开的。所以，从创作的角度去探讨这部“精雕细琢的戏”，似乎更为自然。
The story is about an unremarkable family evening in middle-class suburbia. The Husband and wife have invited a friend to dinner. the friend turns up in due course and they talk about their respective lives and interests. During this conversion, in which the author shows a remarkble talent for writing dialogue which is entertaining and witty without being so sparkling as to draw too much attention to itself; the characters are carefully fleshed out and provided with a set of credible——if unremarkable——motives. Through innumerable delicate touches in the writing they emerge：pleasant, humorous, ordinary， and ineffectual. and if they are never made vibrantly alive in terms of the real world, one feels that this is deliberate; that the author is content to give them a theatrical existence of their own， and leave it at that.
剧本讲的是发生在市郊普通中产阶级家庭里的一个聚会。一对夫妻邀请了一位朋友来共进晚餐。朋友如约而至。三人聊起了各自的生活和兴趣爱好。剧中的对话机智、风趣，而又没有那种为了吸引观众而喧宾夺主的架势；剧作者的高超功力可见一斑。剧中的人物有血有肉，他们的（生活）动机虽不高尚，但令人信服。通过精细的刻画，这些人物以亲切、幽默、普通和平凡的形象展现在观众面前。如果以现实生活的标准来衡量，他们缺乏那种震撼人心的活力。这似乎是作者刻意为之的。只要这些人物能够在戏剧舞台上存活下来，并为人接受，作者就心满意足了。
