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The World Of Noël Coward
NOËL COWARD AT CARNFORTH AND THE UK BIRTHDAY EVENTS
ALAN FARLEY
DOMINIC VLASTO introduces the broadcasts of the renowned West Coast Radio Arts Host.
PRIVATE LIVES and RELATIVE VALUES
Reviews of the recent Coward revivals that still ‘raise the bar’ for audiences everywhere.
MORE FROM THE ARCHIVES
The best of the sepia-tinted media world of Noël Coward in the 1930s
PHOTO: Ann Harding and Noël Coward making their way through the crowd at the Annual Theatrical Garden Party 1936
A MAGAZINE ABOUT THE LIFE AND WORK OF SIR NOËL COWARD • AUGUST 2013
Editorial
Welcome and a huge thank you to everyone that has
sent us material for our archive pages. We have not been
able to include even a fraction of all the material we
have received so please forgive us if you chosen item
has not made the cut this time, as golfers I think say!
There is always next time and the next...
At the moment I am working through all that is
required for the exhibition at Carnforth Station that starts in October with a
planned day of talks and films about Noël Coward, Brief Encounter and its
theatre forbear Still Life.
This year’s UK Coward events include our AGM at The Noël Coward
Theatre and the Annual Luncheon at the Grand Saloon at the Theatre
Royal, Drury Lane. The cabaret for the lunch will be perfvormed by Helen
McDermot and Adrian Wright accompanied by Annette Jude. Their
performance will consists of an extract from their concert show,
Cowards in the Wings that includes rarely heard pieces from Waiting in the
Wings and the almost unknown and unrecorded songs from Words and
Music in ‘The Hall of Fame’ where we discover amongst other things ‘...the
man who sailed across Lake Windermere in an India-rubber bath!’
You may by now have noticed that as well as receiving your
membership fees by cheque and standing order we are now able to receive
them via the web using credit/debit cards and PayPal. Financial changes are
continuing to take place as our accounts are guided by Stephen Greenman
into my temporary care whilst we explore the way forward with a new
structure and a new treasurer.
We are delighted that Ken Starrett is on his feet again and although not
fully recovered is once again mobile.
My thanks to everyone who has sent in kind thoughts and expressions
of gratitude for Home Chat and our events. As volunteers we do our best so
when things go well it makes our efforts all worthwhile.
Latest on the
CONTENTS
Editorial
2
Smalhythe
4
Forthcoming Events
Private Lives
Relative Values
Michael Law - Easy to Love
Notes from New York
The Other Coward
Speaking of Noël Coward
The Alan Farley Interviews
A Choice of Coward
Lance Salway introduces us to...
An Earlier Essay Competition
You and Yours...
Items from Members
Key People and Contacts
3
5
6
7
8
10
13
16
19
23
24
John Knowles
Writing Competition Reminder
‘In His Own Write’ for £1,000
Brief Encounter Exhibition
at Carnforth Station
1st October - 11 December
31st October Films and Talk by John Knowles
As you will be aware the Society has arranged an exhibition
about Noël Coward at the Carnforth Station Heritage Centre
from 1st October to the 11 December 2013 entitled:
A Brief Encounter with Noël Coward. In addition ...
A day of film presentations and talks has been arranged by
John Knowles and Peter Tod at the Heritage Centre
echoing the title of the exhibition on Thursday 31st
October.
Tickets available from the Heritage Centre Manager (John
Adams) on 01524 735165 or email: [email protected]
The Exhibition will take place in the Bateman Gallery at
the station’s Heritage Centre and will include a self-running
video commentary on the film Brief Encounter by Barry Day,
posters and artefacts from the collection of the Noël Coward
Estate, some seen at the Star Quality exhibition in New York.
A range of Coward CDs will also be available from the
Heritage Centre Shop at discount prices during the run of the
Exhibition.
The venue can be viewed online at: carnforthstation.co.uk.
Competition closes on October 30th, 2013
Please do remind or tell your friends and contacts about our
celebration of the 40th anniversary of the death of Sir Noël
Coward the Society with our first writing competition open to
all. An application form and details are available on-line
(noëlcoward.net).
All the rules, and submission dates are provided there.
Details of a celebratory event for the four selected finalists will
be featured in a future edition of Home Chat.
Remember that we are inviting anyone who wishes to take
part to write an original sketch, poem/verse, prose passage or
scene for a play in the style of Noël Coward.
They must be prepared to perform this piece at the
celebratory event. More details on this on-line including
copyright limitations and future use of the entries.
Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors for this
competition we are offering a prize of £1,000 for the winning
piece that will be chosen from the four finalists at the
celebratory event next year (2014).
See Page 19 for an essay competition in Play Pictorial
on Noël Coward, that took place in 1932!
-2-
Forthcoming Events
UK COWARD BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS
As promised this year mirrors the practice of the past - so many have asked it to
be kept so... The Annual General Meeting will take place at The Noël Coward
Theatre, timings as follow:
The Noël Coward Theatre
Friday 13th December
Coffee
AGM
Followed by...
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Flower-Laying Ceremony
Drinks in the Theatre’s Rotunda
Lunch - Grand Salon (recently re-furbished!)
Cabaret with Coffee
10.45am
11.15am
Adrian Wright
12.15pm
12.30pm
1.00pm.
2.30pm
Ticket price for drinks, 3-course lunch with wine, water & coffee
PLUS cabaret is... £85
A reservation form for the event is included and will be available online and in
the November edition of Home Chat.
Helen McDermott
Celebrity Guest
As always it is impossible to tell you exactly who our celebrity guest will be for
the flower-laying, as commitments for theatre artists can change rapidly. The
person who has agreed to be there, barring other commitments, is an extremely
well-known stage and TV actor. It could be... Such fun!
Annual Lunch Cabaret
The cabaret spot this year goes to:
“Two of Norfolk’s brightest personalities who lift a glass to the genius of
Noël Coward in this kaleidoscopically entertaining celebration of his songs,
including many not heard since they were first performed. The best known face
of Anglia TV, Helen McDermott has remained a favourite on stage and in
cabaret. Adrian Wright has long been a darling of the critics: ‘Words fail me!’
(Fur and Feather). They are joined by pianist Annette Jude and are determined
to disprove Noël’s famous dictum ‘Very flat, Norfolk’ ”
As you can tell from this promotional text we are in for a fun-time at this
year’s Annual Lunch.
As well as being a consummate performer, Adrian Wright is an established
author and a world authority on the British Musical Theatre of the 1950s and
60s. He has made countless appearances on stage, national TV and Radio and
released several CDs of songs. He also owns and manages Must Close Saturday
Records, an independent record company that has been responsible for ensuring
that the legacy of British Musical Theatre continues to thrive and meet its
public. Adrian is renowned for his humour - as dry as a well-olive-d Martini.
Helen Mcdermott is considered a ‘regional treasure’ in East Anglia from her
wonderful appearances as a TV presenter with the tested ability to apply her dry
humour in a way that is understood by adults but flies over the heads of younger
watchers! Her grandparents were renowned music hall artists and apart from her
TV work she has worked on stages everywhere as a cabaret performer.
They have chosen extracts from their latest regional concert tour that include
rarely performed and unrecorded songs from Waiting in the Wings and Words
and Music including ‘The Hall of Fame’ - not to be missed!
Details of their regional concert tour can be seen on the NCS website:
noëlcoward.net
-3-
Michael Law is appearing on:
Friday 20th September
The Pheasantry,
Pizza Express, 152-154 Kings Road, London
SW3 4UT
(doors open at 7pm/performance from
8.30pm)
Tickets £20: 08456 027 017 (opt. 8)
NB NCS DISCOUNT £17.50
Sunday 29th September - 3pm to 4.15pm
The Friends Meeting House,
Ship Street, Brighton BN1 1AF
Tickets £10 on the door or please telephone
0845 370 0178
NB NCS DISCOUNT £8
Sunday 20th October at 3pm
Huntingdon Hall, Crowngate Worcester,
WR1 3LD
Tickets: 01905 611427 £14
(£12 Concessions)
Smallhythe
Our thanks to all those who came to the NCS event at Smallhythe - a great afternoon in the Kentish sun
On a glorious afternoon some 55 members made their way to
Smallhythe for the NCS event held in the wonderful Barn
Theatre of Ellen Terry managed so well by the National Trust
volunteers and their Events Organiser for the region Katie Shaw.
Julian Clary agreed to be interviewed about his home, The
Old Manor - half of Goldenhurst, Noël’s Kent farmhouse home,
and all of the work he has done in restoring the house. Albert,
one of Julian’s dogs was in attendance as we watched a
collection of home movie clips shot by Noël and Jeffery
Holmesdale (Lord Amherst) of visitors to the house.
The interview gave Julian an opportunity to talk about what
he has done at the house, his research into Noël’s life and work
and the background to his novel Briefs Encountered.
A break for tea in the sunshine on the lawns outside the
thatched Barn Theatre allowed members to talk to Julian
informally and enjoy meeting our other guests: Richard Stirling
of Evergreen Theatrical Productions, Adrian Slade and his wife
(Adrian manages the Estate of his late brother the composer and
writer of musicals, Julian Slade) and Suzanne Slater one of
Noël’s orphan’s who attended the Actors Orphanage during his
time as President.
A huge thank you to all who attended!
Julian Clary and ‘Valerie’ at The Old Manor
NCS members, Julian Clary and ‘Albert’ at Smallhythe
John Knowles
NCS members at Smallhythe
-4-
Private Lives
Chichester success at the Gielgud
One sometimes wonders whether the thirst for Coward revivals will ever be
quenched! For the man who, slightly tongue in cheek perhaps, claimed he
did not expect to be remembered, his works seem destined to fill theatres
across the world on stages both humble and grand.
In the last decade and a half since his Centenary year, Noël’s immortal
soul will have seen Private Lives: with Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman
(West End - 2001/2002, Broadway - 2002); with Kim Cattrall and Matthew
Macfadyen (West End - 2010) Paul Goss (Broadway - 2011); and now with
Anna Chancellor and Toby Stephens (Chichester Festival Theatre - 2010,
West End - 2013, Broadway - who knows!)
In earlier times it has been the most perfect, powerful, theatrical vehicle
for Noël and his childhood friend Gertrude Lawrence, and the ultimate
setting for a final round in the emotional combat between Elizabeth Taylor
and Richard Burton - who should have perfectly mirrored the on-stage lives
of Amanda and Elyot but, if accounts are to be believed, allowed themselves
to forget that and the audience as well. The classic revival that marked
‘Dad’s Renaissance,’ as Noël called it, in 1963 was hugely successful, as
was John Gielgud’s production of the play with Robert Stephens and
Maggie Smith in 1972. In Coward’s Centenary year, 1999, a revival at the
National Theatre, starred Anton Lesser as Elyot and Juliet Stevenson as
Amanda, directed by Philip Franks.
In the past the play has been chastised by critics as light or of little
substance but it continues to bite with audiences who regularly suspend
disbelief at the possibility of two divorced people ending up on their
honeymoons with their second spouses in neighbouring balconied rooms at
the same hotel in France at the same time!
What follows is both humorous and should be morally upsetting, as the
two main characters play out their ‘surprise meeting’ on the balconies
overlooking the sea and in a bohemian flat in Paris, exploring the love/hate
turmoil of those who cannot bear to be together or apart. Their newly
espoused partners act as the voice of the common man for most of the play
but in the end succumb to what becomes the normal emotional tone of the
comedy, unmindful that the main protagonists, the enzymes of their
unhappiness, are creeping away in mock horror, suitcases in hand.
There must be something, for those who have sat through so many
performances of this classic play, that keeps us all returning to our seats.
Apart from the setting, every version does seem to be so different and I
always swear that there are lines spoken that I have never heard before.
On this occasion the play was noticeably shorter, sharper and with a pace
that felt better adapted for today’s West End stage. Its gestation period at the
Minerva at The Chichester Festival Theatre was sold out before many of us
realised it was on. It won many plaudits there from the press. How well
would it translate from the ‘in the round’ setting of the Minerva to the
classic proscenium stage at the Gielgud?
Well translate it did and with the judicious joining of the first and second
Acts, fuelled by a mouth-dropping scenery switch, rolled on from Deauville
to Paris without a moment’s pause. The result was that the emotional
rollercoaster kept going and added much more resonance to a second Act
that in past productions I have found could become rather tedious, as the
focus moves from sofa to drinks to piano to sofa to drinks to gramophone to
drinks to breaking shellac and so on. The pace here was ideal, supporting
the passion of the piece and in some way gave the thwarted second partners
greater freedom and presence. The third Act following the sole intermission
and although it felt shorter and had some real punch in it.
The play was certainly not rushed and felt comfortably contemporary.
Those of us who went on the NCS outing to the show had the benefit of
meeting the cast in the bar - they all came and stayed, despite other
commitments and were very relaxed and involved with us.
-5-
Anna Chancellor and Toby Stephens
Our thanks to Denys Robinson for organising
the NCS event and to a cast who deserve our
applause at every level! A truly great production!
John Knowles
Relative Values
Theatre Royal Bath Productions
Directed by Trevor Nunn
A Review from the performance at
the Richmond Theatre From Geoffrey Johnson
One might assume that just another revival of a Noël Coward
light comedy to appear on the current theatre scene would not
really be a matter for the usual rejoicing. To my great pleasure,
Sir Noël’s seldom produced Relative Values is an outstanding
rediscovered treasure and a real winner in the hands of brilliant
director Trevor Nunn.
Never professionally produced on Broadway but premiered
in 1951 at London’s Savoy Theatre with Gladys Cooper, Judy
Campbell, and Angela Badderley in leading roles, it is rather a
mystery why it has not been revived very often long before
now.
Granted that the play deals with the Countess of
Marshwood’s discovery that her maid’s common sister, an
American film star, is on the verge of marrying her son, Sir
John, and is a sly thrust at the English class system - it was, of
course, shortly before the angry young men brought their plays
to the attention of audiences who were use to more complacent
and traditional fare. Still it was a success (477 performances)
and admired for the usual Coward unique style, wit, and range
of character.
Right now, both in England and the U.S., it seems we are
very fascinated by the English class structure. This, perhaps is
encouraged today by the overwhelming success of television’s
Downton Abbey of another British period.
Who cannot help being engrossed with life above and
below the stairs in a stately English home?
This rare and special revival of Relative Values is of very
high calibre. Patricia Hodge as Felicity, Countess of
Marshwood, gives a perfect performance. Her comedy style
and timing are wonderful as she sets exactly the right
aristocratic tone throughout the evening’s hilarity. She has a
outstanding sense of Coward comedy.
Other excellent performances include Caroline Quentin as
the anxious but still very humorous maid, Moxie, Rory
Bremner as the perfect but un-clichéd butler, Crestwell, and
Katherine Kingsley as Moxie’s sister, Miranda, who has ‘gone
Hollywood’ in a terrible and unreal way.
The rest of the supporting cast is excellent and right on
target throughout the play.
Geoffrey Johnson
The Master at his best
A Review from Paddy Briggs
The best compliment I can pay the Theatre Royal Bath’s new
production of Noël Coward’s Relative Values is that it made me
realise for the first time what a very good play it is. It has not
been frequently produced - certainly compared with the great
plays from the 1930s. But in fact I think that there is a case to
be made for Relative Values to be Coward’s masterpiece. The
reason is the brilliance of the plot and the dialogue and the
strength of the characters. Coward wrote “Upstairs Downstairs”
type drama long before that TV series and he had a gift for the
characterisation of the Toffs as well as the Servants which was
exemplary. In Relative Values we have all the nuances of class
handled in a subtle and hilarious way. We also have the
addition of cross Atlantic culture clash with the appearance of
the Errol Flynn like “Don Lucas” and his past lover “Miranda
Frayle” – a Hollywood star.
The spectrum of class runs from the vacuous “Earl of
Marshwood” and his mother Felicity the Dowager Countess at
one end through to Mrs Moxton (Moxie) who is Felicity’s
Lady’s maid. There is also Crestwell the Butler who in Rory
Bremner’s excellent portrayal has a foot in both camps. When
he is talking to the Family, Crestwell is all carefully modulated
Received Pronunciation English. When he talks with Moxie or
Alice the Maid he reverts to his natural voice with its East End
vowels. For Bremner this comes naturally of course and his
performance in his first straight play is very good. Crestwell is
rather Jeeves-like and the other characters in the Play are
distinctly Wodehousian as well. As indeed is the plot.
The vacuous Earl wants to marry the cunning and ebullient
film star. The family – especially Felicity (a magnificent
performance by Patricia Hodge) wants to stop this. As does
Moxie not least because she has discovered that Ms Frayle is
her long-lost sister. This set up has the potential for farce but in
fact whilst it is light and frothy comedy it never quite leaves the
realms of believability in Coward’s sure hands. Caroline
Quentin’s Moxie is a fine observation of someone comfortable
in her sphere but also quite capable of becoming genteel in a
slightly Eliza Doolittle sort of way when the plot requires it. I
enjoyed Katherine Kingsley’s Miranda as well – this is the one
part which borders on caricature and Kingsley brings it off
well.
I suppose if you take Noël Coward, add Trevor Nunn to
direct, include professional actors of the quality of Hodge and
Quentin and sprinkle in a touch of Rory Bremner you should be
en route to a success. This production is certainly that. But
more than that it feels like a new Coward discovery and one
that is as assured in construction and style as it is possible to
be. In this very modern production there is also a deliciously
camp Steven Pacey to enjoy as Felicity’s nephew Peter.
Whether it was intended by Coward that this role should be
Gay (in the modern sense) rather than just Gay (in the sense
that Coward’s era used the word) I’m not sure. But it works –
as does everything in this well-paced, witty and eye-opening
production. The Master would have approved.
Paddy Briggs
-6-
Michael Law - Easy to Love
A review by Dominic Vlasto
Ruth Leon writes at the start of the sleeve notes to this CD that
“Michael Law is a sort of miracle – a musician and historian with the
energy not only to identify what has been lacking in our cultural life but
to fill it. His performances reproduce nearly a century of music which
would otherwise be lost.” This is perhaps bordering on excessive
hyperbole, but there is no hyperbole in what follows: “His own playing
and singing displays his impeccable taste and infallible sense of what an
audience is hungry for – fine music, brilliantly but not aggressively
performed. It is though he is inviting us to enjoy what he loves, no
pressure, no insistence, and along the way he is surreptitiously teaching
us about a world that we might have forgotten.”
Michael Law’s new CD is a recording of a live performance at
London’s The Pheasantry early in 2013, and is a mix of songs by Kern,
Berlin, Porter, Gershwin and Coward. Coward material is only six tracks
out of 20; but for my Desert Island Disc I’d sooner have anything of this
general genre performed so exquisitely by Michael than an entire CD of
Coward, however rare, in the hands of a less painstaking musician.
It’s not the first time that Michael Law has recorded Coward – some
readers will remember the 1999 Piccadilly Dance Orchestra release of ‘A
Marvellous Party’ (TER CDVIR 8333) which featured Coward numbers
‘Nina’ and ‘I’ll Follow My Secret Heart’. Both numbers are reprised
here, in slightly different clothes. I was particularly impressed with
Michael’s rendition of ‘Nina’, which I remember thinking a trifle lacking
in energy on the earlier recording. Michael has picked up the tempo here,
and reverted to rather more staccato Hackforth-type accompaniment
figurations, which work particularly well in the coda, and because the
words have energy and clarity throughout, it works very, very well – as a
recording, that is. I can’t say anything about the impact and
characterization of the live performance because I haven’t seen it, but
judging from the applause his audience certainly enjoyed it, though you
would not know from their lack of response/laughter during the
performance that they were there at all. Perhaps that evening’s audience
were asked to be unresponsive on account of the fact that it was being
recorded. If so, it was a very clever thing to have set up, because it makes
for so much better recorded enjoyment for the long-term.
From the opening notes of the opening track (an arrangement inspired
by Carroll Gibbons of Kern’s ‘I Won’t Dance’) we are so convincingly
back in the musical sound-world of between-the-wars light music
accompaniment you could almost be listening to an extremely wellpreserved recording from the HMV archives. The most “archival” of the
Coward tracks is his 1925 ‘We Must All Be Very Kind to Auntie Jessie’,
which has been a favourite trouvaille of Michael’s for some years now.
I’ve seen Michael perform this one, and know that the comparatively
bland, singing-rather-than-over-speaking approach works well here.
Michael’s capturing of the essential style of both the vocal melody and
the accompaniment works so well that this instantly becomes a sort of
archival yardstick, easily trumping the three or four other recordings of
this song that have been made and by which all others will be measured.
The specific Coward tracks on this CD are: ‘A Room With a View’
(very pleasant, but perhaps slightly disconcertingly in-and-out of rhythm,
though with a delicious keychange into the final phrase and a nod to Elsie
April’s original accompaniment at the end), ‘There Are Bad Times Just
Around the Corner’ (a slightly lame-sounding “Hooray, hooray, hooray!”
bothers me slightly – he didn’t sound excited at all!), ‘I Wonder What
Happened to Him?’ (nicely-paced and clear, but perhaps he tries to sing it
a bit too much? I think this should mostly be just words spoken/acted to
the simplest chordal accompaniment), ‘We Must All Be Very Kind…’,
‘Nina’ and ‘I’ll Follow My Secret Heart’.
-7-
Maybe not a lot of Coward for the £12 you’ll
have to spend on the CD; but, as I said before,
whatever the limitations this is, stylistically
speaking, definitely a CD for selection for the Desert
Island. Or anywhere else. Go order a copy of it at
www.pdo.org.uk.
Dominic Vlasto
Michael Law
Easy to Love
Music Tracks:
1) I Won’t Dance (Jerome Kern/Oscar
Hammerstein,
Dorothy Fields, Otto Harbach, Jimmy McHugh)
2) A Room with a View (Noël Coward)
3) There Are Bad Times Just Around The Corner
(Noël Coward)
4) Change Partners (Irving Berlin)
5) Easy To Love (Cole Porter)
6) I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket
(Irving Berlin)
7) Experiment / How Could We Be Wrong?
(Cole Porter)
8 I Love Paris/C’est Magnifique (Cole Porter)
9) I Wonder What Happened To Him
(Noël Coward)
10) It’s De-Lovely (Cole Porter)
11) Just One of Those Things (Cole Porter)
12) Lady Be Good (George and Ira Gershwin)
13) After You – Who? / Night And Day
(Cole Porter)
14) Swanee (George Gershwin / Irving Caesar)
15) Symphony
(Allstone / André Tabet / Roger Bernstein.
English lyrics by Jack Lawrence)
16 They All Laughed (George and Ira Gershwin)
17) We Must All Be Very Kind To Aunty Jessie
(Noël Coward)
18) What’ll I Do? (Irving Berlin)
19) Nina (from Argentina) (Noël Coward)
20) I’ll Follow My Secret Heart (Noël Coward)
NOTES
FROM
NEW
YORK
Ken Starrett provides the latest news from the USA
Fallen Angels
In 1923 while Noël Coward was appearing eight times a week
in the revue, London Calling! he managed to dash off two play
- Fallen Angels and The Vortex. For the next two years, both of
these plays made the rounds of London managers’ offices and
generated little interest. Before Fallen Angels was eventually
produced in London in 1925, both Hay Fever and Easy Virtue
had been written and The Vortex produced, followed by his first
revue, On With The Dance. Busy man !! In spite of a
lackluster critical reception to the original production of Fallen
Angels starring Tallulah Bankhead and Edna Best, it managed
158 performances. The Broadway production in 1927 starring
Fay Bainter and Estelle Winwood fared no better critically and
closed after 36 performances. The last revival on Broadway
was in 1956 starring Nancy Walker and Margaret Phillips.
Fallen Angels has never quite achieved the popularity of his
later plays and consequently it is rarely produced.
Hopefully the production at the Shakespeare Company in
Madison, New Jersey will change that. One of the most
highly regarded classical companies in the country, their
production of Fallen Angels is absolutely first rate. The New
York Times said … “it is a singular treat to see this tale of
two naughty wives, which is rarely revived. It may not be
the playwright’s supreme accomplishment, but his nascent
genius is obvious.”
The roles of Julia Sterroll and Jane Banbury are, without
question, star vehicles and carry practically the full weight of
the play. As they are both anticipating the visit of a man they
were both intimate with in the years before their marriages,
the tension and nerves build to an absolutely hysterical drunk
scene in the second act. This is all happening while their
husbands are away for a golfing weekend.
The roles of Julia and Jane are played, respectively, by
Julie Jesneck and Melissa Miller. Both actresses have
stunning comic timing and the necessary energy to sustain
these large roles.
Julie Jesnek, Melissa Miller and Allison Mackie
PHOTO: Gerry Goodstein/Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey
The staunch dignified husbands, played by Jeffrey M.
Bender and Ned Noyes, have the right sharpness and extract
laughs from many small bits of business, as they face the
problem with their wives. Keeping things moving and
somewhat on an even keel is the maid Saunders, a sterling
comic creation played with clipped ease and confidence by
Allison Mackie. When Maurice the former lover of the wives
finally shows up he is amazingly slick and clever. The actor
Michael Sharon got every laugh from the small role at the end
of the play that ties up the plot. There is a strong chemistry
among this company of actors. The close rapport between
them creates a really tight ensemble
On meeting the company back stage it was interesting to
find out that none of them knew each other or had ever worked
together before the first day of rehearsal. Of all of them, only
Ms. Mackie had ever done a Coward play. Most are relatively
new to this repertory company, with the exception of
Jeffery M. Bender who is enjoying his fourteenth season
here.
Melissa Michael Jeffery M. Allison Ned
Ken
Miller
Sharon Bender
Mackie Noyes Starrett
PHOTO: David K. Manion
This production was directed by Matthew
Arbour whose credits include such plays
as The Little Foxes and The Rivals. He clearly
understands Coward and invests the
smooth fast pace, with many inventive small
touches such as Julia’s horrified reaction
to the light tinkling of the servants bell when she
is suffering from a hangover, or the maid offhandedly playing classical music on the piano
while the doorbell is ringing.
The designer Charles Corcoran has come up
with a striking set that is certainly appropriate for
the flavor and period of this Coward play. Many
subtle accents such as picture frames and mirrors
are carefully done in the Art Deco style. Martha
Bromelmeier’s costumes are stylishly
1920s – the ladies in their cloche hats and the
gentlemen in knickers for their golfing weekend –
without being comic clichés.This production
certainly proved to be a delightful comic gem, especially for
those in the audience discovering it for the first time.
-8-
Tonight At 8:30
The nine one-act plays Noël Coward wrote in 1935 under the
umbrella title, Tonight At 8:30 continue to be very popular with
today’s audiences. Usually the plays are presented in groups of
three in a single evening. A production which commenced on
July 17th at the historic John Drew Theater in East Hampton,
New York starred Blythe Danner and Simon Jones in Hands
Across The Sea, the infrequently performed, Family Album, and
the popular, Red Peppers. The evening was deftly directed by
Tony Walton who has been honored with an Oscar, Tony and an
Emmy and many other awards for his distinguished work in the
theatre and films. A Tony- Award winning actress Ms. Danner
is no stranger to Coward’s plays having played Elvira on
Broadway in a revival of Blithe Spirit in 1987, and several
Coward plays at Williamstown, Massachusetts. Mr. Jones has
many Coward credits including having starred on Broadway in
Private Lives, Waiting In The Wings, and Blithe Spirit with
Angela Lansbury. The other actors in the company were
Delphi Harrington, James Lawson, Tuck Milligan Gerard
Doyle, Kate Mueth and Tina Jones. All of them have solid
credits, especially Ms. Harrington,who has done a great many
Coward plays.
Hands Across The Sea deals with two bewildered travellers,
Mr. and Mrs. Wadhurst, who are thrown into the midst of a
very social household and are victims of mistaken identity. Ms.
Danner with much energy is the social butterfly, Lady Maureen
Gilpin, who aided by her friend Clare (Ms. Harrington) keeps
things spinning. Mr. Jones plays her husband, a Commander in
the Royal Navy, and with proper military decorum manages to
keep up with the frustrations of the plot. The audience was
delighted. The next play followed with no intermission. At the
final fade out the stage crew swiftly evolved the Gilpin living
room into a Victorian parlour, for the play Family Album.
This play is a small musical that tells the story of the
members of the Featherways family dealing with the death of
their father. Mr. Jones is Jasper who is the stabilizing brother
of the family and Ms. Danner is Lavinia, the spinster daughter
who cared for the father. The old family retainer, Burrows (Mr.
Milligan) who is quite deaf, manages to deal with the family’s
wishes. At one point a trunk containing family mementos is
opened. An old music box provides us with one of the loveliest
songs Coward ever wrote called ‘Hearts and Flowers.’ Other
things from the trunk bring back fond childhood memories.
After the matter of the will is settled and everyone is enjoying
their special moments, director Tony Walton added a nice touch
by ending the play with the beautiful Coward song ‘Where Are
The Song We Sung?’
Following intermission the audience was treated to the
popular Red Peppers. Ms. Danner and Mr. Jones open the play
as George and Lily Pepper performing the hilarious ‘Has
Anybody Seen Our Ship?’ The play involves the squabbles
between the Peppers and the musical director (Mr. Miligan),
the producer (Mr. Doyle), another performer on the bill, Mabel
Grace (Ms. Harrington), and with each other. The actors had
great fun with this play and the audience enjoyed it immensely.
At the end of the play following the disastrous finish to the
final song ‘Two Men About Town’ the entire cast joins George
and Lily for curtain calls, accompanied by a wonderful
rendition of ‘London Pride’ – nice finish to a lovely evening.
In the plays presented this evening, it was wonderful to see
actors playing such a range of roles. Coward always enjoyed
giving actors a chance to show their versatility.
The scenery for the evening was, for the most part,
functional pieces of furniture moved about to suit the action of
the play. Some flats in the background would reverse to
change a room.
Hans Christian Anderson used to cut out paper figures he
would use to tell us stories. Coward loved this fact and used
refer to the characters and these plays as “my little cutouts.” In
deference to Coward’s feeling, the proscenium framing the
stage was many black and white cut out figures.
In the center of the frame at the top was a caricature of
Coward with wings (done by Tony Walton) looking down on
the whole proceedings.
Best Play
On June 9th when the annual Tony Awards were presented, the
award for Best Play of the Year went to Vanya and Sonia and
Masha and Spike by Christopher Durang. One of the producers
of this play is NCS member, M. Kilburg Reedy. We are happy
to congratulate her on this award and wish her much continued
success with the play.
Personal Note
Last March I had an accident slipping on the ice, which was
follow by four very long months in recovery. During that time
I received phone calls, e-mails and get-well cards from many of
you. I am deeply touched and sincerely thank all of you for
your kind thoughts and good wishes. Happily, I am nearly
fully recovered. I hope that you are enjoying a pleasant
summer.
All my best wishes,
Ken Starrett
-9-
The Other
Coward
Part two of our look at
Coward’s work for the
Actors’ Orphanage
In the last edition of Home Chat we gave members an in-depth
view of one of Noël’s regular commitments to raising funds for
his much loved Actors’ Orphanage where he presided for so
many years. Martin Phillips of Samuel French has provided
these press photographs, some showing Noël in the days when
Sir Gerald du Maurier was President. The notes attached to
them are quoted from the accompanying press clippings and
notes.
“One of theatrelands biggest social events of the year is the
Theatrical Garden Party at Roehampton in aid of the Actors’
Orphanage, when all the stars of stage and screen lend their
aid to this good cause. This year’s event (29th June 1948)
sees Noël Coward and Margaret Lockwood, looking very
smart in her black and white taffeta suit, the jacket of
which featured three collars and a three-tiered basque,
try their hands at the coconut shy today.”
The Programme for the Theatrical Garden Party in 1938
Provided by Lance Salway
Ed. A photograph of the members of the cast of The Grand
Giggle a regular dramatic feature at the Garden Parties. Here
we see Edmund Gwen, Sir Gerald du Maurier (leaning on the
ladder), Binnie Hale (on the ladder) and Noël Coward, in
mock-dramatic pose.
- 10 -
“Noël Coward, who succeeded the late Gerald du Maurier as President of the Actors’ Orphanage organised a special
attraction called “An Informal Concert” for the Theatrical Garden Party, which is being held today (Monday) in the Queen
Mary Gardens, Regents Park. The photograph shows Mr. Noël Coward (right) with Mr. Robert Montgomery, the film star
from Hollywood, between rehearsals for their show this morning.” (Ed. Photograph taken in 1935).
“Leading actors and
actresses in unexpected
roles helped to make
yesterday’s Theatrical
Garden Party (12th June
1929) in the grounds of
the Royal Hospital,
Chelsea, a rollicking
success. The murder
scene in a thrilling
drama produced by Sir
Gerald du Maurier. Left
to Right: Mr. A. Gattey,
Noël Coward,
Mr. F. Volpi, Miss Norah
Swinburne and the
producer.”
“Theatrical Garden Party in Regent’s Park (9th June 1936)
‘Fishing for Champagne’
The Theatrical Garden Party took place today at Regent’s Park. The
picture shows Mr.. Noël Coward, (the organiser), and Miss Miriam
Hopkins, the famous actress, fishing for champagne.”
FUNDRAISING AT GOLDENHURST
Susannah Slater provides memories of a fundraising event at
Goldenhurst on 26th August 1984 when Dulcie Grey and
Michael Denison unveiled a plaque in memory of Sir Noël
Coward. The programme for the day included Celebrity guests,
A Procession of Vintage Rolls Royces, Marching Band, City of
Canterbury Band, Crafts and Pony Rides and a Poetry Corner
with local actress Miss Olwen Griffiths author of Walking
Your Way.
Moira Lister and Joyce Redfern were also at the event.
In the evening in the marquee there was a show called,
Dulcie Grey and Michael Denison
Where Are The Songs We Sung
“featuring the words and music of
Sir Noël Coward.” This was
performed by the Lissenden singers
from London and one of the
beneficiaries the Aldington Amateur
Dramatic Society.
On display was “Memorabilia of
Sir Noël Coward, His Friends and
Associates’ with items supplied by
The Raymond Mander and Joe
Mitchenson Theatre Collection.”
Michael Denison and Dulcie Grey (3rd from left)
with other guests.
- 12 -
Speaking of Noël Coward
the Alan Farley Interviews
Introduced by Dominic Vlasto
This is the first of a series of pieces which will appear over
several forthcoming editions of Home Chat, featuring
transcripts of interviews conducted by Alan Farley, in pursuit of
his 30-year series of radio programmes for KALW Radio, San
Francisco about Noël Coward and his work, with many actors,
musicians and administrators who had worked closely with
Coward.
A collection of interviews – then known as Conversations
about Coward – was first transcribed in the late 1990s by
Alan’s San Franciscan friend Ron Lazar. At the time, Alan and
myself were hard at work finalizing the information for what
would become the Coward Music Index. The collection of
interview transcripts provided a rich vein of practical
observational details about Coward’s work, and occasional
surprising revelations about the origin or original performance
of pieces of Coward’s music and lyrics, and many small details
from the interviews found their way into both the Music Index
and, following our attendance at the 1999 Noël Coward
Conference at Birmingham University, into the piece on
Coward’s music included in the post-conference volume Look
Back in Pleasure, - The Potency of Cheap Music (Methuen,
2000).
Alan’s impressive range of interviewees were met and
recorded in London, San Francisco, Hollywood, New York,
Switzerland, and many other places in the UK including Kent
and Sussex, as opportunity allowed. I think it is worth giving
an idea of the more significant interviewees here:
Peter Matz
Interviewed by Alan Farley,
May 23, 1986
As the song says, “Let’s start at the very beginning…” Well, at
least with one of the very earliest interviews, with the
accompanist and orchestrator Peter Matz in 1986. This
transcript had been particularly useful to me in the preparation
of The Potency of Cheap Music in 1999. It was clear that in
this instance – it is a fifty-minute interview - that there is way
more than enough for a single-interview article. What follows
below is really no more that heavily edited extracts, to which
an occasional word of editorial comment/explanation is added
[in square brackets].
Peter Matz (1929-2002) was aged 26 when he was very
suddenly launched into one of the most surprising and longlasting successes of his career, taking on the accompaniments
and music arrangements for Coward’s cabaret act at Las Vegas
at rather less than three weeks notice, following the refusal of
the US authorities to grant a work permit to Coward’s UK
accompanist Norman Hackforth. Matz starts by remembering
their initial meeting in New York in mid-May 1955:
Sheridan Morley (1984 & 1989), José Ferrer (1986), Peter
Matz (1986), Joe Layton (1987), Graham Payn (1987 & 1994),
Geoffrey Johnson (1987), Joe Mitchenson (1987), Helene Pons
(1988), Charles Castle & Stanley Hall (1988), Evelyn Laye
(1989), Mary Ellis (1989), Joyce Carey (1989), Alan Strachan
(1989), Norman Hackforth (1990), Wendy Toye (1990), Judy
Campbell (1990), Elaine Stritch (1991), Moira Lister (1991),
Ned Sherrin (1993), Don Seawell (1993), Philip Hoare (1993 &
1995), Peter Greenwell (1995), Harry Allan Towers (1996),
Terry Castle (1996) and Joan Sutherland (1998).
To commemorate Alan Farley’s extraordinary lifetime
contribution to the study and promotion of Coward’s work, Ron
Lazar has now decided to publish Speaking of Coward on line.
The book will be published through AuthorHouse.com and
made available through Amazon.com and several other
prominent online merchants. The proceeds will go to the
copyright holder, National Public Radio, KALW, San
Francisco. Ron Lazar will donate fifty copies to the NCS to be
used to raise funds for the Society .
At the same time, NCS feels that we should highlight and
celebrate Alan’s work in a series of Home Chat articles
extracted from the most important of these interviews.
This is the first of our series of perhaps six articles, most of
which will probably contain extracts from more than one
interview.
PM:“He came to my apartment to audition me, which I thought
was nice. I knew Noël Coward the playwright, I knew about
the plays and so forth, but I had no idea about his songs – that
English Music Hall comedy thing was completely new to me.
Somehow I guess he sensed that.
“He came into my apartment and said, “Well, do you know the
‘Trolley Song’ – can you play it in the key of B?” Some keys
are very difficult to play and you seldom play in the key of B –
all sharps and that kind of thing. So I said, “Well, it’s kind of
weird, but I’ll try”. And he said, “Very fast”, and started
singing in that great funny voice, “In my high starched collar,
in my high top boots”—a Judy Garland song – flying through
the song. So, I caught up with him on the piano, and he sort of
looked down at the keyboard and then he asked me to play one
or two other things which were American film-type songs or
show tunes which I knew.
“And then he said, “Can you be in Los Angeles tomorrow?” I
said, “Yeah, I guess so.” And he said, “Fine, I’ll be at Clifton
Webb’s house. We’ll start rehearsing.” It turned out we had
like ten days – no time at all! And [at Clifton Webb’s House]
he started teaching me, not only his songs, but this whole style
of playing them. I don’t know if he ever thought of himself as
a teacher [but] he was a great director. He made me learn very
forcefully that this was about comedy performance, and a
couple of times he screamed, “Don’t play [i.e. don’t let the
music cover the words] when I’m making a joke!”, and I
- 13 -
gradually saw that this was a whole other kind of music.
“At night I was working on the orchestrations, and began to get a picture of
where we would need the orchestra. What it boiled down to was, the orchestra
would play an introduction and get the thing started, and then mostly it would
be just the piano and the drum and the bass maybe [for the main part of the
song], and then maybe the orchestra would play an interlude and then an ending
– I didn’t really do full-blown orchestrations. But they did sound good! It was
a good band in Las Vegas. I was too young and too dumb to be frightened by all
this. I didn’t realize how important it all was. And, of course, the truth is that it
was a tremendously important thing in his life, but I didn’t know this. For me it
was just a job in Vegas, and it was great!
AF:
“Now, it was recorded…how many sessions, how many shows were
recorded, do you remember?
PM:
“I seem to recall it was three nights, and two shows a night, so
[Columbia Records] probably taped or actually recorded six shows.
AF:
“I was in a record store just the other day and they said they could still
sell as many copies of that album today as ever… and listen to this from
Coward’s Diaries: “Peter Matz knows more about the range of various
instruments and the potentialities of different combinations than anyone of any
age I have ever met in England.” Amazing.
PM:
“That’s nice; but actually he did work in England with a guy who is a
marvelous, marvelous orchestrator and composer, Wally Stott, who is now
Angela Morley and one of the leading composers of film music out in
California [Angela Morley/Wally Stott died in 2009]. I think Noël was just
being nice to me. One thing is true, though: he hadn’t had experience of that
kind of hot dance band, a typical Las Vegas show band with saxophones and
many trumpets and trombones – that was kind of new to him. So my facility
with that combination probably surprised him. And, of course, it’s a highenergy combination, that nightclub band thing.
AF:
“Then later that year there was the TV special [Together With Music,
CBS TV 1955] with Mary Martin, then the following year the recording session
in New York.
PM:
“We rehearsed a lot for the TV special with Mary because it was live –
an hour-and-a-half live! Unbelievable in these days of videotape to think of
that. [Noël and I] rehearsed in New York to start with, then I went and joined
him in Jamaica, which was wonderful. He liked to write in the mornings – he
would be in his study and I would be in my little guest area [working on the
orchestrations]. Then we would all meet for lunch, and rehearse all afternoon.
The material for the show evolved there. Mary was determined to sing
something in her “real” soprano voice, and they argued about that. In the end
he gave in and let her do ‘Un Bel Di’ from Puccini’s Madam Butterfly.
AF:
“You mean, that the skit they did was based on fact?
AF:
“Was all his work done away in his study?
PM:
“Exactly. He took the argument and turned it into a comic sketch event
as part of the show…
I remember the Jamaica trip as being really fun. I had a violent crush on Mary,
so I was trying to get to her in the swimming pool! I remember being just in
awe of the level of the work that was going on and feeling that something kind
of historical was happening.
PM:
“No, he was very comfortable working in front of people … he played
the piano OK, no wrong notes or anything, but he was limited harmonically…
like all of us who compose anything, there are certain things that you fall into
that are frequently called ‘style’ but which are really the demonstration of the
- 14 -
Pete Matz
limitation of what you know about music, so
he tended after a point to repeat certain
harmonic and melodic things. But he wasn’t
closed off to modern music. And if
something was needed [for the show he was
working on], he’d sit at the piano and
compose a few bars and say, “Did you get
that? Someone write that down. That’ll do
for the transition” – he was quite comfortable
doing that.
AF:
“Then, a couple of years later, you
had a sort of falling-out over his ballet
London Morning?
PM:
“The falling-out was basically about
the money! He felt that our relationship was
such that I should still work for him on the
same basis as before, which was rather smallscale; but the fact is that I was doing pretty
well in TV by then, and to stop and go and do
Noël’s project [in London] would have been a
serious financial drop. I was married and had
one small kid, you know how these things
are… and I think to be really honest, I didn’t
have the passion about doing the work that he
wanted. There seemed to be a lot of loose
ends, and I finally had to say, “Noël, I don’t
think I can do it”. He was very upset. It
seemed to him that I was being disloyal.
AF:
“But then you worked with him
again on Sail Away?
PM:
“It was my first job in the theatre as
Music Director – I’d had jobs as rehearsal
pianist, dance music arranger and so forth,
but it really represented my whole reason for
He was playing in Suite in Three Keys, and we went backstage
to see him and then met a night or two later and had dinner.
Another day we met him for lunch.
having gone to New York to begin with, so I was thrilled that
he asked me. It was a wonderful learning experience.
AF:
“What was Elaine Stritch like to work with?
PM:
“Wonderful! Brilliant! Funny! One of the best
working actors I’ve ever known in my life. I had a chance to
work with her again recently on Musical Comedy Tonight on
TV. Elaine did a Rodgers and Hart song called ‘To Keep My
Love Alive’. The first orchestration I wrote we rehearsed with
her the day before the show, and she said, “It’s not right. It
doesn’t work.” I said, “Wait a minute, we can fix…” She said,
“It’s not about fixing. This is wrong!”. I went home and it was
late, and I said, “She’s right! God damn it, she’s right.” And I
rewrote it, and a new orchestration came in the next morning,
and she said, “Now that, I can work with that!”. She’s
meticulous. Every word counts. And at the end of it she gave a
great performance.
AF:
“Did you spend much time with him aside from just
working?
PM:
“Not an awful lot, but he did spend several evenings
with me and my ex-wife, Janet. They got along great, and used
to argue about all kinds of things – friendly arguments, but he
loved to tear into anything. It was the same apartment there,
for a while, where he had come to audition me, on East 61st
Street; and we visited in Bermuda with him once, which was a
wonderful, delightful time. Then when we went to England in
1968 we spent a bit of time together.
He bequeathed me a conductor’s baton – a wonderful silver
baton that folds up into a little case. It was given to him by
some orchestra he went to conduct up north in England many
years before I knew him – would it have been the Liverpool
Philharmonic? – he’d come to guest conduct one of the suites
of music from one of his shows, and they presented him with
this baton. He willed that to me, which I thought was quite
wonderful.”
*
*
*
[Peter Matz died in Los Angeles on August 9th 2002 and was
survived by his second wife Marilynn Lovell Matz, two sons
from his first marriage, Zachary and Jonas, and one
grandson. Home Chat published an obituary in its October
2002 edition. The photograph of Peter Matz used both there
and for this article was taken by Alan Farley at the time of his
1986 interview.]
An informal photograph probably taken by Cole Lesley
after the official photo shoot for the original cover of:
‘Noël Coward at Las Vegas’ shown here on the right
PHOTO: NC Aventales AG
- 15 -
ALanceChoice
of
Coward
Salway introduces us to...
... A Guide offered by the Granada TV Series of televised Coward plays which includes
‘Noël Coward Talks to Granada’ and his introductions to the individual plays...
NOËL COWARD TALKS TO GRANADA
August 1964
“I don’t like propaganda in art, that’s why I attack very rightwing or very left-wing plays; anything that smells of
propaganda to me spells bad art. So therefore I slightly resent
it. I like being entertained in the theatre, and I’ve been
entertained a great deal recently. It gave me a great feeling of
happiness because I love the theatre qua theatre and I haven’t
seen such good acting in such a short space of time for a long
while.
I’ve nothing but admiration and praise for the younger
playwrights who really mind about the theatre. I find the thing
that irritates me is minding about a political or personal cause
more than the theatre.
Having been brought up in the theatre I naturally mind
about the theatre first. And I think maybe that is what has got
me this reputation for being reactionary. I’m not reactionary
about youth. I want them to do well, but I do wish that they
would learn that playwriting is a craft as well as an art.
I was brought up in it, both the craft of playwriting and the
craft of acting. I have very little patience with what is known
as—and is I think being rather overdone—The Method. Every
great star and great actor that I’ve ever known had method.
Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt, Ina Claire, Peter Evans,
Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, they all work with method, but
it is not ‘The’ Method.
‘The’ Method has been bowdlerised. It’s been made into a
sort of joke and it’s not quite fair because a field of very good
actors has come out of the Actors’ Studio in New York and a
great many very bad actors too. But that applies to any acting
school. The thing I think that is wrong about ‘The’ Method is
that too much emphasis is placed upon the actor’s view of what
he is doing. The actor is encouraged to talk about himself, to
think about himself in relation to the part too much.
The way to act is to learn to act technically, to learn your
words, to know what the play is about, to think it out in your
own mind and then come on and do it—not waste a whole lot
of the director’s time by saying ‘Should my motivation be
because I was bitten by a rocking horse when I was four?’
This I think is a bore and I also think it’s a great waste of time.
In fact, I do not allow it. I don’t like actors to keep coming and
explaining to me how they’re going to do it and what they’re
going to do—that’s their job. If they’ve got the script and have
read it they should know.
Acting is an art and a craft, it is not a question of a state of
being. The mistake that many ‘Method’ actors make is that they
believe that they can give the same degree of emotion at every
performance. This they cannot do, if it is true. It must never,
never be true except in rehearsal. The mood must be set, and
what must be given to the audience is a repeat of what they
have originally felt. This must be technically sound and
accurate. It is no use telling me that when you come on the
stage you lose yourself in your part — if you lose yourself you
lose your audience. It’s a fatal mistake and when I hear that
actors have to get in the mood before they go on it is all
nonsense.
What they’ve got to do is to remember their words, project
them clearly, generally forward in the mouth. They’ve got to
remember not only the five rows of the stalls, they’ve got to
remember the people in the gallery and without shouting
they’ve got to appear perfectly intimate and at ease—but every
word must be heard all over the theatre. This does justice to the
author and in the long run to themselves as actors.”
Present Laughter - Monday 10th August at 9.10pm
“Present Laughter is a flagrant example of what is known in
theatrical parlance as a ‘star vehicle’, which means that,
although most of the parts in it are good, they are all
subservient to the leading part. It is, in fact, the leading part
that carries the play.
Through all the years that the living theatre has existed
there has been a great deal of nonsense talked and written about
the iniquities of the ‘star’ system. It has been attacked and
vilified with recurrent fervour by professional critics, amateur
critics, unsuccessful playwrights, unsuccessful actors, overidealistic managers and occasionally, with sublime disregard
for cause and effect, even by some of the stars themselves. The
only voices not heard in this shrill chorus of condemnation are
those of the commercial managers, who possibly to their
eternal shame are concerned with paying their rents, their
staffs, their actors, their authors’ royalties, their production
expenses and making a reasonable profit. These gentlemen,
even though their artistic judgment may occasionally falter,
even though their choice of plays may be motivated by the
hope of financial gain rather than critical esteem, need not be
utterly despised. They regard the theatre, rightly to my mind, as
primarily a place of entertainment and they do their best to
provide the public with what they think it wants. The despised
‘star’ system to true followers of the drama may appear to be a
shameful compromise, but to a hard working playwright,
believe me, it is frequently a very great comfort.
Having been a hard working playwright myself for fortyfive years I must say fearlessly that on this question I am
entirely on the side of the managers. When a new play is
produced in one of the smaller more avant- garde theatres with
a starless but efficient cast it is almost certain to receive good
press notices. But as a general rule, unless it happens to be a
very remarkable play indeed, this is about all it will get. To me
good press notices are not enough. If I had ever cared about
good press notices I should have shot myself in the early
twenties.
Present Laughter was written with the sensible object of
providing me with a bravura part. It was an enormous success
and I received excellent notices and, to my bewilderment and
considerable dismay, the play also received excellent notices.
The very thought of this so unnerved me that I can say no
more.”
- 16 -
Blithe Spirit - Monday 17 August at 9.00 pm
“When I was one-and-twenty I was ambitious, cheerful and
high-spirited. I had never heard of the death wish and I was
blissfully unaware that I belonged to a dying civilisation. Today
this dubious implication is pitched at me from all directions.
Despair is the new religion, the new mode. It is in the books we
read, in the music we hear and far too often in the plays we see.
Well I am no longer one-and-twenty, I still have no preoccupation with the death wish. I am still ambitious, cheerful
and I hope not offensively high spirited, and I am still unaware
that I belong to a dying civilisation. If I do there is really
nothing to be done about it. So I am going to press on with my
life as I like living it until I die of natural causes or an atom
bomb blows me to smithereens.
I knew in my ‘teens that the world was full of hatred,
cruelty, vice, unrequited love, despair, destruction and murder. I
also knew at the same time that it was filled with kindness,
pleasure, joy, requited love, fun, excitement, generosity,
laughter and friends. And through all my years I have never
changed in my mind the balance of these absurd phenomena. I
do become increasingly exasperated, however, when in my own
beloved profession everything that I have been brought up and
trained to believe in is now decried.
Nowadays a well-constructed play with a beginning and a
middle and an end is despised, and a light comedy whose sole
purpose is to amuse is dismissed as being trivial and
insignificant. Since when has laughter been so insignificant?
No merriment apparently must be allowed to scratch the set
grim patina of these dire years. We must all just sit and wait for
death, or hurry it on according to how we feel. To my mind one
of the most efficacious ways of hurrying it on is to sit in the
theatre and look at a verbose, ill-constructed play, acted with
turgid intensity which has received rave notices and is closing
on Saturday.
Perfection in art is, like anything else, a question of degree.
All creative artists strive to achieve it within the limits of the
form they have chosen. I must admit, with what must seem to
be a refreshing gust of modesty, that I have never yet achieved
the great play that I have always longed and will always long to
write. But I am for ever grateful to the almost psychic gift that
enabled me to write Blithe Spirit in five days during one of the
darkest years of the war.
It was not meticulously constructed in advance. In fact only
one day lapsed between its original conception and the moment
when I sat down to write it. It fell into my mind and on to the
manuscript. Six weeks later it was produced and ran in London
for four and a half years and I am still wondering whether or
not it was important. Only time will tell.”
The Vortex - Monday 24 August at 9.00 pm
“The Vortex was produced on the 25 November 1924, at the
Everyman Theatre, Hampstead. It was an immediate success. It
established me both as a playwright and as an actor, which was
very fortunate because up until that time I had not proved
myself to be so hot in either capacity. With the success came a
lot of the pleasurable trappings : new suits, a car, silk shirts,
and an excessive amount of dressing gowns and pyjamas and
still more extravagant amount of publicity. I was photographed,
interviewed, photographed again, in my house, in the park, in
the street, in my dressing- room, at my piano, with my dear old
mother, without my dear old mother, and on one occasion
sitting up in an over-elaborate bed looking like a heavily doped
Chinese illusionist. I’ve always felt that this photograph did me
a great deal of harm. Anybody looking at it would conclude at
once, with a certain justification, that I was a weedy sensualist
in the last stages of physical and moral degeneration and they’d
better hurry quickly to see me in my play before my inevitable
demise put that rather macabre pleasure beyond their reach. All
this was very good for business, temporarily, but after a time it
became tiresome. For many years I was never mentioned in the
press without allusions to cocktail parties, jazz, post-war
hysteria and decadence.
My object in The Vortex was to write a good play with a
whacking good part in it for myself, and I’m thankful to say,
with a few modest reservations, that I think I succeeded. It is
still, I hope, a good play and it is certainly still a whacking
good part. Be that as it may however, that first night in that
little Everyman Theatre in Hampstead forty years ago, and
another first night the following year at the Henry Miller
Theatre in New York, were two of the great moments in my
career for which I shall never cease to be grateful.”
Design for Living - Monday 31 August at 9.10 pm
“Design for Living, as a project not as a play, sat patiently at
the back of my mind for eleven years. It was waiting until Lynn
Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and I had each arrived by different roads
at the exact moment in our careers when we felt we could play
together with a more or less equal chance of success. In the
interim, being old friends, we met and planned and argued and
discussed, and parted again. We all three many times knew we
wanted a play written by me, but we were searching wildly
through our minds to find three suitable characters on which to
base it. At one moment we were to be foreigners. Lynn a
Eurasian, Alfred a German, and me a Chinese. At another
moment an acrobatic group, rapping out ali-oops and flicking
handkerchiefs at each other. And then there was another idea,
that I should write a play the entire action of which took place
in a gigantic bed, and dealt with life and love in the Schnitzler
manner. This idea was hilariously discarded after Alfred had
made some suggestions of stage directions which, if faithfully
followed, would have landed all three of us in jail. Finally
when the whole project seemed to have sunk out of sight for
ever I received a cable from them in the Argentine, where I
happened to be at the moment, saying ‘Darling, our Theatre
Guild contract is up in June, we shall be free, what about it?’
This not unnaturally made the rest of my South American
holiday a little distracted. However a month or two later in a
small Norwegian freight boat sailing from Panama to Los
Angeles suddenly the play germinated in my mind and I wrote
it, and with a sublime disregard of the flamboyant Mexican
coast line on the starboard horizon, I set the mise-en-scene
firmly in Paris, London and New York.
Design for Living as a title is ironic, rather than dogmatic. I
never intended for a moment to suggest that the design for
living in the play- applied to anyone outside its principal
characters, Gilda, Otto, Leo. These three glib over-articulate
amoral creatures force their lives and their problems, impelled
chiefly by the impact of their personalities each upon the other.
They are like moths in a pool of light, unable to tolerate the
lonely outer darkness and equally unable to share the light
without constantly colliding and bruising one another’s wings.
The end of the play is equivocal. The three of them are left, as
the curtain falls, laughing. Different minds have found different
reasons for this laughter. Some saw in it an anticipation of
some sort of triangular carnal frolic. Others with less ribald
- 17 -
imaginations merely saw it as a fairly neat way of bringing the
curtain down. I as the author prefer to think that Gilda, Otto
and Leo are laughing at themselves.”
The Casts
PRESENT LAUGHTER
A Comedy. Written in 1939.
London production 29 Apr. 1943, Haymarket Theatre.
Original Cast:
Daphne Stillington
Miss Erikson
Fred
Monica Reed
Garry Essendine
Liz Essendine
Roland Maule
Henry Lyppiatt
Morris Dixon
Joanna Lyppiatt
Lady Saltburn
Granada TV Cast:
Monday 10th August at 9.10pm
Daphne Stillington
Miss Erikson
Monica Reed
Garry Essendine
Liz Essendine
Roland Maule
Henry Lyppiatt
Morris Dixon
Joanna Lyppiatt
Lady Saltburn
Jennifer Gray
Molly Johnson
Billy Thatcher
Beryl Measor
Noël Coward
Joyce Carey
James Donald
Gerald Case
Dennis Price
Judy Campbell
Gwen Floyd
Jennie Linden
Ruth Porcher
Joan Benham
Peter Wyngarde
Ursula Howells
James Bolam
Edwin Apps
Danvers Walker
Barbara Murray
Jane Eccles
An improbable farce in three acts. Written in 1941 First
performed, Opera House, Manchester, 16 June 1941. Later at
Piccadilly Theatre, London, 2 July 1941,
St James’s Theatre, 23 Mar. 1942.
Edith
Ruth
Charles
Dr Bradman
Mrs Bradman
Madame Arcati
Elvira
Ruth
Charles
Madame Arcati
Dr Bradman
Mrs Bradman
Edith
Elvira
Helen Cherry
Griffith Jones
Hattie Jacques
Edward Jewesbury
Coral Fairweather
Ursula Hirst
Joanna Dunham
THE VORTEX
BLITHE SPIRIT
Original Cast:
Granada TV Cast:
Monday 17th August at 9.10pm
Ruth Reeves
Fay Compton
Cecil Parker
Martin Lewis
Moya Nugent
Margaret Rutherford
Kay Hammond
Noël Coward adapted the play for a film produced
in 1944 with Rex Harrison as Charles and Constance
Cummings as Ruth.
A play in three acts. Written in 1923. London production 16
Dec. 1924, Royalty Theatre.
Original Cast:
Preston
Helen Saville
Pauncefort Quentin
Clara Hibbert
Florence Lancaster
Tom Veryan
Nicky Lancaster
David Lancaster
Bunty Mainwaring
Bruce Fairlight
Claire Keep
Mary Robson
F. Kinset Peile
Millie Sim
Lilian Braithwaite
Alan Hollis
Noël Coward
Bromley Davenport
Molly Kerr
Ivor Barnard
First American production 16 Sept. 1925, Henry Miller
Theatre, New York.
Granada TV Cast:
Monday 24 August at 9.10pm
Bunty Mainwaring
Tom Veryan
Pauncefort Quentin
Helen Saville
Nicky Lancaster
Bruce Fairlight
Clara Hibbert
Preston
Florence Lancaster
David Lancaster
Ann Bell
Philip Bond
Tony Bateman
Faith Brook
Nicholas Pennell
Tom Gill
Bernadette Milnes
Angela Barrie
Margaret Johnston
Noël Howlett
DESIGN FOR LIVING
A comedy. Written in 1932 NewYork production 24 Jan. 1933,
Ethel Barrymore Theatre. London production 25 Jan. 1939.
Haymarket Theatre.
New York
London
Gilda
Lynn Fontanne
Diana Wynyard
Ernest
Campbell Gullan
Alan Webb
Otto
Alfred Lunt
Anton Walbrook
Leo
Noël Coward
Rex Harrison
Miss Hodge
Gladys Henson
Dorothy Hamilton
Photographer
Ward Bishop
(Cut in London)
Mr Birbeck
Philip Tonge
Cyril Wheeler
Grace Torrence Ethel Borden
Everley Gregg
Helen Carver
Phyllis Connard
Cathleen Cordell
Henry Carver
Alan Campbell
Ross Landon
Matthew
Macleary Stennett James Mclntyre
- 18 -
Granada TV Cast:
Monday 31st August at 9.10pm
Gilda
Leo
Otto
Ernest
Miss Hodge
Mr Birbeck
Grace Torrence
Matthew
Helen Carver
Henry Carver
Our thanks go toLance Salway for providing a piece that I
doubt many of us will have seen before.
Jill Bennett
Daniel Massey
John Wood
Richard Pearson
Madge White
Desmond Newling
Stella Bonheur
Benny Nightingale
Carol Cleveland
Warren Stanhope
An Earlier Essay Competition
R. P., Barnet; Norman E. Gibbs, Daventry ; BM/ BEFL, High
Holborn; “Aldersey,” Oatlands, Weybridge; Mary Lake,
Ampthill Square, N.W.I, and the cheque for Five Pounds to
Miss Joan Littlefield.
With thanks again to Lance Salway here are the published
results of the competition in
Play Pictorial No 368 - of November 1st 1932
The Prize Essay Competition
Plays and Players, our Sixpenny Illustrated Review, whose
motto is “Be Just and Fear Not,” had the happy thought to
invite the public to express their opinions on Noël Coward with
a Five Pound bonus for the best essay sent in. The seven score
odd essays were submitted to a fairly intelligent individual, an
experienced dramatist and actor of the past, and he selected
half-a-dozen with the intimation that he left to us the invidious
task of naming the winner.
Taking two nights to sleep on our cogitations, we decided
eventually on the paper by Miss Joan Littlefield, of Alexandra
Avenue, N.22. In our announcement in Plays and Players
we reserved the right to print such other of the essays as we
thought proper, and accordingly a guinea will be sent to each of
the following :
THE PRIZE ESSAY
By Joan Littlefield
It would perhaps have been better for Noël Coward if he had
not been a child of the theatre. He has lived so long in the
world of make-believe, has mastered so easily the arts and
crafts that go to the making of a play, has, in fact, so infallible a
sense of what is “good theatre” that it is difficult for him to get
away from the merely theatrical.
That he is the biggest all-round man of the theatre of his
generation is unquestioned. The man who could create and
stage such a show as Cavalcade, contrive the felicities of a
revue like Words and Music, compose a Bitter Sweet, and spin
the thin web of story that was Private Lives into an evening’s
entertainment, stands unrivalled to-day in talent and versatility.
He has written drama and comedy, devised spectacle and revue,
composed music that is the very echo of his time ; but though it
has been obvious from the first that he was a stern moralist, the
prophet as well as the historian of the ‘Bright Young Things,’
one, who perhaps more than any figure in England, has
epitomised the tragedy of post-war nerves and post-war futility,
he has always been so much of the theatre that people have not
taken him seriously.
Congratulations to All.
In nearly every case, the Essays showed a fair insight into
Mr. Coward’s work, combined with an admirable gift of
expression. Many of them, however, were written by
unqualified admirers and were noticeable more for their
enthusiasm than for their judicial quality.
A few went to the other extreme, and held but lightly Mr.
Coward’s gifts as author and composer, but allowing full
praise as opportunist and producer.
The essays we have printed in this issue give a general
view of Mr. Coward’s career and accomplishment, and on the
whole, are a fairly sound summary of Mr. Coward’s
achievements and possibilities.
The majority of his plays have dealt only with a small
section of society—cocktail-drinking, unmoral wasters, for the
most part—and though the characters are drawn from the life
and with a satire that goes home, they are to the average
theatregoer merely figures in a play—the dramatic skill with
which they are handled only adding to their unreality.
For always, however serious his purpose may be, Mr.
Coward is too efficient a craftsman to miss a good curtain, or
indeed, the tiniest possibility of dramatic effect. Even in
Cavalcade which, together with his unacted Post Mortem, is
probably his most significant achievement so far, there have
been moments when his sense of the dramatic and of the
possibilities of Drury Lane stage, have run away with him.
The first thing one realises about Cavalcade is that it is
magnificent “theatre,” and for many people that is its only
significance. But Mr. Coward meant it to be more than that,
did, indeed, get into it something of the spirit of the immediate
past, and the piece, which might easily have become bathos, is
notable for its restraint and for the economy of means with
which its greatest effects—Queen Victoria’s funeral, for
instance, and the symbolic treatment of the War years—are
achieved.
- 19 -
In it, too, he got away, in the earlier scenes at least, from the
smart set which occupies too much of his attention, and proved
that he is capable of understanding the ordinary man as well as
the neurotic, and that he can be something more than the
mouthpiece of smart sophistication.
If to have genius is to recognise the psychological moment
for writing and producing a given work, then Mr. Coward has it
in abundance. When people were tired of jazz, he gave them
Bitter Sweet ; when a wave of patriotism swept the country,
Cavalcade was ready, and so it has always been.
But if one’s definition of genius is of something more than
this, then Mr. Coward has yet to prove that he has depth as well
as brilliance. The stuff, I think, is there but unless Mr. Coward
puts up a stiff fight against his craftsmanship, he will continue
to remain the playboy of the West End world.
4, Alexandra Avenue, N.22.
CRAFTSMANSHIP is the plain man’s word for all that sums
up the sure and certain building of a labour of love to polished
fruition. Nothing here of flame and divine uncertainties, of
passion or of despair, which must accompany the birth of those
masterpieces delivered to the world at slow difficult intervals.
To make a decision between these two qualities in the
person of Noël Coward the critic must understand acting,
theatrical production and showmanship, each separately, and
not be dazzled by the conjunction of the three, possessed in
such large measure by one man.
Coward is an “all round “ man of the Theatre, versed in
every branch of his art.
Genius or Craftsmanship ?
Divine cunning certainly. The inspired knowledge of when
and how to say the word, to keep a finger on the pulse of the
times and of the temperaments, and to establish eternal contact
with humanity.
It is given to him as so few indeed to understand the value
of the curb, the gentle jerk that lifts our heads above saccharine
or somnolence. His the hand that drops the acid into the sweet,
and tempers the whole.
So it was with Shakespeare and with Dickens. They were
always one of ourselves, endearing themselves to us because of
their eternal comradeship.
It is not magnificence nor splendour, nor rhetoric that
makes us hail Noël Coward as the supreme craftsman of our
theatrical age, that separates him from the impermanence of
others, but that sure brain that understands the mind of the
people, and is content to be one of them.
It is always difficult to say “Genius” to men born in our
time. We are noticeably inclined to attribute to the word some
abnormal efflorescence of the intelligence, rather than the thin
but steady flame of the divine that shines in unexpected places.
This artistry of Noël Coward seems to just light this flame.
It is not always evident, not indeed nearly so often as many
would unhesitatingly declare; but, at moments when the true
note is so splendidly struck, and with so unerring a hand, and
the answering chord is wrung from us, then—then we can
declare with laughter or with tears, that the link with the divine
is surely there, and the master hand at work among us.
Rosamond Poole, Hadley, Barnet.
Assessing the value of Noël Coward’s achievements in the
drama, the first essential considerations to examine for
criticism are those of a personal nature; his versatility, the
quality, the technique, the depths and the realities of his work,
its design, development and importance in relation to life itself.
Not until these questions have been answered, and one has
traced something of his career as an actor, and its important
influences, can one fairly determine his claims as Craftsman or
Genius.
Dr. Johnson has it that “where there is no hope, there can be
no endeavour.” Coward has had both, and he has succeeded in
his youth because of his untiring energy and enterprise, his
strength of will and power of concentration, his opportunism,
his sincerity, and the belief he has always had in himself. Apart
from being an experimentalist, and writing his own way, and
fighting against adversity and hostile criticism afterwards, he
has shaped his work with craftsmanship, having literally grown
up in the Theatre. Thus the experience and the insight he
gained in those early years, when he was struggling for success,
puts him in possession of the technicalities of dramatic
authorship and production itself.
Coward has written brilliantly and stupidly, loosely and
thoughtlessly, hurriedly, implied a great deal without saying
much, created some characters that talk like fools and amuse
themselves in frivolous absurdities and glorious quarrels, with
a great amount of talk and little action; he has given laughter
and boredom, some intelligence, but a great deal more inane
nonsense. About his comedies there is that essential
restlessness of atmosphere and that flippancy and independence
that is characteristic of our time. He has upheld ‘Youth,’ but not
flattered it; has expressed just what he has felt and thought with
conviction. His candid expressions and indictments and
satirisations of the ‘Smart Set’ have revealed these people as
shallow puppets, bored with life generally, but back-biting
against each other with malicious delight.
A genius writes of all types of characters; he understands
and possesses a depth of feeling, and has an extensive
knowledge of men and women, and life itself. Genius creates
life, and interprets its finer shades of meaning, both tragic and
comic. In this light. Coward’s gallery of people and scenes are
restricted, one is conscious of many repetitions in plot and
development; one feels the people are set to type, they have no
growth, and the plays themselves no real depths, for he has
seemingly worked to a formula, and that is not Genius.
Noël Coward, then, is a man of many parts, who is still an
experimentalist; he is of the Theatre and knows what it
demands, and so he is brilliantly endowed with craftsmanship
through experience, but his knowledge of life itself is limited.
Post Mortem, though, is astonishing proof of what he is capable
of; it vindicates his position, for in this, his most serious
contribution to drama, he shows a greater command of
language, writes with intense creative feeling, and proves how,
if he so desires, he can write of real vital problems with the
same biting satire and flair for burlesque that has been a
distinctive feature of his work throughout Comedy to Revue.
Only when he has crowned his glorious prelude with plays of
character, maturity, and value, can he be acclaimed a Genius ;
until then he will remain a doyen of the stage, blazing his trail
successfully with craftsmanship, comedy, music, song, and wit,
but at the same time developing the seeds of genius that he has,
to take his ultimate place amongst the great and famous.
- 20 -
Norman E. Gibbs, 59, St. James Street, Daventry.
That Noël Coward is an accomplished craftsman is beyond
dispute. In fact, he is a master of several crafts. He has amply
demonstrated his technical ability as actor, producer, dramatist,
lyric writer and composer of light music. If versatility
constituted genius, we could acclaim Mr. Coward without
further discussion.
Thus we are led to the question: “What is genius ?” The
problem has been considered by philosophers and
psychologists since the days of Aristotle, but so far no precise
definition has been formulated. Fortunately the dictionaries
give at least a hint. They state that genius is intellectual power,
transcends what can be taught, is individual in character, and
above all creates original conceptions, forms and expressions.
These suggestions agree with, and to some extent clarify the
vague ideas we all have about genius. In their light let us
examine Mr. Coward’s dramatic compositions, on which
primarily his fame rests.
Mr. Coward’s plays and revues reveal an outstanding sense
of the stage. His situations are skilfully contrived; his dialogue
is economical and pointed, and can be as occasion requires
tender, witty or caustic; his characterisation, if it often runs to
type, is faithfully observed, and at times rises to individual
portraiture. His satire is mordant; and though he has been
credited with a desire to be sensational, his works bear out his
claim of a genuinely ethical inspiration. In short, there is
sufficient evidence of Mr. Coward’s intellectual, emotional and
moral powers.
Mr. Coward has contributed nothing to dramatic technique,
though an experimental tendency may be noted in Post Mortem
and Cavalcade, which are significantly among his most recent
work. He has been content to use the old forms as a vehicle for
the expression of his ideas, for his denunciation of post-war
society and (what is often overlooked) for his condemnation of
ignoble marital ideals.
In other words his work is original in substance but not in
form. But that it is individual is questionable. He has voiced,
however ably, merely the disillusionment common to the
younger generation; indeed it is precisely in being their
mouthpiece that his importance, hitherto, has consisted. One
looks in vain in Mr. Coward’s plays for that individual note,
that peculiar personal quality, that is visible in the plays of
Shaw and Barrie; or, if that comparison is deemed unfair, in the
plays of say Dunsany and O’Neill.
That Mr. Coward’s success has been exceptional is
obviously no evidence. Equally inconclusive is the imposing
output of so young a writer, or the fact that the first two plays
(I’ll Leave It To You and The Young Idea) were written in the
early twenties—a striking achievement. And, be it noted, these
two plays compare not unfavourably with Mr. Coward’s
subsequent work.
That is to say that, though his technique has become more
firm and mature, his work has not shown that progressive
development in depth and substance which would indicate a
truer insight and a wider vision.
The conclusion, then, is that Mr. Coward’s title to be ranked
as a genius is “non proven.” But he is only thirty-three. At the
same age Barrie had only begun to write for the stage, and
Shaw’s first play had yet to be written. In Mr. Coward’s
equipment— his gift for the theatre, his power of satire, his
courage, his sincerity and his social conscience—may be
discerned, it is reasonable to hope, the true stuff of genius. If
we deny that he is a genius in esse, we salute him as a genius
in posse.
BM/BEFL, High Holborn, W.C.I.
The subject of your competition interests me so much, that
although I have not seen by any means all Mr. Coward’s
productions—notably not Cavalcade —I feel I must make my
effort.
For Noël Coward has at least this feature of genius : he
makes people think about him, hard and long.
Which leads direct to another consideration. I find one
thinks of his work solely from the dramatic point of view. He
does not preach, he does not teach, he does not scoff, he does
not upbraid. He is the exact antithesis to Mr. Bernard Shaw
who forces his views on life and past history and the present
age into dramatic form, in which they often appear decidedly
uncomfortable.
Mr. Coward has his age at his finger-tips but he does not
moralise on it, he simply uses it—with consummate
craftsmanship.
If I am right so far, we are getting very near to the great
artist. But before venturing a step farther, I think there is this to
be said. One must always accept the artist’s hypothesis, or
problem, or call it what you will; there is no true criticism
otherwise.
If, on Mr. Coward stating : “I am going to write a play
about two spoilt and frivolous people who alternate between
excessive love-making and violent quarrelling, and who have
little hesitation in coming to blows and rolling about _on the
floor” — his critic replies— “How disgusting! Why can’t you
write a pretty play?” that critic is really refusing to enter the
lists. But if his answer is Granted! Now go ahead and let’s see
what you can make of it. If he meets his author on his own
ground, and may find that something has been made of it very
subtle and remarkable indeed.
But what more is needed ? —a sense sublime. Of something
far more deeply interfused — Something, for which
craftsmanship is only as the scaffolding, and a piquant
modernity only the ornament. Something which has no age, no
date, no nationality, it is so profoundly touching, so deeply
human.
This Noël Coward, has to my mind, achieved in one play at
least, and, for me, that one achievement stamps him with
genius.
There runs through Bitter Sweet a vein of true poetry. The
author presents us with a woman who lives so richly, deeply
and courageously, that her life, whatever its events, is worth
while. She is of the same temper as Juliet and Desdemona, and
there is a passionate glory in the heart of all their stories.
This play seemed to me, also, superbly constructed,
particularly the great scene in the cafe where the lovers are
locked in a last embrace, and the cold-blooded lecher who has
hilled one and widowed the other, looks on, contemptuous and
complacent.
I saw it with a friend, herself an artist, and on our
homeward journey she wrote the following on the margin of
her programme, and handed it to me :
“If I should never paint or write again. Life were not wholly
weariness and pain. Still could I hear the high refrain of bliss.
And lose myself an hour, in work like this.”
“ALDERSEY,” Oatlands, Weybridge.
First let us consider the difference between the two words
Genius and Craftsman. Genius is essentially a spiritual quality,
craftsmanship a material one. One must be born a genius, but
craftsmanship can be acquired by careful work and study.
Genius usually manifests itself, in whatever form it is to take,
- 21 -
early in life, whereas it takes at least several years of hard work
to attain any marked degree of proficiency as a craftsman.
With Noël Coward, it seems that he has never had much
thought outside the theatre, and his career as an actor began at
the age of ten. His musical talent was also quickly shown, and
he is said to have been able to play any piece of music that he
had happened to hear, with his own improvisations and
variations, without being able to read a note of music. He has
been, it appears a playwright, if not a composer, from his
earliest childhood.
It has been said that the extraordinary success of his plays
may lie, not so much, perhaps, in the virtue of the plays
themselves, as in his uncanny sense of knowing exactly the
right type of play to produce at a particular moment. Given that
this is so, a clever craftsman who knew his public and had a
sound knowledge of psychology, might be able to achieve this
once or twice, but to keep a finger on the pulse of the theatregoing people and know at any time and without error, whether
they will be m a romantic, patriotic, cynical or just willing-tobe- amused frame of mind in say, next December, needs the
intuitive perception of the genius.
Another distinction between the two—a craftsman, forced
to rely on his acquired knowledge, and at best that is limited,
tends to develop a “one track” mind. Having brought to
perfection certain ideas, he is often content to use them again
and again in varying forms, his imagination thus becomes
dulled and hîs work stereotyped. On the other hand the genius,
if more erratic, is guided by intuition, his ideas come from
inspiration and his imagination is unbounded. He must, of
necessity, learn the technical side of his work in order to carry
out his ideas, but having once acquired it, it takes second place
in his mind, to be called on when required.
The work of Noël Coward, especially during the last year or
two, shows an ever-growing power of versatility and
imagination. Bitter Sweet, Private Lives, Cavalcade, and Words
and Music, are linked only by his characteristic music. The first
three, although so different in character, have the same virtue of
being real. Their characters are real people, with whom one
laughed and wept in sympathy. The delicate crinoline romance
of Bitter Sweet, with its haunting music, which took the hearts
of its audience back to those bygone days and ways, Private
Lives brought them right up to date, yet in both the reality was
there and it was certainly there in the living pages of history
that was Cavalcade. Words and Music, as a revue naturally
differs in the quality of its reality, yet the polished satire is none
the less, rather painfully perhaps true.
Can there be any doubt that Noël Coward possesses a depth
of understanding, a quickness of perception, a natural gift of
satire and dramatic art impossible for even a brilliant craftsman
to acquire, and belong only to those of whom we speak as a
genius.
You and Yours...
Items from NCS Members
This photograph has been sent in by Susannah Slater and shows
Donald Sinden unveiling the commemorative plaque to mark
Noël Coward’s birthplace at 131, Waldegrave Road, Teddington
where Noël’s family had been living since 1883.
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Mary Lake, “Greengates,” 20, Ampthill Square, N.W.I.
Brenda Bantock recalls a
treasured memory sparked
by ‘Lady in the Dark
Dear John Knowles,
A coincidence of events returned me in memory to
New York, when at the age of 12 I, among several other
evacuees then under the auspices of the Edwin Gould
Foundation, was taken to see Gertrude Lawrence and
Danny Kaye in Lady in the Dark on Broadway.
The memorable performances by Gertrude Lawrence
and the then emerging star Danny Kaye have enabled me
to remember the Kurt Weil melodies and the Gershwin
lyrics over these many years.
I often wondered why Lady in the Dark had not been
re-visited more often on air when on 2nd June on the
Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs, the retiring
Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King
requested Jenny’s yearning fantasy... ‘My Ship Has
Sails...’
The following day Granville and I received Home Chat
with the article featuring the Broadway show and much
more concerning Noël Coward.
It was Noël who, with his committee of kind and
concerned fellow actors and acresses, had made it possible
for children in their care to evacuate to New York during
the War years and then, as an added gift, enabled us to see
several other excellent productions.
Sincerely,
Brenda Bantock
NCS REUNION IN SARASOTA
NCS members Jim Griffith and
Bobi Sanderson held a reunion
and dinner for past NCS
Chairman Barbara Longford and
her husband Patrick, with
Douglas Gordon and Michael
Chen in attendance at their home
in Sarasota.
Ken Starrett joined the party
through an online conference call
as he was unable to attend in
person - for reasons that are
explained elsewhere in this
month’s Home Chat.
The dinner adopted the theme
of Coward songs with:
Cavalcade, Sail Away, Nina and
World Weary.
Other guests included:
Dean and Barbara Bock, David
Coyle, John and Alida DeJongh,
Jack Denison, Taylor and Corrine
French, Nancy Gross, Ellen
Harrison, Marian Kessler, Fran
Knight, John Markham, Fred and
Molly Moffat, Tom Monaghan,
Bill Murtagh and Madge
Stapleton.
Pictured here from Left to Right are:
Michael Chen, Jim Griffiths, Barbara Longford, Douglas Gordon, Bobi Sanderson
and Patrick Longford in Sarasota.
Home Chat is a magazine produced by The Noël Coward Society, funded through the generosity of The Noël Coward Foundation.
Noël Coward Ltd.
Chairman: Robert Gardiner Directors: Denys Robinson, Stephen Greenman and John Knowles, Company Secretary: Graham Martin.
The Noël Coward Society:
President: HRH Prince Edward The Duke of Kent GCMG GCVO
Vice Presidents: Maria Aitken, Barry Day OBE, Stephen Fry, Tammy Grimes, Penelope Keith CBE
Organising Committee:
Chairman: Denys Robinson; General Secretary: John H. Knowles; Resources: Stephen Greenman;
Membership: Stephen Duckham, Media and Theatre Representative: Michael Wheatley-Ward;
Events: Denys Robinson, Geoffrey Skinner and Peter Tod;
North American Director: Ken Starrett; US West Coast Liaison: Kathy Williams; NCS in Australia: Kerry Hailstone;
NCS in France: Hélène Catsiapis
Home Chat:
Editor: John H. Knowles, US NCS news: Ken Starrett, Publication and Distribution: Stephen Greenman
Assistant Editors and Proofing: Kathy Williams and Ken Starrett, Music correspondent: Dominic Vlasto.
Details of productions and events are as received, with our thanks, from: Samuel French (Play Publishers and Author’s Representatives),
Ken Starrett (US), Alan Brodie Representation (Professional Productions), NCS members and theatre companies.
NCS website: www.noëlcoward.net Unless otherwise stated all images and text are copyright to NC Aventales AG
Key Addresses:
General enquiries: John Knowles, 29 Waldemar Avenue, Hellesdon, Norwich, NR6 6TB, UK
johnknowles@noëlcoward.net +44 (0) 1603 486 188
Finance & Resources: Stephen Greenman, 64 Morant Street, London, E14 8EL stephengreenman@noëlcoward.net
Events Secretaries: Denys Robinson [email protected] and Geoffrey Skinner [email protected]
Membership Secretary: Stephen Duckham, 47 Compass Court, Norfolk Street, Coventry,West Midlands, CV1 3LJ
[email protected] +44 (0) 2476 229 502
Media and Theatre: Michael Wheatley-Ward, Chandos House, 14 Vale Square, Ramsgate, Kent CT11 9DF [email protected]
North American Director: Ken Starrett, 49 West 68th Street, Apt 1 R New York, New York, 10023, USA [email protected]
US West Coast Liaison: Kathy Williams, 141 Stonegate Road, Portola Valley, California 94028-7648 USA kathywilliams@noëlcoward.net
NCS in Australia: Kerry Hailstone, 10A Westall Street, Hyde Park, South Australia, 5061 Australia [email protected]
NCS in France: Hélène Catsiapis, 115, Boulevard de Port-Royal F-75014 Paris, France [email protected]
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