Noël Coward (1899–1973)

Charles Condomine is a novelist whose latest book will be about séances. As a form of research, he arranges for a local spiritualist, Madame Arcati, to perform a séance for them. However, in the process he accidentally summons up the spirit of his first wife, Elvira… and his second wife, Ruth, is not happy about this development. Hilarity ensues for the audience, though, as the two wives battle for supremacy and Charles battles for a bit of peace.

As befits a Noël Coward play, this show more contains a great deal of dialogue with wit as dry as the classic Martinis that the characters drink throughout the proceedings. Madame Arcati is hilarious, with her good cheer and plucky, can-do attitude toward all matters spiritual (a refreshing contrast to the usual ethereal and super-serious psychics on offer). I found the Bradmans annoying during the initial séance because they kept sassing Madame Arcati; interrupting people is so rude! Fortunately, they did not appear too much after that.

This is the sort of play you'll want to read out loud at home to yourself, or maybe gather a group together to act out. It's just too fun, darling. show less

The actual facts are so simple. I love you. You love me. You love Otto. I love Otto. Otto loves you. Otto loves me. There now! Start to unravel from there.

Noël Coward’s Design for Living opened on Broadway in 1933 because it was too risqué for London’s West End. Even today, you probably wouldn’t find it on broadcast television before 10 o’clock. Painter Otto Sylvus and playwright Leo Mercuré were fast friends and destitute unknowns in Paris’ Latin Quarter when they both met show more and later fell in love with fellow bohemian Gilda. Eventually, Otto wins Gilda into becoming his lover, but the threesome each love each other whole-heartedly — until the day that Gilda falls into Leo’s arms.

Fast-forward two years, and Leo has become a very successful playwright. Gilda, still bohemian to the core, chafes at the publicity and what she fears is the commercialization of his art. The play explores monogamy, the many facets of love, and the temptation of conventional life. The nature of Leo’s and Otto’s relationship with each other remains ambiguous, providing additional food for thought. With very little revision, Design for Living could be set in fin de siècle Paris, 1950s Greenwich Village, 1960s San Francisco, or present-day Brooklyn. For bohemian intellectuals, the quandaries remain the same. Kudos to L.A. Theatre Works for bringing back this thought-provoking play.

Lastly, the fact that Noël Coward himself played the playwright Leo while Alfred Lunt and Joan Fontaine played Otto and Gilda have made folks wonder for decades; I too found myself wondering how much that threesome’s real-life relationship made it into the play. show less

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2914781.html

The original play (it says in my book) cost thirty thousand pre-war pounds and kept a cast and back-stage crew of three hundred employed at Drury Lane for over a year - a spectacular in the line of the more modern West End musical. It's particularly impressive when you remember that these were the first years of the Great Depression. The play opened just before the 1931 election which saw former Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald returned to power at show more the head of a mostly Conservative coalition. It was received as a patriotic, nationalist piece in tune with the needs of the times, much to Coward's dismay; he thought he was just writing a piece about the impact of the times on an ordinary (read upper-middle-class) family, and to my eye he was attempting to portray the inevitability of the dissolution of old social structures, and to challenge the audience to get to grips with how the world was changing.

I think he was right to be dismayed. The play is more cynical than the film. The theatrical Diana Wynyard repeatedly makes anti-war comments, and is repeatedly proved right. A couple of grim scenes from the play did not make it to the film - an early fake bucolic musical number, and a scene where the teenage Marryot sons engage in dissolute behaviour with their friends. And the ending is truly chilling. The two final scenes were flipped in the film. In the original, the Marryots see in 1930, much diminished in health and happiness. Jane’s final words are:

“Now, then, let’s couple the Future of England with the past of England. The glories and victories and triumphs that are over, and the sorrows that are over, too. Let’s drink to our sons who made part of the pattern and to our hearts that died with them. Let’s drink to the spirit of gallantry and courage that made a strange Heaven out of unbelievable Hell, and let’s drink to the hope that one day this country of ours, which we love so much, will find dignity and greatness and peace again.”

It’s a bleak end to her role in the play. In the film, the pessimistic impact is deadened by Robert repeating “Dignity, greatness and peace” back to her, and a crowed scene of revellers singing “Auld Lang Syne” before the final titles. In the orignal play, the final song, “Twentieth Century Blues”, comes after rather than before the Marryots’ New Year scenem with some difficult but bloodcurdling stage directions:

“SCENE: A Night Club.

TIME: Evening –1930.

This Scene begins with a night club in which FANNY is singing, seated on a piano. The decoration is angular and strange, and the song she is singing is oddly discordant.

TWENTIETH CENTURY BLUES

VERSE

Why is it that civilised humanity
Must make the world so wrong?
In this hurly burly of insanity
Your dreams cannot last long.
We’ve reached a headline —
The Press headline –every sorrow,
Blues value is News value tomorrow.

REFRAIN

Blues, Twentieth Century Blues, are getting me down.
Who’s escaped those weary Twentieth Century Blues.
Why, if there’s a God in the sky, why shouldn’t¹ he grin?
High above this dreary Twentieth Century din,
In this strange illusion,
Chaos and confusion,
People seem to lose their way.
What is there to strive for,
Love or keep alive for? Say —
Hey, hey, call it a day.
Blues, nothing to win or to lose.
It’s getting me down.
Blues, I’ve got those weary² Twentieth Century Blues.

When the song is finished, people rise from table and dance without apparently any particular enjoyment; it is the dull dancing of habit. The lights fade away from everything but the dancers, who appear to be rising in the air. They disappear and down stage left, six ‘incurables’ in blue hospital uniform are sitting making baskets. They disappear and FANNY is seen singing her song for a moment, then far away up stage a jazz band is seen playing wildly. Then down stage JANE and ROBERT standing with glasses of champagne held aloft, then ELLEN sitting in front of a Radio loud speaker; then MARGARET dancing with a young man. The visions are repeated quicker and quicker, while across the darkness runs a Riley light sign spelling out news. Noise grows louder and louder. Steam rivets, loud speakers, jazz bands, aeroplane propellers, etc., until the general effect is complete chaos.

Suddenly it all fades into darkness and silence and away at the back a Union Jack glows through the blackness.

The lights slowly come up and the whole stage is composed of massive tiers, upon which stand the entire Company. The Union Jack flies over their heads as they sing ‘God Save the King’.

THE END”

¹ The film version has “didn’t” rather than “shouldn’t”.
² The film version ends “escape those dreary Twentieth Century Blues“ rather than “I’ve got those weary Twentieth Century Blues”.

Given the necessary scale of the theatre production (drawing-room, crowds, music-halls and the Titanic), it has been staged only a handful of times since the original 1931 West End production (including the two film adaptations). It's an ambitious and vicious piece which would reward a determined and talented director. I'd pay money to see it on stage. show less

I was obsessed with the classic film version (not the dreadful 2020 remake) of Noel Coward's play when I was younger, and would watch my taped VHS copy (!) over and over again. I came across the book of the play in a sale of withdrawn stock at the library and had to 'save' it, but I must admit that I've only just got around to reading Coward's original script. Of course, I could 'hear' Margaret Rutherford, Rex Harrision et al, as the film follows the play almost to the letter, and now have show more the itch to watch an old favourite. "We are quite, quite wrong!" show less