Rachael Stirling and Stephen Mangan
in Private Lives
at the Donmar Theatre April 2023
Photo by Marc Brenner
062 – Private Lives, by Noël Coward
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The curtain rises on the terrace of a seaside hotel in France. A pretty young woman, smartly dressed in travelling clothes, steps out onto the terrace. She leans on the balustrade and regards the view of the lights twinkling on the sea with an ecstatic expression. She is on the first night of her honeymoon.
This is the opening of what appears to be a classic romantic comedy set among the fashionable set in the 1930s. It is certainly very funny and stylish, but Noël Coward’s Private Lives might better be called an ‘unromantic comedy’. Within the cloak of its dazzling wit, it is in fact an excoriating portrait of love and marriage among the disaffected elite in the dying days of the Jazz Age.
Private Lives premiered at the newly built Phoenix Theatre in London in 1930, with Noël Coward himself playing the part of Elyot, alongside his favourite female partner, Gertie Lawrence, for whom he had written the role of his marital sparring partner Amanda. The production was a great success, both in London and on its transfer to Broadway, the critics admiring the play’s construction and sparkling wit, but predicting it would not last. One Broadway critic called it “an admirable piece of fluff.” But last it has, as approaching a century on, a new production at the Donmar Theatre in London, sees Rachael Stirling and Stephen Mangan in imperious form as the warring couple, both entertaining and challenging a modern audience. So why has Private Lives endured long after the world it is set in has disappeared. Is there more to this piece of fluff than high style and flippant wit?
To help me answer that question I am lucky to be joined in this discussion about the play by a Coward expert, Oliver Soden. Oliver is the author of a brand-new biography of Noël Coward, the first in nearly thirty years, which was published just last month.
You can listen to our review of Private Lives at the Donmar theatre here:
The Play Review – Private Lives.
Oliver Soden
Oliver Soden is the author of Masquerade – The Lives of Noël Coward , the first new biography in nearly thirty years, published in March 2023 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. In its five-star review the Telegraph described the book as “truthful, sympathetic and thorough” – “this is the biography that Coward deserves.”
Oliver is also the author of a biography of the composer Michael Tippett, and of Jeoffry: The Poet’s Cat, a semi-fictionalised biography of the cat who belonged to eighteenth-century poet Christopher Smart, which was one of the TLS’s books of the year in 2020.
Oliver writes on art, music and literature for the national press, and is a frequent speaker and researcher on radio, including on Radio 3’s long-running programme Private Passions.
Recommended Play
Oliver recommended Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel.
Photo by Sarah Lee
The Footnotes to our episode on Noël Coward’s Private Lives include observations on what kind of love is on show in the play, on Sybil and Amanda as different kinds of women, and on the verbal precision of Coward’s language.
Additional benefits available to Patrons include Footnotes on the plays covered in the podcast, as well as exclusive access to The Play Review.
Thank you very much for listening and for your support.
Douglas
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113 – Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
Published 24th August
Tom Stoppard’s 1993 play, Arcadia is viewed by many as his finest play, renowned for the breadth of its intellectual interrogations and its formal invention. The play is a structural masterpiece of ideas, as well as a teasing detective story, joyous comedy, and emotionally rich exploration of love and loss.
As we record this episode a wonderful new production of Arcadia is playing at the Duke of York’s theatre in London’s West End, following its acclaimed run at the Old Vic theatre earlier this year. I am delighted to share the challenge and the pleasure of exploring Stoppard’s dazzling drama with the director of the new production, Carrie Cracknell.
112 – Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
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David Mamet’s modern American classic, Glengarry Glen Ross, is a blistering commentary on the cut-throat reality of the American dream, and its poisonous impact on those who have bought into the myth and machismo of that dream. The play had its world premiere in the small Cottesloe theatre at the National Theatre in London in September 1983, and was first performed in New York the following year, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Mamet also wrote the extended screenplay for the star-studded 1992 film version.
As we recorded this episode a new production of the play was playing at the Old Vic theatre in London, with an all-female cast. This is a particularly provocative idea, because one of the primary themes of this play is masculine identity, and the salesmen in this Chicago office do not hold back in their display of machismo.
To explore Mamet’s unflinching slice of 1980s dog-eat-dog capitalism, I am joined by arts journalist Mark Lawson.
111 – The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht
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Bertolt Brecht’s ‘gangster spectacle’, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, is both an exuberant and funny piece of theatre, and a chillingly topical political satire. Set in the 1930s Chicago of Al Capone, Brecht presents a parody of the rise of Hitler through the character of the gangster Arturo Ui. The play is a universal cry for vigilance against the rise of unscrupulous, populist leaders who threaten democratic societies and global peace.
As we recorded this episode a new production of the play by the Royal Shakespeare Company was playing in Stratford-upon-Avon, starring Mark Gatiss as the title character.
I am delighted to be joined by both the show’s translator, playwright Stephen Sharkey, and by Brecht scholar, Professor Tom Kuhn, to guide us through Brecht’s political parody.
Brilliant podcast. Shed so much light on the play. The day before I saw The Circle at The Orange Tree theatre- well worth seeing, excellent cast. In thought, seeing Private Lives. I thought that Private Lives owed a lot to that play.
Today I saw The Motive and the Cue at the NT, which I hope you will see and review. It’s brilliant. Keep up your excellent work. PB
Thank you for your kind feedback Paul.
I’ve also seen The Circle and The Motive and the Cue. I enjoyed them both, and hope to record a review and/or an episode on them shortly.
Thanks for listening.
D