Welcome to a new Wildcard Wednesday! This week, I’m sharing the latest in my “potpourri” series on midcentury Broadway plays, specifically comedies, that I’m reading for (mostly) the first time. In this entry, I’ve got three gems from the early 1930s!
PRIVATE LIVES (1930)
Logline: Divorcees reunite when they find themselves in adjoining suites on their respective honeymoons.
Author: Noël Coward | Original Director: Noël Coward
Original London Cast: Noël Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Laurence Olivier, Adrianne Allen, Everly Craig
Thoughts: I’ve read this play a lot, but I gave it another spin this month just to officially enter it into the record of our Literary Society. In past posts, I’ve already cited it as Noël Coward’s best in terms of comedy, praising it for a succinct “tonal oneness” that epitomizes his finest efforts. Indeed, Private Lives is the quintessential Noël Coward text, presenting his strengths so obviously that his weaknesses don’t matter. My typical critique of Coward is that all his characters tend to sound the same and even behave the same, which means it feels like they’re less individually motivating the story beats than they are enabling a predetermined plot to unfold while stylistically embodying his general ethos. However, in Private Lives, as in Hay Fever, there’s an intentionality to having the leads act similarly, for this parallel structure and the cyclical nature of the action is part of the comic situation, so what once might be considered a weakness actually becomes a strength, and in this context, enhances the laughs. I also maintain that this is the playwright’s funniest — Blithe Spirit is its only rival (I think that’s better written) — for it’s a best-case scenario for what he can do within this trademark template, with which Private Lives also has emerged as a leading ambassador for this certain type of comedy, where battling exes can’t get off the hamster wheel of their incompatible compatibility. This extremeness of temperament enables slapstick and even flirts with camp, setting up big laughs beyond just the natural cleverness of the master’s trademark repartee (some of which itself has become famous). Naturally, such grandness further guarantees that Private Lives is a gift for performers, and many hilarious icons have played the main roles of Elyot and Amanda, including Coward himself and Gertrude Lawrence in the original 1930 West End and 1931 Broadway productions. Other funny ladies who’ve tackled Amanda — the richest part — include Tallulah Bankhead, Elaine Stritch, Tammy Grimes, Maggie Smith, Elizabeth Taylor (opposite Richard Burton), Joan Collins, and Kim Cattrall. So, even with a rigid structure and an utterly Coward-ian tenor, every actor has found room to play, to find hahas in different ways and new places. This renders any lack of specificity with regard to character irrelevant — it’s been proven time and again that the performers will find it. And Private Lives is accordingly a great comedy.
Jackson’s Verdict: An iconic delight — see it in performance if you can!
WHEN LADIES MEET (1932)
Logline: A schemer hopes to break up his girlfriend’s affair with a married man by introducing her to the man’s wife.
Author: Rachel Crothers | Original Director: Rachel Crothers
Original Broadway Cast: Frieda Inescort, Selena Royle, Walter Abel, Herbert Rawlinson, Spring Byington, Robert Lowes, Auguste Aramini
Thoughts: You might recall that I’ve written about Rachel Crothers’ When Ladies Meet before; its 1933 film adaptation is one of my favorite Pre-Codes — a thoughtful exploration of interwar sexual mores featuring intelligent characters who are treated with nuance (much more so than in the glossier 1941 remake). That original screen version is quite similar to the play from the year prior — with the same strengths, and the same centerpiece where the two ladies, wife and “mistress,” literally meet, unaware of their personal relevance as they engage in a reasoned conversation about what would happen if a wife and a mistress ever were to actually converse. It’s a smart, tense scene that is conscious to avoid clichés and really endeavors to provide empathy to both — and, on film, it’s an example of everything that’s great about the Pre-Code era, particularly in terms of women. Now, as a play — and, more precisely, as a play in this series that focuses on comedies specifically, it’s not exactly my favorite. I think the build-up in the first act is a little unfocused, and the text, overall, is not as laugh-out-loud funny as the best of what we’ve studied. Oh, yes, there are a few comic characters — like the flighty Bridget, and the snarky Jimmie, who motivates the comic situation with a bit of mistaken identity that is a fine farcical trope and sustains comedic tension. But the charm of the piece, overall, is its seriousness, and the sensitivity with which it endeavors to present — and succeeds in presenting — characters who are on opposing sides of a love triangle. Accordingly, while I think you should still call this a comedy, it’s more dramatically interesting than anything else — especially compared to the 1933 film version, which is lighter because it’s a bit more of a romantic comedy. Crothers’ play is not as light, and as such, while I think it’s a fine piece of dramatic craftsmanship (in general), it’s a bit removed from the other two entries above and below it. They’re both more obviously humorous and therefore commendable on those shared terms.
Jackson’s Verdict: A well-written piece that plays smartly as a Pre-Code motion picture.
BIOGRAPHY (1932)
Logline: A hostile magazine editor persuades a worldly portrait artist to write her memoirs.
Author: S.N. Behrman | Original Director: Philip Moeller
Original Broadway Cast: Ina Claire, Earle Larimore, Jay Fassett, Charles Richman, Mary Arbenz, Arnold Korff, Alexander Clark Jr., Helen Salinger
Thoughts: This is the third S.N. Behrman play I’ve read for this series, and he consistently impresses me. In all of the author’s works, he crafts strong characters and juxtaposes them to explore broader big-picture ideas about the human condition. Occasionally, this can sound lofty, but the individualized humanity he instills in most roles — and his typically smart, limber, character-specific writing — really emphasizes an examination of people above anything else. And, happily, he does all this while never forgetting his implied comedic obligation to the audience. Indeed, with all that on display, Biography is one of Behrman’s crowning achievements. It’s a three-act comedy centered around Marion, a worldly portrait painter who is commissioned by a young brooding radical to serialize her hopefully salacious memoirs in the popular magazine for which he’s the editor. This worries Marion’s first love, a conservative Tennessean who’s about to mount a senate campaign and marry into a powerful newspaper family (despite still carrying a torch for the artist). That’s ostensibly the plot, but tracking this story is not really the focus of the play, which is actually a character study set in the drawing room of the charming artiste, who finds herself situated between the judgmental moralism of the hypocritical “right” and the judgmental anger of the similarly hypocritical “left,” each personified by men with whom she has intimate relationships. Those relationships — particularly with the bitter, hate-filled writer — emphasize polarities in both politics and temperament that rise above an early 1930s context for timeless universality, as Marion’s alluring embodiment of “tolerance” for all is posited, and then proven, to be a happy ideal, and the key to leading a self-fulfilled life worthy of a biography. In the process, many laughs are wrung from these interactions. The way she reliably maneuvers around people and charms them, navigating their quirks, is illuminating, and there are a handful of funny side characters (her circle of “Bohemian” pals) popping into the drawing room as amusing screwball-like support — such as a bittersweet European composer, a grandiose Hollywood actor, and a brusque German maid. This keeps the proceedings light, with witty dialogue that doesn’t try too hard but instead reveals character and explores the play’s thesis with a clear but not obvious focus indicative of fine craftsmanship.
Jackson’s Verdict: One of the best plays in this series that I hadn’t already read prior.
Come back next week for another Wildcard! And stay tuned Monday for a musical treat!