Raymond Stanley's Show Buzz A brief encounter with Mr. Coward “I do hope you’re not in a hurry, dear boy”, said Mr. Coward. “Would you think it awfully impolite of me if we delayed the interview a little? A very dear friend of mine is popping in to see me - he won’t be here very long - and would you mind very much waiting in the bedroom when he arrives? “You might know him in fact. He’s the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr. Menzies!” It was May 1963, two days after the opening at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne of the Australian production of Noel Coward’s musical Sail Away, for which a local cast had been assembled and Australian Maggie Fitzgibbon brought back from London for the role created by Elaine Stritch. Finally, in the last days of rehearsals, Coward himself arrived in a blaze of publicity, to give his final approval. I later heard that one rather ‘mannish’ actress was being made to play her part in the exact manner and clothes in which it had been performed in New York and London, which was alien to her nature, and she was having difficulty coming to grips with it. Coward immediately sized up the situation, noted how uncomfortable she was, and in no time at all she had been re-directed to play it more in keeping with her own nature and in slacks instead of dresses. ln the final result she was one of the hits of the show. There was great excitement in the air on opening night. Never before had such a distinguished international author attended the opening Down Under of his own work. Accompanied by Lady Casey, an old friend, Coward took his seat in one of the boxes just before the lights dimmed. With one accord the entire audience rose and applauded him, long and loud. He must have been very gratified and stood up and bowed his acknowledgment. An interview had been arranged for me with The Master. So, holding a very large and heavy reel-to-reel tape recorder I rang the bell of the suite Coward was occupying in a very grand but rather old-fashioned hotel. The door was opened by Cole Lesley, Coward’s close friend who had been his general factotum for a number of years. Lesley showed me into ‘the presence’, and I was greeted profusely like an old friend. It seemed not to be put on, but quite genuine. Whilst we awaited the Prime Minister’s arrival, Coward suggested that we just chatted, and for the next ten minutes we did exactly that. How I wish my recorder had been switched on at the time! He told me he was going to New York for his musical The Girl Who Came To Supper, adapted from the Terence Rattigan play The Sleeping Prince. “José Ferrer is playing the Prince, and he’ll be wonderful, and a marvellous girl called Florence Henderson will be the leading lady. As a matter of fact, we’ve had to delay it whilst she’s had another baby but, as she’s always in good voice after giving birth, that’s all to the good.” He spoke also about the musical version of his play Blithe Spirit - to be called High Spirits - which he was going to direct. Beatrice Lillie was to play Madame Arcati in it. “It’ll be a difficult time, rehearsing Beattie”, he commented quite frankly. “We always row in rehearsals - fight like cat and dog - and stop speaking to each other. But Beattie always ends up doing what I want, and of course she’ll be absolutely wonderful in the role”. [In actual fact Coward ended up walking out on the production]. He also said he was going to direct his Hay Fever with Edith Evans, for the National Theatre in England. And so we chatted on. I heard a telephone ringing in the next room, and soon afterwards Cole Lesley entered to say the Prime Minister had been delayed. “Oh well, let’s get on with the interview, shall we?”, said Coward, and after I’d plugged my tape recorder into a wall switch we began. Pointing out the obvious, that he was a man of so many talents - actor, “Well, it’s very difficult to say. I don’t really mind; I haven’t got a great eye on posterity. All I like to do is to entertain the people now, while I’m alive. I don’t know what will be remembered. I suspect that I shall be remembered mostly for my popular music. One doesn’t know. I don’t care which it is; as long as I’m remembered a little bit. I should like that”. Without any false modesty, where would he place himself as a playwright amongst past and present dramatists? There was no hesitation in his reply. “Without any false modesty, I think I have contributed a certain amount to the English theatre by my plays. I love writing plays. I was brought up in the theatre. Some of them, like Private Lives, Hay Fever, Design For Living will probably - did probably - make a slight revolution. I think The Vortex made a slight revolution in playwriting because - quite unconsciously, I didn’t attempt to be original - I just wrote how I wanted to write and it ‘sort of clicked’”. Did he do much research work on his plays? For Blithe Spirit, for instance, did he delve into spiritualism? “Yes - I read up a certain amount, not very much, but a little. I do research mostly if I’m doing a period piece like Bitter Sweet or Conversation Piece or Cavalcade. Then I read up a lot. To do Conversation Piece I read about thirty books on the Regency, so I got myself absolutely soused in the atmosphere and knew what I was talking about, or rather what my characters were talking about”. Did he find, in the actual writing of his plays, that the frame-work and characters changed at all? “Oh yes, sometimes the characters take charge, because when I wrote Blithe Spirit I only intended Madame Arcati to be a small part in the first act. But when I started writing her, she sort of took charge of me and I fell in love with her. I thought: ‘She’s wonderful’. She changed the play as she went along. She took charge.” Did he have anyone in mind for Arcati when he was writing the play? “No, that happened afterwards” So Margaret Rutherford came in at a later date? “Yes. I thought she’d be wonderful, and I was right. She was wonderful.” Did he earmark his witty dialogue long before it was written, or did it come naturally to him? “Oh no, I never earmark it. No. No. No! It comes out. If I’m on the right ‘beam’, it comes out swiftly and easily. If I’m not and feel I’m always hesitating and having to re-write scenes, then I know there is something wrong with the construction. If the construction is strong the dialogue comes easily to me.” Did he consider his early plays were period pieces and as such should be played as comedy of manners in the dress and style of the time, or did he consider they should be updated? “Well, it doesn’t seem to matter very much. A little company the other day, in London, put on a production of Private Lives without putting it into period - 1930, when it was written - and I must say it didn’t sound dated at all. They changed one or two lines - the Duke of Westminster’s yacht to Mr. Onassis’s yacht - but apart from that it sounded quite modern. It didn’t seem to me dated. But of course I’d be prejudiced, I wouldn’t think it was dated anyhow!” With the production of Hay Fever he was to direct for the National Theatre - would he keep that in the twenties? “Oh yes, that will be in the twenties. It should be, because that was the twenties. But I don’t think it will date all that much. In writing contemporary plays - particularly comedy - the only thing that’s liable to date you is if you use allusions to local contemporary figures or contemporary people. If that happens, all you have to do is just snip them out or change them.” “Oh, a great deal. I was influenced when I was young, curiously enough by E. Nesbit’s books for children and by the short stories of Saki. Those were the two “I think every writer should be influenced by those who’ve gone before, up to a point. One of the mistakes of some of the modern young writers is contempt for the past. I admired and studied all the plays of Pinero, Haddon Chambers, Somerset Maugham, Hubert Henry Davis, Bernard Shaw, J.M. Barrie - these were Did he find that people tended to imitate him? “I don’t know whether they still do. They did for a certain period. Sometimes when I go to the theatre I wish they imitated me a bit more!” In the sixties the kitchen sink drama was all the vogue. What was his opinion of it? “The kitchen sink drama is a sort of generalisation. Certain of what is known as the kitchen sink dramas.... for instance Mr. Harold Pinter, I think, is a very fine playwright. Mr. Wesker is becoming a very fine playwright. His last play - Chips With Everything - was fine; a little bit too class conscious, but very finely written. “Quite a number of the kitchen sink dramas are a great bore, because they mis-represent what is known - or used to be known - as the working class, and they’re fighting for a gained cause. I don’t think it’s very true of the English cockney now; they’re not always frying onions in back rooms. They live very well. They’re having a very happy time, I’m delighted to say. I’m rather bored with the downbeat drama; I like going to the theatre to be amused.” What were his thoughts on the theatre of the absurd - say Ionesco and Beckett? “I can’t understand them frankly. I can’t understand Mr. Beckett. I thought Waiting For Godot was a cracking bore when I saw it. But I’m sure I must be wrong. I’m assured by very intellectual people that I’m wrong. But I share that being wrong with the public, because the public don’t care for him very much.” Did he perhaps feel that it might be a cult - that people might feel that they ought to like those sorts of things? “Yes, but you know there are never enough people who think they ought to like anything. I’ve always - having been a professional since I was 10 years old - believed that my job was to attract as large a public as possible, without sacrificing my integrity. And I’ve found that that works. I think that the public on the whole are very intelligent”. “Oh, I got away with quite a lot in the twenties! No, I don’t think it makes much difference. I’m getting rather sick of everything being said. I think, and have always thought, that implication and suggestion is much more interesting than flat statement, and to use a lot of four-letter words...... all depending on the type of play it is and the type of character. It’s slightly easy not to have any censorship at all and be able to say exactly what you like. It’s very easy to shock, but it’s not so easy to entertain”. Were there any of his works he would like to see revived, perhaps because he felt they didn’t get the success they deserved at the time? “Oh, the ones that didn’t get the success that they deserved at the time were not worthy of it! That’s why they didn’t get the success. There’s never anybody to blame but the author. The one though that I’d like to see a really good revival of is Bitter Sweet, I must say, because I enjoyed Bitter Sweet. This Year of Grace, which was a revue, that couldn’t be revived, because it was so contemporary, but that was a good show. Conversation Piece was very charming. I’d like to see that done again. But it would be very difficult to find anybody as good as Yvonne Printemps to play it.” When he wrote a short story, he seemed very different. He used very little dialogue, which was surprising for a playwright. “That’s fairly deliberate. I like to improve my prose style, my writing. I can write dialogue by the yard. Some of my stories have a certain amount of dialogue, but I like using descriptive passages because it’s unlike the other things I do.” Had he ever thought of turning some of his short stories or his novel into plays? “No, I haven’t thought of doing it myself, because I always find it very difficult to work over something I’ve already done. But I hope somebody else will. I’d like somebody to make a good play out of Pomp And Circumstance, my novel, for instance. Or a good movie that’d make. But I don’t know that I could do it myself.” Were there any special reasons there had been no film versions of his later plays? “Well, nobody seems to have done them, that’s why. I don’t think anybody asked for them. I haven’t sold the film rights of Relative Values or Nude With Violin or Quadrille. Those would make quite reasonably good pictures”. Present Laughter? “Present Laughter....... no, never done that. I think that would make a very good picture, but you’d have to have a marvellous comedian to play it. It’d be wonderful for Rex Harrison or for Cary Grant.” He wouldn’t do it himself? “I think I’m a bit long in the tooth for that now!” As to acting: he once wrote the number Don’t Put Your Daughter On The Stage, Mrs. Worthington. Would he still give that advice to dear Mrs. Worthington? “I certainly would, unless they had blazing talent. I like talent. Lots of people think that the stage is easy. But I have news for them!” What were his views on method acting? “Well, every sensible actor has some form of method acting and I don’t hold very much with the constant discussions about motivation and theorising. I believe first of all in learning the words intelligently and then laying yourself open to a director and thinking how you’re going to play it. The Lunts have their own method, I have my method. I always am word perfect at a first rehearsal, because I want to devote my rehearsal period to developing the various different ways you can play a part. I don’t believe in all this ‘getting into the mood’; I don’t believe you’ve got to feel the performance eight times a week. I think you’ve got to feel it sometime during rehearsal and set the feeling and dole it out at each performance to the public. That’s acting. Being is not acting”. He had seldom appeared in the plays of others....... “There’s a very good reason and that is that I just haven’t got time. I haven’t even time to appear in my own plays. You see, if I’m playing eight performances a week, it’s a whole time job. The moment you become a star you have the responsibility of the show. And that means you have to watch your diet, and you have to live a monastic life and there’s certainly no time to write lyrics and music and short stories while you’re acting. It takes all the energy you’ve got”. Had he ever had any desires to appear in Shakespeare? “I’ve had one or two. There are two or three parts in Shakespeare I would like to have played. I would never have cared to play Hamlet. I’d like to have played Iago, I’d like to have played Malvolio, and I would have liked to have played Benedict. But that’s about all.” Had the legend of Noel Coward grown a little out of proportion to him, so that he could now view himself objectively, rather as an organisation than a person? “I’m supposed to be very sophisticated and sharp and brittle but - it isn’t quite true. I’m a very hard worker, and the reason I’m a hard worker is frankly because I like working.” During the interview I had heard the doorbell ring and guessed it was the Prime Minister arriving. Coward must also have heard it, but made no comment, and so I continued, thus keeping the Australian P.M. waiting a few minutes. As I was packing up my tape recorder, Robert Menzies came into the room and the first words Coward said to him were: “I bring you greetings from the Queen Mother”. I noticed his guest addressed Coward as ‘King Magnus’ - the role he had played in Shaw’s The Apple Cart.. Then, to my embarrassment, Coward insisted on introducing me to the P.M. (My unedited interview with Coward can be heard on the Noel Coward |