Gertrude Lawrence and Noël Coward as Amanda and Elyot, 1931. Photo by Vandamm. New York Public Library, New York.
Private Lives opened at the Times Square Theatre on 27 January 1931. The line-up was the same, apart from Adrianne Allen who had been replaced by Olivier’s wife Jill Esmond, and Therese Quadri, who now played the role of Louise, the maid. Allen chose not to accompany the play to New York as she wished to focus on building her career in England as a stage and film actress. The wife of Raymond Massey, in October 1933, their first child, Daniel was born. Noël Coward would be his godfather—and many years hence, Daniel would portray Noël in the Gertrude Lawrence biopic Star!, including playing the balcony scene from Private Lives, opposite Julie Andrews.
Private Lives was staged by Noël Coward, with settings by G.E. Calthrop. The Producer was Charles B. Cochran. Gertrude Lawrence’s dresses by Molyneux.
The play held the stage at the Time Square Theatre until September 1931, 256 performances. Three months into the run, from 11 May, the English actors were replaced by a new cast of performers in line with Actors Equity rules.
Of this new cast, it is worth mentioning Audrey Pointing (1910-1970). Born in Sydney, the sister of another actress, Glyn Alyn, she arrived in England in 1924, having achieved some small success as a dancer in Rockets and Tons of Money at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne. In London she found chorus work in the musical Peggy Ann. She also had small roles in This Year of Grace and Bitter Sweet in London and New York. When Private Lives was produced in London, she is credit as Assistant Stage Manager, a position she also held on the Broadway production. Pointing’s stage career came to end when she married Lord Doverdale in 1933.
During July/August 1931, the roles of Elyot and Amanda were played by Donald Brian and Mabel Taliaferro, who also took the play on tour during the later part of 1931.
Gertrude Lawrence as Amanda. Photo by Vandamm.
New York Public Library, New York
Noël Coward as Elyot. Photo by Vandamm.
New York Public Library, New York
The Reviews
Noël Coward’s talent for little things remains unimpaired. In “Private Lives,” in which he appeared at the Times Square last evening he has nothing to say, and manages to say it with competent agility for three acts. Sometimes the nothingness of this comedy begins to show through the dialogue. Particularly in the long second act, which is as thin as a patent partition, Mr. Coward’s talent for little things threatens to run dry. But when the time comes to drop the second act curtain his old facility for theatrical climax comes bubbling out of the tap again. There is a sudden brawl. Mr. Coward, in person, and Gertrude Lawrence, likewise in person, start tumbling over the furniture and rolling on the floor, and the audience roars with delight, for Mr. Coward, who dotes on pranks, has an impish wit, a genius for phrase-making, a subtlety of inflection and an engaging manner on the stage. Paired with Miss Lawrence in a mild five-part escapade, he carries “Private Lives” through by the skin of his teeth.
Take two married couples on their respective honeymoons, divide them instantly, and there—if the two leading players are glamorous comedians—you have the situation. As a matter of fact, it has a little more finesse than that. For Elyot Chase, who feels rather grumpy about his second honeymoon, and Amanda Prynne, who feels rather grumpy about hers, were divorced from each other five years ago. When they see each other at the same honeymoon hotel in France, they suddenly realize that they should never have been divorced. Their new marriages are horrible blunders. Their impulse is to fly away together at once. They fly. How rapturously they love and quarrel in a Paris flat, and how frightfully embarrassed they are when their deserted bride and bridegroom finally catch up with them, is what keeps Mr. Coward just this side of his wits’ end for the remaining two acts.
For the most part it is a duologue between Mr. Coward and Miss Lawrence. Jill Esmond, as the deserted bride, and Laurence Olivier, as the deserted bridegroom, are permitted to chatter foolishly once or twice in the first act, and to help keep the ball rolling at the end. After the furniture has been upset. Therese Quadri, as a French maid, is invited to come in, raise the curtains and jabber her Gallic distress over unseemly confusion. But these are utilitarian parts in the major tour de force of Mr. Coward and Miss Lawrence cooing and spatting at home.
Be it known that their passion is a troubled one. They coo with languid pleasure. But they’re also touchy, and fly on the instant into feline rages. Mr. Coward’s wit is not ostentatious. He tucks it away neatly in pat phrases and subtle word combinations and smartly bizarre allusions. Occasionally he comes out boldly with a flat statement of facts. “Certain women should be struck regularly like gongs,” he declares. Acting just as he writes, he is crisp, swift and accurate. And Miss Lawrence, whose subtlety has not always been conspicuous, plays this time with rapidity and humor. Her ruddy beauty, her supple grace and the russet drawl in her voice keep you interested in the slightly wind-blown affairs of a scanty comedy. If Mr. Coward’s talent were the least bit clumsy, there would be no comedy at all.
New York Times, 28 January 1931, p.27
Playbill cover
Edith Taliaferro and Donald Brian as Amada and Elyot, July 1931
New York Public Library, New York
Writing of the new cast, The Stage (28 May 1931) reported:
To follow Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence in “Private Lives” would seem a most unenviable assignment; yet the American players who took over the leading roles in this English comedy at the Times Square on May 11 have emerged from their gruelling task with flying colours. Madge Kennedy, as a rather more winsome and less acidulous Amanda, is, in her own way, almost as good as Gertrude Lawrence while Otto Kruger, bringing to bear on the role of Elyot all his long experience as comedian and light farceur, seems even better than the author. If these two players are a little heavier in touch than their predecessors, it is not to any appreciable extent, and their characterisations are frankly more sympathetic. The removal of a certain amount of the overworked cattiness of “Private Lives” does the piece not a whit of harm. Add to these characterisations a delightful Sybil from Audrey Pointing and a decidedly human and likeable Victor from young Robert Newton (formerly of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre), who loses nothing by comparison with Laurence Olivier, and you have an interpretation of the play which is, on the average, as good as the original; It should render the extended engagement of “Private Lives,” now under the sole management of Arch Selwyn, completely successful, and may keep the play in New York for considerably longer than the additional month already promised.
