Prior to the first stage production of Private Lives in Australia, the public had the opportunity to both see and hear the play, firstly through the release of the MGM film starring Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery, and secondly through a radio broadcast in early 1933 featuring Madge Elliott and Cyril Ritchard.
By 1933 Noël Coward was a household name in Australia. Audiences were acquainted with his meteoric rise from child star to brilliant young man of the theatre. His reputation was cemented by articles appearing in the daily papers: ‘The Future of Noël Coward’ (Age, 13 May 1933), ‘Noël Coward: A theatrical genius’ (The West Australian, 24 June 1933) and ‘A Genius of the Theatre: The amazing rise of Noël Coward’ (The Advertiser, 15 July 1933)
In March 1933, J.C. Williamson’s announced Isobel Elsom’s arrival to Australia, bringing with her ‘two or three leading players’. (The Herald, 25 March 1933) Later the following month, further details emerged that George Barraud (who had previously visited Australia with Pauline Frederick) would be the leading man, and that another English actor, Carl Harboard, had also been engaged. The comedy company’s repertoire was said to include Another Language (by Rose Franken and in which Herbert Marshall had appeared in London), When Ladies Meet (by Rachel Crothers, author of Let Us Be Gay), The Improper Duchess (by J.B. Fagan, which enjoyed an extended run in London with Yvonne Arnaud), Dinner at Eight (by George Kaufman and Edna Ferber, in which Irene Vanbrugh had recently made a hit in the West End), and Service (by Dodie Smith, which was to have been produced in Australia during Athene Seyler’s recent tour).
London-based Isobel Elsom had developed a considerable following as a leading lady, notably through her many film appearances. In the early 1930s, before she went to Hollywood, she played leading roles in several ‘quota quickies’, namely The Other Woman (1931), Stranglehold (1931), The Crooked Lady (1932) and Illegal (1932), produced in Britain by Warner Brothers.
Carl Harboard, Isobel Elsom and George Barraud, with Harald Bowden (extreme right), New York representative of JCW arrived by the Maloja, June 1933. From The Home, 1 August 1933, p.70.
The company arrived in Fremantle on 7 June 1933 per Maloja, accompanied by JCW’s New York representative Harald Bowden. Reporting Miss Elsom’s arrival, The West Australian (7 June 1933) noted:
Wearing a very smart brown corded velvet coat and skirt, a brown faux fur and a small brown felt hat, Miss Isobel Elsom had her first introduction to Australia from the deck of the Maloja yesterday morning. “It is wonderful to be here,” she said enthusiastically, “because so many of my friends have told me about Australia.”
Miss Elsom is visiting Australia under contract with J.C. Williamson, Ltd., and will make her first appearance in Sydney in “When Ladies Meet”. She is already comparatively well known to Australian audiences for her work in “Illegal,” an English talking picture shown in Perth last year. “I love talkie work,” she said, “but it really isn’t as interesting as that of the legitimate stage. One feels the lack of an audience so terribly, and there is no chance of altering one’s interpretation of a role, for example. Once a thing is done, it’s done, and there is no saying: “I’ll try and alter that to-morrow night!” Still I hope to make many more talkies and am still under contract with Warner Brothers to make at least one picture a year.
The company proceeded to Sydney for rehearsals, pending the commencement of their six-month comedy season at the King’s Theatre, Melbourne, in July 1933. The first offering was Rachel Crother’s comedy When Ladies Meet, which was being performed for the first time in Australia. In addition to Isobel Elsom, George Barraud and Carl Harboard, the cast of seven included Constance Burleigh (engaged from London), John Longden and Margery Caldicott (who had been with the Athene Seyler-Nicholas Hannen company), and Harvey Adams (who had been performing in Australia since 1924).
When Ladies Meet was warmly welcomed, and the cast were declared to be perfectly suited to their roles. It played until 28 July. A week or so beforehand, a ‘surprise’ announcement was made informing playgoers that the next production by the company would be Noël Coward’s Private Lives.
The Age (19 July 1933), under the heading ‘Noël Coward Again’, informed readers:
Unusual interest attached to the forth coming production of Private Lives, by the J.C. Williamson Company, headed by Isobel Elsom and George Barraud, at the King’s Theatre, Melbourne. This will be the first stage production in Australia of what is acclaimed by many critics as Noël Coward’s best play. The opening performance will be given on Saturday, 29th inst. Both Isobel Elsom and George Barraud are personal friends of Noël Coward, whom they consider the most outstanding personality of the English stage to-day. Miss Elsom points out that in the United States the fame of Coward is as great as it is in England. Since he rose from obscurity twelve years ago, he has kept his name before the public the whole world over. His genius has been indicated as actor, author, composer, producer, playwright, in every field or sphere of the stage, including musical comedies, popular songs, lyrics, revues, film productions and comedies. Sometimes he has had three plays running simultaneously in London and film productions at the picture theatres.
Associated with Isobel Elsom in the production of Private Lives at the King’s Theatre will be George Barrnud, Harvey Adams, Charlotte Francis and Sadie Bedford. The play will be produced by George D. Parker. There are three acts in this comedy. The first takes place on the terrace of an hotel in France; the second and third in Amanda’s flat in Paris.
The cast for the 1933 Australian tour of Private Lives comprised:
The first Australian production of Private Lives took place on Saturday, 29 July 1933. It was paired with a ‘curtain raiser’, ’Hop-o’-Me Thumb, which featured Agnes Doyle, John Longden, Margery Caldicott, Constance Burleigh, Mary Rigby and Sadie Bedford.
The opening night was almost postponed on account of Isobel Elsom suffering from laryngitis. In fact, the final night of When Ladies Meet had been cancelled on account of her indisposition. Her performance on the Saturday suffered a little as she was still hoarse. And still refining some of their stage business, Miss Elsom inflicted a three inch long cut on George Barraud’s head after breaking a gramophone record over his skull.
Private Lives was played for just a fortnight in Melbourne, closing on 16 August 1933. With the final performance at the King’s, the company left for Adelaide, opening with the Coward comedy which played from 19 August to 25 August 1933. They concluded their short season at the Theatre Royal with the first Australian production of Her Cardboard Lover from 26–30 August 1933.
Private Lives next opened the company’s Brisbane season at Her Majesty’s Theatre on 9 September 1933. It ran until 19 September, after which While Parents Sleep was performed for the first time in Queensland, with the final night on 28 September. Harvey Adams (Colonel Hammond), Agnes Doyle (Bubbles Thompson) and John Wood (Jerry) repeated the roles they played when the comedy was first produced in Melbourne and Sydney in early 1933, while Charlotte Frances now played Lady Cattering, with George Barraud as Neville and Margery Caldicott as Mrs. Hammond. Isobel Elsom did not appear.
The company’s first Sydney season commenced at the Criterion Theatre on Saturday, 7 October 1933 with Private Lives, which played until 3 November. It was the only play performed and marked the end of Isobel Elsom’s tour.
The Reviews
“PRIVATE LIVES”
MISS ELSOM’S SUCCESS
Brilliant Comedy at King’s
It is somewhat regrettable that Melbourne audiences were not given the first opportunity of becoming acquainted with Miss Isobel Elsom in Noël Coward play “Private Lives,” which on Saturday night succeeded “When Ladies Meet” at the King’s Theatre. There is as much difference between the quality of the two plays which both depend upon the wit of their dialogue to carry off their situation, as there is between the opportunities provided in each for a revelation of Miss Elsom’s quality as an actress, and her special flair for comedy. Brilliant as is the dialogue of Coward’s play, it must be complemented by the ability of the actors who interpret his characters for the audience. Both Miss Elson, with her personal charm and finished technique, and Mr. George Barraud, whose artistic restraint and ease of deportment give conviction to unconvincing situations, play with distinction. Miss Elsom’s admirable performance was given under the trying and serious handicap of a severe attack of laryngitis.
Although this is the first professional stage production in Melbourne of “Private Lives,” the film version was seen here last year, with Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery in the principal roles. Excellent as the picture was, with all the advantages in background and accessories that the resources of the film studio could supply, it was interesting to find, in the present production, that with the comparatively limited equipment of the legitimate theatre, the play was written originally for the stage, stands the test of comparison with the screen more than adequately.
One of the most extraordinary things about Noël Coward’s amazing career is the fact that he has achieved much of his success because of his capacity for detecting some of the least admirable of human weaknesses, especially those customarily described as “essentially feminine,” and for employing them as ingredients for the exercise of his peculiar genius for entertaining the multitude. Having an innate sense of the theatre, Mr. Coward is a finished craftsman, skilled in the delineation of character and amazingly deft in his handling of dialogue. One of the secrets of his success in “Private Lives” is the effect of delightful spontaneity which distinguishes the irrelevant fooling and fleetingly dramatic moments in the second, and most critical scene in the play. In this scene the two principal characters who have been married and divorced, and who have been reunited by a chance meeting on the night of their separate marriages to other people, hold the stage for the entire act without once losing the interest of the audience. It is just that slightly cynical “bite” which underlies most of Mr Coward’s superfine nonsense that his audiences find so stimulating. There is only one jarring note in the whole play one for which the author is himself responsible, and which is the absurdly exaggerated rough-and-tumble at the end at the second act.
Admirable support is given to Miss Elsom and Mr. Barraud by Mr. Harvey Adams as the fatuously devoted husband whose tenderly protective proclivities are not appreciated by his bride of a day, and is also given by Miss Charlotte Francis as a young wife who is determined to make up to her husband for the bad treatment which he had presumably received from her predecessor.
An excellent performance of the one-act comedy, “’Op-o’-Me-Thumb” preceded “Private Lives,” with Miss Constance Burleigh, Miss Margery Caldicott, Miss Sadie Bedford, Miss Mary Rigby, Miss Agnes Doyle, and Mr John Longden in the cast. It is difficult to understand, however, why a “curtain raiser” has been thought to be necessary.
“Private Lives” and “’Op-o’-Me-Thumb” are produced by George D. Parker. The first matinee will be given next Wednesday.
The Argus, 31 July 1933, p.3
THE THEATRES.
By THE CHIEL.
“Private Lives” (Kings).
AFTER having read Noël Coward’s “Private Lives” as a play, seen it on the screen as a talking picture, and on the stage at the King’s Theatre with Miss Isobel Elsom and Mr. George Barraud in the leading parts, there is no doubt left as to the superiority of the stage as the medium for the proper interpretation of the comedy. It makes one recognise that it is a great mistake for the average reader to read a play before having seen it acted by a competent cast. “Private Lives” makes amusing reading, but stripped of the magic of the spoken word and gesture of the artist, it as a skeleton stripped of its flesh.
One of the remarkable features of the comedy is its economy of character. There are only four people in it, apart from a maid, whose part is negligible. But of the four only two really count. In the second of the three acts, which is the longest, the two leaders hold the stage throughout, except for a brief moment at the fall of the curtain. To all intents and purposes the full-length comedy is the work of only two people—a somewhat searching test of their ability, and one from which Miss Elsom and Mr. Barraud emerge with flying colours.
Only a brilliant worker such as Noël Coward would have the courage to use such an unconvincing idea as that on which “Private Lives” is based. Two honeymoon couples occupy adjoining suites at an hotel in France. Elyot Chase, the new husband of Sybil, and Amanda Prynne, the new wife of Victor, have previously been divorced. Sybil and Victor irritate Elyot and Amanda by harping on their previous marriages until both couples quarrel. Then, left to themselves on their respective balconies, Elyot and Amanda see in each other the partner of the former marriage, and the broken affection is immediately resumed, and they elope, leaving the-bride and bridegroom lamenting-more or less.
This material is used with delightful effect by Miss Elsom and Mr. Barraud, who interpret the stormy temperaments of Amanda and Elyot with devastating effect. The improbabilities are overlooked because the audience sees in Amanda and Elyot two irresponsible and happy-go-lucky people who would be quite capable of such a crazy and unconventional adventure. They wrangle and quarrel and make love, and one feels they were created as partners to go on doing it all their lives. Miss Elsom and Mr. Barraud have brought Noël Coward's conceptions to life with all their charming qualities and unamiable characteristics revealed without undue emphasis.
Miss Charlotte Frances takes the part of the deserted Sybil Chase, and makes that earnest young woman just the unsuitable partner for Elyot that Noël Coward intended her to be. Mr. Harvey Adam is the too protective and too fussy second choice of Amanda, and gives the lie to the saying that “second thoughts are best”. Those who remember “Private Lives” on the screen should not miss it on the stage; the contrast is well worth studying. The stage wins in a canter, despite the magic of the camera.
As a curtain-raiser, “’Op-o’-me Thumb,” a one-act play by Frederic Fenn and Richard Pryce, is staged. This is a very clever and pleasing trifle, which permits the gathering of a goodly armful of laurels by a very competent actress, Miss Agnes Doyle, who plays the part of a workhouse child with a vast and rather pathetic imagination. There is a naturalness and charm in Miss Doyle’s work that captured the-audience without effort.
The Australasian, 5 August 1933, p.16
Noël COWARD'S CLEVER PLAY
'Private Lives' At Theatre Royal
“Private lives,” an intimate comedy in three acts, by Noël Coward. At the Theatre Royal.
No one, least of all Mr. Coward himself, would expect this brilliant fragment of his wit and stagecraft to be taken seriously, but there is an air of high-spirited seriousness needed in certain of its moments to hold it together.
This quality was sometimes lacking when the comedy was presented by Miss Isobel Elsom’s company on Saturday night. The play is an accomplished piece of construction. Mr. Coward knows his theatre so well that his plays run like beautiful machinery, but in a cast so small as that of 'Private Lives' small defects are easily perceived.
Of the company, Mr. George Barraud alone, perhaps had the keynote of this elaborate lightheartedness. Certainly, Mr. Harvey Adams conveyed the right picture of Victor Prynne, the humorless foil for the leading man, but a different task was required of him. The work of holding the interest lies with the two principals. They, and practically they alone, are under the scrutiny of the audience for the best part of three acts. It is a difficult task. Elyot Chase and Amanda have been married and unmarried, and the beginning of a second venture with “two quite different people” brings them together again.
There is something left of their old romance that is too strong for the new, so they elope. It is this quality, in between the fantastic quarrels, which carries them on through the second and third acts. It is a glamor which should be particularly apparent to the audience in the middle of the difficult second act where the author for once is leaning on his players to sustain his idea. With all due respect to Miss Elsom she is not glamorous—in this part, at least, let it be specified. She is obviously an actress of much charm, with great gifts, but, apparently, they are gifts not adaptable to this part. The play occasionally requires her to bounce physically, but surely not emotionally, at least not in the way and at the times she does. And her voice and certain arch mannerisms do not convey the impression of suppressed fire and sleek allure that the reading of the part suggests. Still, there is an infectious gaiety in Miss Elsom’s rendering of Amanda that in a large measure offsets an adverse view of her interpretation.
It is hard to understand why, with a deep voice that might have belonged to Amanda, titian hair and a sinuous manner, Miss Charlotte Francis should have been cast as Sybil , although the author made her a fluffy, lightheaded blonde. She made a convincing appearance in the first act, and, with reservations, in the last, though she might have been more animated and less portentous at times. The scene in the last act, in which the sundered couples take breakfast together, is the best joint effort in the play. It is a delightful piece of fooling, with the Coward faculty for the exchange of smart repartee and gay sophistry at its height.
The comedy, most scintillating of Coward’s, is a sprightly piece of entertainment. It is admirably mounted, and making allowance for a difference of opinion about interpretation, well acted.
The one-act curtain raiser “’Op-o’-me-thumb,” by Frederick Fenn and Richard Pryce, is chiefly notable for a fine piece of imaginative acting by Agnes Doyle, who gives full expression to the authors’ intention—a whimsical excursion into make-believe.
The Advertiser, 21 August 1933, p.17
LACQUER SATIN
PYJAMAS
"Private Lives" Modes
Noël Coward’s witty comedy, “Private Lives,” which opened at the Theatre Royal on Saturday, gives scope for some attractive frocking.
The star of the piece, Miss Isobel Elsom, in the role of the temperamental Amanda, makes her first appearance in a frock and matching ruffled cape of pastel pink faille. But the most sophisticated note is struck by her pyjama outfit of the new lacquer satin. The blouse is in scarlet, and the flared trousers in black. Scarlet heels are a finish to her black satin slippers.
In the final act, at her flat in Paris, Amanda wears black and white in rather an unusual way. A black crepe coat with its cape sleeves bordered with fur is worn over a perfectly plain white frock. Her small toque hat is set off with an eye veil.
Miss Charlotte Francis, as Sybil Chase, chooses for the first evening of her honeymoon on the Riviera a charming frock of dove grey organdie made on close-fitting lines, until, the skirt widens into full flares above the knee.
Fuschia colors—deep blue and red—are allied in a trim walking costume which she wears when she and Victor Prynne, played by Harvey Adams, discover the eloping Amanda and Elyot in Amanda’s Paris flat. The skirt is plaided in red and two tones of blue. The tailored jacket is in the deeper blue, and a trim little forage cap, worn at a jaunty angle combines the three colors.
News (Adelaide), 21 August 1933, p.8
By the end of the year most of the members of the comedy company had returned to England. Charlotte Francis and her husband John Longden both remained in Australia, notably appearing in the film The Silence of Dean Maitland, directed by Ken G. Hall. Longden played the title character with Charlotte as Alma Lee. Miss Francis returned to England in 1934. Longden stayed in Australia a few more years, appearing in several more films.
Radio Premiere
During 1932/1933, Madge Elliott and Cyril Ritchard were appearing in a round of musical comedies for JCW. They had met Coward in London the previous year and hoped to play Amanda and Elyot on stage in Australia. This would have given them the chance to appear in their first straight play, but clearly JCW thought musical comedy was more profitable. They would have to wait until 1951 for the opportunity to perform Private Lives on stage. See Thus Far (Part 6)
The Private Lives broadcast was originally scheduled to take place on Sunday, 12 February 1933. A cable had been sent to Noël Coward seeking permission. Coward caballed back giving permission but requesting the ‘payment of a nominal royalty’, necessitating a further delay pending Coward’s reply. As a result Her Cardboard Lover by Jacques Deval was performed on 12 February, with Madge Elliott as Simone and Cyril Ritchard as Andre Sallicel, with supporting roles filled by Frank Leighton, Herbert Leigh, Edith Cowley, Leonard Stephens and Kendrick Hudson.
The broadcast of Private Lives took place on Sunday, 5 March 1933 from the ABC Sydney studios of 2FC and on relay to 2NC (Newcastle), 3LO (Melbourne), 2CO (Corowa), 4QG (Brisbane), 4RK (Rockhampton), 5CL (Adelaide) and 5CK (Crystal Brook, SA) at 8.30 to 10 p.m.
The cast comprised:
A comprehensive review appeared in the Sun (Sydney), 8 March 1933, written by ‘Ariel’ in the column ‘From the Lighter Side Layer’:
For a long-time no comedy has been so brightly and elegantly performed as Noël Coward’s “Private Lives,” transmitted from 2FC on the national programme on Sunday night.
Edith Cowley as Sibyl, and Cyril Ritchard as Elyot, the newly-assorted couple—having just divorced their previous partners—paced the dialogue perfectly in their opening scene, and no one, henceforth, had need to make use of Elyot’s “Solomon Isaacs,” to curb impetuosity; and one and all most happily ignored the microphone.
The story—like so much of Noël Coward’s work—finds an echo in the past.
“So Long, Letty,” was the prototype of “Private Lives.” But, a great wit having truly written, “Originality is what everybody is asking for and nobody wants,” that is of little matter.
What does matter is that “Private Lives” is a very brilliant and entertaining little play, perfectly suited for the radio.
HIGH COMEDY
In it, Madge Elliott was so sweetly womanly, when her temper did not overmaster her—and, even then, so feminine in her return of tit-for-tat, a lamp for a clock in the home-wrecking scene with her divorced husband, that ended the second act—that “Mandy” seemed enticing, very provoking, but intensely desirable.
Her scenes with Cyril Ritchard, which were the lion’s share of the play, were high comedy—one smelt the Champs Elysees. The plot hangs on divorce and an accidental change of partners—fate still playing its hand in throwing the re-assorted couples side by side in adjacent flats, with a lightly screened terrace in common on the evening of their wedding day.
Since unions on the stage seem never troubled with what a great French actress called “love’s embarrassments,” their readjustment is the simplest matter.
There is much bright dialogue of the steel-claw-and-velvet-pad order to attract the ear throughout the three acts of the comedy.
LONGED FOR TELEVISION
Madge Elliott’s voice was the instrument for subtleties of emotion that gave her place as the best of our light comedy actresses. Into Cyril Rltchard’s voice, too, crept a naturalness and emotional color that was wholly attractive, and enlisted sympathy with his love affair so gone “agley.”
In the scene of reconciliation—followed by the most destructive domestic storm—when he set the gramophone on, and, it seemed, they kept step with its music, slowly and lovingly—we longed for television to show us their inimitable grace in the dance.
The deserted wife and husband, Sibyl and Victor, were a splendid foil in their downrightness to the feather-headed Mandy and her Elyot. They were well played by Edith Cowley and Campbell Copelin— the latter taking the place of that clever young actor and singer, Frank Leighton, whose voice was unfortunately found so like that of Cyril Ritchard as to prevent their rejoining forces on the radio.
FELINE MALES
The men in this play—like those in so many of a certain school of contemporary playwrights—are not healthy-minded males, but introspective cats—tom-cats, granted; but none the less feline.
In them the women meet their match, and are not conceded even the traditional “last word.”
“Private Lives” was a shower of roses in the pathway of these brilliant young artists.
