The second act ‘curtain’ of Private Lives, 1930. From Theatre World, December 1930, p.180.
The first production of Private Lives was presented under the management of Charles B. Cochran. It opened out of town at the King’s Theatre, Edinburgh on 18 August 1930. A five-week tour followed that saw the play performed in Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester and Southsea.
On 24 September 1930, it reached London, where it opened at the newly constructed Phoenix Theatre in Charing Cross Road. Opening night was a glittering affair and the new theatre was launched by Cochran with a ‘fanfare of uniformed trumpeters’. Stalls tickets were a record £2 (£130 in today’s prices). The first night audience attracted a range of stars, from Mrs. Patrick Campbell to H.G. Wells.
The scenery and interior decorations were designed by G.E. Calthrop. Scenery constructed by Loveday and Higson. Painted by Alick Johstone. Lighting effects by The Strand Electric & Engineering Co. Furniture by J.S. Lyon, Ltd. and John Holliday & Sons. Floral decorations by Windram. Gramophone supplied by His Master’s Voice Co., Ltd. Miss Gertrude Lawrence’s gowns by Molyneux. Miss Adrianne Allen’s gowns by Reville.
Private Lives played at the Phoenix until the 20 December 1930, being withdrawn at the height of its success, much to the chagrin of the producers and audiences who flocked to the theatre. Coward insisted that he would remain in the play for no more than three months each in London and on Broadway: ‘If I play the same part over and over again for a long run, I get bored and frustrated and my performance deteriorates.’
The cast on tour and in London was as follows:
Laurence Olivier, who played Victor, was twenty-three at the time, and was still at the outset of his career. He had enjoyed some success with the Birmingham Repertory Company and drew good notices in the West End, notably as Stanhope in the first production of Journey’s End (1928). In 1929 he made his first appearance on Broadway playing Hugh Bromilow in Murder on the Second Floor. A notorious giggler, Coward claims to have cured him of his condition during the London run of Private Lives. According to biographer Cole Lesley, proof that Larry had overcome his affliction came when he and Noël enjoyed a spot of improvisation: ‘He [Larry] had a line which ran, “A friend of mine has a house on the edge of Cap Ferrat”; Noël quickly ad-libbed, “On the edge?” “Yes,” Larry said firmly, “on the very edge.” And looked Noël straight in the eye. His cure was complete. What is more he got a big laugh; and the line was slightly changed and incorporated into the play.’
Adrianne Allen, who had just become Mrs. Raymond Massey, was the same age as Olivier. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, she made her stage debut in Coward’s Easy Virtue (1926) at the Duke of York’s Theatre, playing the small role of Nina Vansittart. Later the same year, at the Everyman Theatre in Hampstead, she appeared in the premiere of another Coward play, The Rat Trap. Honing her craft in repertory, she also played ingenue roles in the West End, including Mabel Worthington in Potiphar’s Wife (1927) at the Globe, and Madge Carson in the triller The Devil’s Host (1928) at the Comedy.
Olivier and Allen were perfect for the supporting roles of Victor and Sybil. Though Coward had dismissed the roles as ‘little better than ninepins’, he later admitted that they needed to be attractive and interesting people, otherwise Amanda and Elyot would not have considered marrying them.
Adrianne Allan as Sybil
From Private Lives program, 1930
Laurence Olivier as Victor
From Private Lives program, 1930
Reviews in the London papers were mixed, but most agreed that Noël and Gertie on stage was a perfect combination. The reviewer in The Tatler (22 October 1930) captured some of their charm:
The acting of Mr. Coward and Miss Lawrence is quite perfect. I lack both space and superlatives to do justice to its delicate timing and a hundred subtle touches, sung, spoken, or merely looked. Mr. Coward’s enigmatic maddening smile and heartless mock-gravity would incite an archangel to murder. Not a line was wasted, not a gesture missed its mark. Miss Lawrence, with whole gamuts of humour, glamour, and witchery at her finger-tips, unfolds a range of comedy which is an inspired blend of gifts natural and acquired … These two, with their intuitive sense of theatre, play with words as sunshine with rippling water.
As biographer Sheridan Morley put it: ‘Together they created a potent theatrical magic, and there was an indefinable chemistry in the public meeting of their two personalities which ensured that each inspired the other to be infinitely better.’
The Reviews
“PRIVATE LIVES”
FIRST NIGHT OF NOËL COWARD COMEDY
A VOCIFEROUS WELCOME
The obvious comment about last night’s play at the King’s Theatre is that Mr. Noël Coward has done it again, “it” being the presentation of a play written and produced by himself with the author portraying one of the principal characters, and the production resulting in entertainment which was almost vociferously applauded. In a curtain speech Mr. Coward rejoiced that a play of his should be instrumental in introducing Miss Gertrude Lawrence to the legitimate stage in this country, and there is every reason to assume that the public will heartily endorse such a sentiment. That the audience was eager to evince appreciation was evident from the ready laughter which greeted commonplace quips in the opening minutes, but the comedy soon got into its stride and commenced providing excellent humour and dramatic action. By some it may be considered that the second act duologue is unduly prolonged. It is possible to have too much of a good thing, but Miss Lawrence and Mr. Coward never faltered in their naturalness. Their conversation, squabbles, tenderness, and right royal row were compellingly interesting, and very necessary to give a hearing on the characters of two tantalising but never tiresome people. This premiere of the latest Coward comedy, “Private Lives,” judging by the reception accorded, was an unqualified success.
Edinburgh Evening News, 19 August 1930, p.2
Scene from Act 1 by Tom Titt. The Tatler, 22 October 1930.
“PRIVATE LIVES”
Noël Coward Acts in His Own Play at London’s New Theatre
MIXED FARE
BY OUR DRAMATIC CRITIC
A new theatre, the Phoenix, a new play by Noël Coward, “Private Lives,” and a floor full of celebrated or fashionable people who had paid £2 for their seats made a distinct theatrical “occasion” last night.
All the scene was set, in fact, for a dazzling triumph, and we had been led to expect something, startling. Alas! the result was a little disappointing. “Private Lives” is not a dull play, though it has dull patches, but, on the other hand, it is by no means a brilliant play. It is Noël Coward at his second best, trying to make a lot out of a little. Nothing much happens. A divorced couple, when they have both married again, find themselves on their respective honeymoons in adjoining rooms on the terrace of an hotel. They fall in love again and run away to Paris, where for a whole act they are either bickering or spooning. They end up with a flaming row, when they break tables and roll on the floor. The play is by turns sentimental and sophisticated, and there is even a little love song (a la Ivor Novello) to melt the hearts of the antagonists at appropriate moments. Noël Coward himself plays one principal part and Gertrude Lawrence the other. It is a tribute to their skill that we do not get tired of them sooner. Miss Lawrence especially is delightful both to look at and to listen to. But the play is undeniably thin.
Daily Mirror, 25 September 1930, p.2
Private Lives program, 1930
The new Phoenix Theatre, 1930
THE PHOENIX. “PRIVATE LIVES.”
The red and gold adornments of the auditorium of the new house in Charing Cross Road and Phoenix Street form the setting in which is placed Noël Coward’s so-called intimate comedy satirically entitled “Private Lives,” which reached London on September 24 after its production, on August 18, at the King’s, Edinburgh. It may be said to point to a not altogether agreeable reversion to Mr. Coward’s “Fallen Angels” manner, for the notorious double-drunken scene for the two women in that play has now a sort of parallel in the equally unedifying cat-and-dog fight between one divorced and re-married couple that ends the second act of the play in a way as startling even to a sophisticated modern audience as it is to the other couple, who are shown beginning the same game as the curtain finally falls. Whether decent people do behave in such unseemly fashion even in moments of emotional excitement, is a question left for us to decide by Mr. Coward, who, as an actor, has gained vastly in suavity and command of light comedy since he was last seen in town. He has done some of his most attractive work as a composer in the writing of a very taking valse song, with haunting and often-heard refrain, “Some Day I'll Find You,” rendered most engagingly by Mr. Coward and his partner of greatness, Miss Gertrude Lawrence, in the roles of Elyot Chase and his former wife, Amanda, who had divorced him five years before the action opens on the terrace of an hotel at a French seaside resort. Here, adjoining suites are occupied by the two honeymooning couples Elyot and his second wife Sybil, and Amanda and her second husband Victor Prynne. The author has rung the changes very ingeniously and divertingly upon the jealousy motive, Sybil continually annoying Elyot by harping upon the theme of comparison with his former wife, and Victor similarly exasperating the obviously vile-tempered Amanda by referring to her relations with Elyot. Thus, after both the Chase and the Prynnes have indulged in huffs, Elyot and Amanda, meeting again upon a by no means Browningesque balcony, effect, a speedy redintegratio amoris, and on the spur of the moment fly off together to Paris. There, in Amanda’s flat, takes place the battle-royal, rightly described by Sybil as disgusting and degrading, the tail-end of which is witnessed by Mrs. Chase and Mr. Prynne, who had seemingly followed in pursuit of the fugitives. In the course of a very vulgar row (a term justly applicable to the affair), Amanda smashed a gramophone record upon Elyot’s head, and the couple knock over the lamp, the table and a chair, besides violently smacking one another’s faces, before rolling over a couch and tumbling together upon the floor in most unadmired disorder. Possibly this disgraceful exhibition of bad manners gave the cue to Victor and the both dull-witted and rather vinegarish Sybil for a similar display of low-life tantrums after a cleverly written breakfast scene for the re-assorted party of four next morning, eked out with small talk which Mr. Coward makes his characters use with mirthful effect. His witty dialogue is studded with allusions to his recent travels out East. Then, as Victor and Sybil are starting their jangle, Elyot and Amanda slip out apparently on another quest of happiness as eloping exponents of the surprises of divorce.
It is all ultra-modern, we presume, and much to the taste, seemingly, of the smart audiences thronging into the new Phoenix, with piquant contrast provided by the ornate art decoration and elaborate reproduction of famous paintings attributed, respectively, to such distinguished Russian hommes-de-theatre as Theodor Komisarjevsky and Vladimir Polunin. Mr. Coward, with histrionic resources completely under control, and Miss Lawrence, playing with delightful and almost Gallic finesse as the frankly cynical Amanda, are being received with acclamation. The more ordinary and not so nimble- brained Victor and Sybil are having capital treatment from Mr. Laurence Olivier, with traces of his Stanhope style, and from clever Miss Adrianne Allen, with Miss Everley Gregg, good as the amazed and auspicious French maid Louise. “Private Lives” is produced by the author, and the general stage director for Mr. Cochran is Mr. Frank Collins, aided by Mr. Gerard Clifton and Miss Audrey Pointing.
The Stage, 2 October 1930, p.16
