Hal Thompson, Jane Conolly, Marie Ney and Richard Parry in Private Lives, 1940. National Library of Australia, Canberra.
It is an interesting phenomenon that in Australia many plays and musicals seem to enjoy more revivals than they do in their native land. We saw this with Kissing Time. In London, from 1940 and 1999, there have six major revivals of Private Lives. On Broadway, five. In Australia (Melbourne and Sydney), during the same period, no less than eight!
Revival 1
Cover of theatre program, Melbourne, 1940
Theatre Heritage Australia
Marie Ney and Hal Thompson in Act 1 of Private Lives
National Library of Australia, Canberra
The first Australian revival took place in 1940, coinciding with Noël Coward’s first visit ‘down under’, which was undertaken as part of the war effort to raise funds for the Red Cross. He would return to Australia in 1963 to oversee the direction of his musical Sail Away for J.C. Williamson Ltd.
While Coward was in Melbourne, Private Lives opened at the King’s Theatre on 7 December 1940. It played in that theatre until 21 December, and on 23 December transferred to the Comedy Theatre, where it played a further two weeks, closing on 11 January 1941.
Noël Coward meeting with Hal Thompson and Marie Ney during his Red Cross Matinee at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne, 29 November 1940
National Library of Australia, Canberra
In addition to his scheduled Red Cross Matinees, on 17 December 1940 a special Noël Coward Matinee was held at the King’s, when following the performance of Private Lives, the playwright presented ‘several items from his repertoire’. The proceeds of the event were donated to the Lord Mayor’s Greek War Victims’ Fund.
After three weeks in Melbourne, the Private Lives company headed to Sydney, where they undertook a month-long engagement at the Theatre Royal, from 22 February to 21 March 1941.
The cast for this revival comprised:
NOËL COWARD PLAYS
Private Lives at the King's
Ironical, as it may seem for a public which has never seen The Vortex in professional performance, Private Lives, a brilliant example of Noël Coward’s pungent wit and facile satire, received its second Melbourne production since 1933 at the King’s Theatre on Saturday evening. The reception accorded the play by a capacity house was fitting tribute to the superb craftsmanship of its creator, who is now in Australia.
Marie Ney interpreted Amanda in quick, nervous style, which should adapt itself to the mind of the audience. With Elyot on the terrace she expressed true feeling, and her singing of Some Day I’ll Find you was softly melodious. Her humor lacked sophistication at times. Hal Thompson, a little harsh in his vehemence, imparted to Elyot a verve which will strengthen. Both Miss Ney and Mr. Thompson, however, must time the second act exchanges so as to pave the way for the brilliant last scene.
As Sibyl, Jane Connolly was very well cast; Richard Parry, as Victor, mistook pompous inanity for effeminacy in the flat. Hope Slessor was effective as Louise.
Ways and Means was given as a curtain-raiser (the belief dies hard that every audience must have its fill), with Gwenyth Izzard, John McDougall, Catherine Duncan, Frederick McMahon and Ethel Gabriel also in the cast.
William Constable’s settings for Private Lives were exquisite.
There will be matinees on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2.
The Age (Melbourne), 9 December 1940, p.8
TWO PLAYS BY NOËL COWARD
By HARRISON OWEN
To a patron whose recollections go back to that incredibly remote period (theatrical historians insist that it was only the year 1930) when “Private Lives” first dazzled London theatregoers, and who has always resented the easy criticism that the play would be “simply nothing, my dear, without Noël and Gertrude Lawrence,” it was gratifying to see how triumphantly it survived at the King’s on Saturday night.
It would be difficult to think of two players less like the original Elyot and Amanda than Mr. Hal Thompson and Miss Marie Ney, but a character to which a dramatist has imparted vitality—whether it be an Elyot, an Amandna or a Hamlet—acquires new interest in the hands of a new Interpreter.
INTERPRETATIVE CHARM
Miss Ney’s Amanda is most successful in her more tempestuous moods. At other times her quick, nervous delivery of lines which seem to call for more languid treatment, and her deliberately gauche movements, as when she sits straddle-legged on a chair, suggests a charming gamine intent upon being naughty rather than the worldly-wise Amanda with a heart “jagged with sophistication”.
For a playgoer who has admired Mr. Coward as Elyot to be able to announce that he thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Thompson’s performance in the part is in itself a tribute to that actor. This was a more boisterous Elyot, a less suave and silky Elyot, an American playboy rather than a type which gives us the quintessence of pre-war Bond Street and Deauville. We missed the hand of irony in the velvet glove, but Mr. Thompson’s Elyot has a charm of his own and plants his lines with unerring precision.
And how good the lines are! For years before the war the London stage was littered with plays by bright young men who imagined they had mastered the knack of writing Noël Coward dialogue; but this remains a secret only to its inventor, who with a cool eye surveys the gay and worthless little world of which he writes and with a swift pen pricks off the masquerade.
ABLY SUPPORTED
“Private Lives” is very much a duet in floodlight, but Miss Ney and Mr. Thompson receive able support from Miss Jane Conolly and Mr. Richard Parry, and these and others also get gaily through “Ways And Means”, presented as a curtain raiser. Although little more than a music hall sketch, “Ways nnd Means” reveals its author’s inimitable touch, but it certainly is not improved by the substitution of one of the oldest and cheapest “trick” endings for the typical Noël Coward line which should bring down the curtain.
The Herald (Melbourne), 9 December 1940, p.10
Revival 2
Cover of theatre program, Sydney, 1951
Theatre Heritage Australia
Madge and Cyril in their dressing room after the first night of Private Lives, 1951
From The Australian Women's Weekly, 27 June 1951, p.15
The second major Australian revival took place 10 years later at the Palace Theatre in Sydney when Cyril Ritchard and Marge Elliott reprised the roles that they had originally played on radio in 1933 and reprised on radio for the ABC in 1951. According to newspaper reports, the revival was a somewhat rushed affair. They had just a fortnight to prepare the show. Cyril Ritchard directed and William Constable designed the sets.
The season at the Palace opened on 19 June 1951 and was originally limited to six weeks, but ended up playing until 6 September 1951.
This production did not go on tour.
“A.A.”, the critic in the Sydney Morning Herald (20 June 1951), distinctly cold about the play and the playwright, had some kind words to say about the players.
COWARD PLAY OPENS
There were times, during last night’s production of “Private Lives” at the Palace Theatre, when the vitality and accomplishment of the leading players made Noel Coward’s stale sophistication look almost fresh and sparkling.
Nothing in the play however, suggested that he could be called now a profound humorist or even a clever social satirist. Like most of his comedies, it seems to have been conceived in a mood of rather grim gaiety, as though he was feverishly determined to laugh, no matter what the cost.
But he completely lacked ironical detachment towards that crazy couple, Amanda and Elyot, who jerk through monosyllabic gloom, ecstasy, and hysteria.
JAZZ RHYTHM
Cyril Ritchard and Madge Elliott handled the brittle, light lipped talk and frivolous emotional hiccoughing with a well-timed appreciation of the play's jazz rhythm. Miss Elliott flogged things along a bit too furiously, and occasionally was no match for her partner’s crisp delivery and nimble movement. Nevertheless, her warm charm held the part together nicely.
Although Mr. Ritchard often played lackadaisically, he very properly treated the dialogue and characters as a forced and flippant joke, imparting an artistry to the telling that was seldom in the content of it. Now and again Bettina Welch rushed on to the stage looking lovely even against the back ground of surprisingly shabby sets. Leonard Bullen bounced around quite capably, and Audrey Teesdale contributed some amusing French to the proceedings. The audience lolled back deliciously drugged with nostalgia for the whirling, madcap twenties.
The ABC Weekly, 16 June 1951
From The ABC Weekly, 16 June 1951
Madge and Cyril’s return to Australia in 1951 was essentially a private visit to catch up with their respective Sydney-based family members, however they also undertook a number of radio broadcasts for the ABC, including the Saturday Playhouse presentations of Private Lives on 23 June, Terence Rattigan’s Harlequinade on 30 June, and Frederick Lonsdale’s The Last of Mrs. Cheyney on 7 July. As the stage revival was a “rushed affair” and took place concurrently with the ABC broadcasts, it may be that the radio productions preceded and, indeed, inspired the JCW revival of the Coward comedy. The radio play was produced by Frank Harvey and adapted as a one-hour play by David Nettheim, but no listing of who the supporting players were was given in The ABC Weekly. It seems the play was pre-recorded, as repeat broadcasts were given on the ABC regional stations on Tuesday, 3 July 1951.
Revival 3
Cast list from theatre program, Melbourne, 1954
Theatre Heritage Australia
A few years later, from 27 September 1954, a Melbourne-only production was staged by the Union Theatre Repertory Company at the Union Theatre at Melbourne University. Presented as part of a five-play season, Private Lives was performed for only two weeks. John Sumner directed. Sets were designed by the Staff of the Union Theatre Workshop, and Maree Tomasetti’s Act 2 costume was designed by Beth Brown.
Geoffrey Hutton in The Age (28 September 1954) recorded:
When we were very much younger Private Lives seemed the smartest funniest comedy of the day. Last night the Union Theatre Repertory Company made it seem as funny as ever … Working with a small and beautifully rehearsed cast, he [John Sumner] has produced the high finish which this carefully veneered comedy demands … The contrasting couples are nicely played, with Maree Tomasetti and Alex Scott as the sophisticated and Sylvia Reid and Paul Maloney as their disgruntled and abandoned spouses.
And the strength of the company shows clearly in a brilliant little sketch by Zoe Caldwell as a bewildered and highly emotional French maid.
Revival 4
Cover of theatre program, Melbourne, 1960
Theatre Heritage Australia
The fourth major production also took place in Melbourne at the Russell Street Theatre. This was the city’s newest theatre. Established under the auspices of the Council of Adult Entertainment (CAE), it had opened in July 1960 with the revue Look Who’s Here! presented by John Sumner’s Union Theatre Repertory Company; to be followed on 30 August by a season of ballet performed by the Victorian Ballet Guild. Private Lives was the third attraction at the Russell Street Theatre. Directed by CAE’s resident drama officer Harold Baigent, it played a four-week season from 21 September to 29 October 1960. The cast comprised:
Of the cast, Melbourne-born June Clyne (1922–1967) was probably the best known at the time. On stage since 1940, she had made her professional debut in Laburnum Grove in 1948, the first play to be produced on tour by the CAE. Since that time, she had played supporting roles opposite Clifford Mollison (Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary? and Don’t Listen Ladies), Diana Barrymore (Light Up the Sky), Melvyn Douglas (Time Out for Ginger), Jessie Matthews (Larger Than Life), Peter Gray (The Little Hut), and Dulcie Gray (Tea and Sympathy). In 1955, she had performed the role of Amanda, opposite the Elyot of Hector Ross, when Private Lives played a short season at Theatre Royal in Adelaide.
Revival 5
Cover of theatre program, Sydney, 1968
Theatre Hertiage Australia
Eight years later, in Sydney, Phillip Productions Pty. Ltd. and Harry M. Miller convened a season of two Coward plays: Present Laughter and Private Lives, the two comedies playing on alternate weeks at the Palace Theatre. Both plays shared a cast. The leading lady, Rosemary Martin, had performed Amanda in London, when the comedy was staged by Hampstead Theatre Club in 1963. According to the program notes, when negotions were underway for the present season, Noël Coward suggested that Rosemary Martin be engaged, having seen her performance at Hampstead.
The plays were directed by Anthony Sharp, with sets by Leslie Walford, costumes by Lloyd Studios, and lighting by Arno Leinas.
Present Laughter opened on 7 August 1968 and Private Lives a week later, on 14 August. The final performance of Private Lives was given on 12 October 1968.
The cast comprised:
Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald (16 August 1968), H.G. Kippax observed:
The production at the Palace falls short of the play’s desserts. Yet, so irresistible is the Coward brio and (one must quickly add) so buoyant at least one important performance, that it will be a sad heart that cannot rejoice at this very welcome revival.
The director, Anthony Sharp, has set the comedy firmly but not too obtrusively in the twenties, to which it belongs. The twitter of a palm-court orchestra, the swirl of a floral-patterned gown, the length of a cigarette holder, the stately idiocies at arm’s length of two-step and tango—these evoke the period and pay out the little bonus of nostalgia which time has added to Mr. Coward’s generous dividends.
Of the acting he was somewhat circumspect. He liked Rosemary Martin, but was somewhat cool towards Stuart Wagstaff:
One can imagine a more lovable Amanda (passion and tenderness are understated in this production); but vocally this exuberant and inventive performance is immensely satisfying. Only Miss Googie Withers in Australia can caress or tease a vowel as Miss Martin does, to make a word throb with sly malice or threaten with mischief. To say all of which is to give one unanswerable reason why this show should not be missed.
…. Here complaints begin: because although Mr. Wagstaff acts with Miss Martin attentively and with considerable varying charm, and although in his easy-going way he lets no possible laugh-line elude him, there is a lack of devil—of the “killer instinct”, both in the performance and the character performed—that is at odds with all that should be brittle, tense and surprising in the duets with Amanda.
Revival 6
Cover of theatre program, Melbourne, 1976
National Library of Australia, Canberra
Susannah York, from the 1976 theatre program
National Library of Australia, Canberra
The sixth major revival took place in 1976, when Susannah York was on a starring tour, under the auspices of J.C. Williamson’s. The play was directed by Robert Chetwyn; with sets and costumes by Kenneth Rowell.
Opening at the Theatre Royal in Adelaide on 7 December 1976, the production then toured to Melbourne (Comedy Theatre, 15 October 1976) and Sydney (Her Majesty’s Theatre, 17 November 1976). The tour concluded on 18 December 1976.
This production represented the last play to be staged by JCW. The cast comprised:
Sally White in The Age (18 October 1976) was somewhat circumspect about the production.
I am old-fashioned enough to rather enjoy Private Lives’ slight and gently paced style. But this production does not quite work. Director Robert Chetwynd wavers uneasily between the recreation of Coward in his time and an attempt to get the sort of cheap laugh that comes from looking at absurd, old photographs.
… Susannah York as Amanda and Barrie Ingham as Elyot move with professional aplomb through their paces. Their timing is sure, their delivery articulate but they play too much for laughs, too little for the balancing poignancy.
… Kenneth Rowell’s sets and fine-lined costumes are dashing and clean and ever-so-slightly cold. Lighting designer Melvin Condor should never have been allowed to have such blatant disregard for the script that Act One, supposedly bathed in moonlight, had all the glare of an early morning before a summer scorcher.
But for all its faults, Private Lives remains a graceful way to say farewell.
While Sally White saw the production as a ‘graceful farewell to an era’, Jack Hibberd, in his review for Theatre Australia (November/December 1976), was less than complimentary, using his review as an opportunity to get stuck into JCW and the snivelling behaviour of the audience.
It was a bizarre experience sitting amongst a phalanx of moist-eyed matrons as they identified totally with the Vogue-like world of Noël Coward’s Private Lives. They complimented the sets, sighed voluptuously at the handsome men, applauded Suzannah York before she had uttered a line, and clacked their dentures whenever fortunes took a turn for the worse.
One of the most ludicrous aspects of the star system is that it is largely a hoax … Not that Susannah York and Barrie Ingham are imposters or hacks. They give polished and adroit performances in the familiar euphonious English manner. Ultimately, however, these performances are easy and provocative, something unimaginable from great actors, even with material as brittle and insubstantial as Private Lives. Having seen Barrie Ingham bring off suburb performances in The Relapse and The Winter’s Tale, it was rather a shock to see him lounge through the stuff as if on a theatrical vacation.
… For JCW, however, it is a death-croak, a final mawkish look over the shoulder at halcyon days, days when they were more in touch with the public and the fickle sands of the entertainment trade. Australia has changed swiftly and radically in the Seventies, less snivelling towards Overseas, more orientated within its own cultural selfhood, more content to scrutinize its own absurd navel, these factors JCW have seemingly ignored, clinging to old habits and formulae, hence their demise.
Revival 7
John Bartholomew, Anna Lee, Amanda Muggleton and Dennis Olsen in Private Lives, Sydney, 1987.
From Trust News, December 1986, www.thetrust.org.au/pdf/trust-news/TN_1986_12_081.pdf
In 1987, Peter and Ellen Williams presented a revival of Private Lives at the Opera House Playhouse in Sydney, with Peter Williams as director. The Art Deco inspired set was designed by Doug Kingsman, with costumes by Christopher Essex. The comedy ran from 19 February to 28 March 1987. Presented under the title ‘Essential Coward’, it was followed by a revival of Blithe Spirit from 2–25 April.
The cast comprised:
Reviewing the play for the Sydney Morning Herald (1 March 1987), Mick Barnes observed:
This is a robust and riotous Private Lives that embellishes Coward’s wit, style and elegance with a touch of bawdy comedy, yet retains the essential flavour that has the author recognised as The Master in the more than 40 years he dominated the English theatre.
Of the players, he noted:
He [Peter Williams] has matched a vital Amanda Muggleton against Dennis Olsen, a superb comedy actor who can impart poise and grace with the twitch of an eyebrow, who delivers the perfect put-down with a mere change of modulation. They play their roles as lovers, adulterously reunited, with a brio that explodes in a fight scene memorable as sheer chaotic madness.
In an interesting aside, in an interview given at the time of the production, Amanda Muggleton confided that she was ‘destined from the womb to be Amanda Prynne’. Just prior to her birth, her parents were attending a production of Private Lives and her mother leaned across to her father and declared: ‘Charles! If this is a little girl I am going to call her Amanda, because she is so naughty.’ (Sydney Morning Herald, 18 February 1987)
The success of this production saw it revived at the Opera House Playhouse in 1990. The cast now comprised:
Revival 8
Cover of theatre program for 1996 MTC revival of Private Lives
Theatre Heritgae Australia
Tony Sheldon and Pamela Rabe in the Melbourne Theatre Company’s Private Lives, Sydney, 1997. Photo by Lisa Iley ©
Courtesy of Sydney Theatre Company
The seventh major Australian revival was a joint venture between the Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC) and the Sydney Theatre Company (STC).
Opening at the Fairfax Studio at the Victorian Arts Centre (now Arts Centre Melbourne), it enjoyed a six-week season, playing from 5 January to 17 February 1996. The play was directed by Roger Hodgman; with sets by Shaun Gurton; costumes by Vanessa Leyenhjelm; and lighting by Jamieson Lewis.
A key element of this production was the design of Amanda’s Paris apartment which was inspired by the work of Eileen Grey. Her domestic interiors and furniture designs epitomise the early 1930s, the period in which this revival was set. Similarly, Vanessa Leyenhjelm’s costumes were streamline and Pamela Rabe’s Act 1 dress for instance could easily have been designed by Molyneux.
Lewis Fiander was well-versed in the Coward ethos, having played ‘The Master’ in the Sheridan Morley tribute Noël and Gertie opposite Patricia Hodge at the Donmar Warehouse Theatre, London, which premiered on 26 August 1986.
When the play transferred to Sydney, the cast had altered slightly:
Performed at the Wharf 1 Theatre from 15 October 1997, Private Lives transferred to the Playhouse at the Opera House on 27 December 1997, closing on 17 January 1998.
Steven Carroll in The Age (21 January 1996) complimented Roger Hodgman’s ‘smooth production’, saying his ‘direction is tight, true to the script; functional without being adventurous’. Of the leads, he observed that Elyot and Amanda were ‘superbly played’ by Lewis Fiander and Pamela Rabe. ‘Those Coward accents are as snappy as the shutting of their silver cigarette cases, their social poise as cool as their cocktails, their timing and delivery hitting just the right tone of perfunctory dismissiveness.’
When the play reached Sydney in October 1997, James Waite in the Sydney Morning Herald (18 October 1997) was less ecstatic about the play. He thought the production though ‘fresh and charming’, was not a ‘convincing masterpiece’. He felt that Shaun Gurton’s set had been ‘shoe-horned’ into the Wharf Theatre, and that Vanessa Leyonhjelm’s costumes, though ‘sometimes fabulous’ were at other times ‘ridiculously busy and attention-seeking’.
Of Pamela Rabe, he was in no doubt of her skill as an actress, describing her as a ‘delightful Amanda’ and ‘an actor capable of embodying true sophistication’, with ‘a bite to draw blood on some of Coward’s better lines’. He was also complimentary of Tony Sheldon’s Elyot, saying he ‘gives one of his best, certainly most disciplined and concentrated, performances’.
Further revivals
Belvoir Street Theatre, Sydney, 22 September 2012—11 November 2012, with Zahra Newman and Toby Schmitz
Southbank Theatre, Melbourne, 25 January 2014—8 March 2014, with Nadine Garner and Leon Ford (Melbourne Theatre Company)
