by Noel Coward
1941, 1925, 1930
This volume included a humorous intro by Edward Albee.
"Blithe
Spirit." I hadn't read any Coward before, and had a notion his work
would be laugh-out-loud funny, like Wodehouse's, but I found this play,
although extremely literate and witty, wasn't as risible as that. It
concerns a man whose first wife, after a seance, reappears to plague him
and his second wife. Then the latter dies, too, remanifests, and his
life becomes somewhat exasperating. A jolly good plot and all, but I
can't help feeling that it could have been more exuberant, if, say, it
had detailed the catfighting of the two dead women, or spent more time
on them deciding after death that they were pals and that Charles, the
hero, was the cad. And the ending was too sudden and – a glaring
omission– totally unexplained. An enjoyable, witty play, and one with
clever innuendo, but I don't see its "classic" reputation, as it seems
so flawed.
"Hay Fever." This one was, I thought, funnier than
the first, but perhaps less witty. It concerned a very bohemian,
theatrical and artsy family that bordered on the dysfunctional without
actually ever going beyond mere theatrics, instantly forgetting all
strife moments after it begins. The family's guests for the weekend are
all horrified. It was funny, but it all lead up to a reaction – such
as the guests plotting a kind of revenge on the family that used them as
theatrical foils – that never came. I suppose in 1925 the personas of
the family were novel enough to carry the play. Also flawed, but also
comic and fun.
"Private Lives." About a divorced couple who both
remarry and happen to meet again on their simultaneous honeymoons, and
then run off together. They fight horribly, and seem to cause their
respective second spouses to quarrel just as horribly, and seem to find
it amusing. Rather an unpleasant little work, but mildly amusing in
parts.
three stars
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