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List of contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
Note on References
Introduction
1. The 1920s: From the ‘Breezy Wisdom of Youth’ to the International Set
2. The 1930s: Old and New Designs for Living
3. The 1940s: Wartime Entertainment, Post-war Discontent
4. The 1950s: Keeping a Public, Losing the Critics
5. The 1960s: A ‘Rendezvous with the Past’ and New Directions
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Russell Jackson is Emeritus Professor of Drama at the University of Birmingham, UK. His books include The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film (CUP, 2nd edition 2007), Shakespeare Films in the Making: Vision, Production and Reception (CUP, 2007) and Shakespeare and the English-speaking Cinema (OUP, 2014). He has worked closely in rehearsal with actors and directors as text consultant on many theatre and film productions. These have included Kenneth Branagh’s Shakespeare productions on stage and radio and film, and stage productions by Michael Grandage in Sheffield and London.
Summary
This is the first book-length work to draw extensively on unpublished archive material to document the composition and reception of some of Noël Coward's most significant plays. It examines his working practices as a playwright, from manuscript to performance. This study argues that, while he did not embrace any of the more radical theatrical ‘isms’ of his time, Coward experimented with both form and content. He adapted the familiar ‘well-made’ formulas, while also emphasizing theatrical self-consciousness and an exploration of radical social and sexual relationships.
After an overview of Coward’s career and the reception of his plays, the work discusses selected texts from successive phases of Coward’s career, including some unproduced or uncompleted work and perennially popular plays such as The Vortex, Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Blithe Spirit and Present Laughter. This study also explores how, in the aftermaths of two world wars, as major changes in social and political circumstances suggested new approaches to dramaturgy, Coward's post-1945 work failed to achieve the same success he had enjoyed in earlier periods. The final chapter examines Coward’s approach to his craft in response to the new theatrical and cultural environment, and the new freedom in the treatment of homosexuality represented by Suite in Three Keys and his final, uncompleted play, Age Cannot Wither.
Additional text
A highly impressive contribution to scholarship on modern drama. It presents a wealth of new research and a very thorough, lucid and enjoyable account of Coward’s work as playwright across all the decades of his career.
