Download or read book Coward The Playwright written by John Lahr and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-01-08 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A reissue in hardback of critic John Lahr's famous 1982 study of Noël Coward's plays"Noël Coward," said Terence Rattigan, "is simply a phenomenon, and one that is unlikely to occur ever again in theatre history." A phenomenon he certainly was, and it is part of John Lahr's purpose in this book to show how that phenomenon called "Noël Coward" was largely Coward's own careful creation. Lahr's penetrating critical study of Coward's drama investigates all the major and minor plays of "The Master". Private Lives, Design for Living and Hay Fever make a fascinating group of "Comedies of Bad Manners". Blithe Spirit and Relative Values raise the "Ghost in the Fun Machine". Lahr then goes on to explore the "politics of charm" oozing through The Vortex, Easy Virtue and Present Laughter. In all Coward's plays Lahr uncovers a coherent philosophy in which charm is both the subject of Coward's comedies and the trap which made his very public life a perpetual performance.
Download or read book Coward The Playwright written by John Lahr and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-01-08 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A reissue in hardback of critic John Lahr's famous 1982 study of Noël Coward's plays"Noël Coward," said Terence Rattigan, "is simply a phenomenon, and one that is unlikely to occur ever again in theatre history." A phenomenon he certainly was, and it is part of John Lahr's purpose in this book to show how that phenomenon called "Noël Coward" was largely Coward's own careful creation. Lahr's penetrating critical study of Coward's drama investigates all the major and minor plays of "The Master". Private Lives, Design for Living and Hay Fever make a fascinating group of "Comedies of Bad Manners". Blithe Spirit and Relative Values raise the "Ghost in the Fun Machine". Lahr then goes on to explore the "politics of charm" oozing through The Vortex, Easy Virtue and Present Laughter. In all Coward's plays Lahr uncovers a coherent philosophy in which charm is both the subject of Coward's comedies and the trap which made his very public life a perpetual performance.
Download or read book The Vortex written by Noel Coward and published by New York Harper 1925.. This book was released on 1924 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Coward Plays Nine written by Noël Coward and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-02-22 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coward Plays: 9 offers up a fascinating selection of Noël Coward's lesser-known works. Salute to the Brave/Time Remembered (1940) follows Leila Heseldyne after she has fled to America, leaving a war-torn Britain and her husband behind; Long Island Sound(1947) sees a writer coerced into a riotous flock of high flying society people with turbulent results; and Volcano (1957) depicts a volcanic eruption as it punctuates the dubious conduct of six individuals on a fictional South Sea island. This volume also includes Design for Rehearsing (1933) was Coward's private satire on the way he , Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne worked on Design for Living. Age Cannot Wither (1967), Coward's last and unfinished play completes the collection as it portrays the boozy reunion of three women in their sixties, who meet without fail every year to reminisce. Together, these works offer a new and intriguing insight into Coward the playwright and his oeuvre that extends well beyond his most well-known works such as Private Lives, Blithe Spirit and Hay Fever. The volume is introduced by Coward expert and scholar Barry Day.
Download or read book Coward Plays Nine written by Noël Coward and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-02-22 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coward Plays: 9 offers up a fascinating selection of Noël Coward's lesser-known works. Salute to the Brave/Time Remembered (1940) follows Leila Heseldyne after she has fled to America, leaving a war-torn Britain and her husband behind; Long Island Sound(1947) sees a writer coerced into a riotous flock of high flying society people with turbulent results; and Volcano (1957) depicts a volcanic eruption as it punctuates the dubious conduct of six individuals on a fictional South Sea island. This volume also includes Design for Rehearsing (1933) was Coward's private satire on the way he , Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne worked on Design for Living. Age Cannot Wither (1967), Coward's last and unfinished play completes the collection as it portrays the boozy reunion of three women in their sixties, who meet without fail every year to reminisce. Together, these works offer a new and intriguing insight into Coward the playwright and his oeuvre that extends well beyond his most well-known works such as Private Lives, Blithe Spirit and Hay Fever. The volume is introduced by Coward expert and scholar Barry Day.
Download or read book Coward Plays 2 written by Noël Coward and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The plays in this volume demonstrate the extraordinary skill and versatility Coward's writing achieved in the late 1920s. The volume contains his best-loved classic, Private Lives, which was an immeditate hit when it was first staged in 1930. Coward's sparkling dialogue and repartee have ensured the play's popularity ever since. Of Bitter-Sweet in 1929 Noël Coward wrote that it was "a musical that gave me more complete satisfaction than anything else I had yet written. Not especially on acount of its dialogue or its lyrics or its music or its production but as a whole." The Marquise is an "eighteenth century comedy" filled with maids and duels, whilst Post-Mortem is a vilification of war that contains some of Coward's most powerful writing.
Download or read book Design for Living written by Noël Coward and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-05-04 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Its fusion of passion and mischief remains striking and there is something undeniably heady about its celebration of a kind of sexual liberation that looks a lot like flippancy" - Evening Standard From 1930s bohemian Paris to the dizzying heights of Manhattan society, a tempestuous love triangle unravels between a vivacious interior designer, Gilda, playwright Leo and artist Otto - three people unashamedly and passionately in love with each other. But can such a lavish love affair survive the real world? Exploring themes of bisexuality, celebrity, success and self-obsession, Design for Living is a stylish and scandalous comedy, that is often revered as Coward's most controversial and risqué work. This new edition is published in Methuen Drama's iconic Modern Classics series to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Coward's death and features a new introduction by Oliver Soden.
Download or read book No l Coward on and in Theatre written by Noël Coward and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Noël Coward on theatre was as dazzling and entertaining as his masterful plays and lyrics. Here his ideas and opinions on the subject are brilliantly brought together in an extraordinary collection of commentary, lyrics, essays, and asides on everything having to do with the theatre and Coward's dazzling life in it. The book Noël Coward wanted, promised, threatened to write—and never did. Including essays, interviews, diary entries, verse, his views on his fellow playwrights: "My Colleague Will," Shaw, Wilde, Chekhov, Barrie, Maugham, Eliot, Osborne, Albee, Beckett, Miller, Williams, Rattigan, Pinter, and Shaffer. Coward on the critics—many of whom irritated him over the years but came to admire him: James Agate, Alexander Woollcott, Graham Greene, Kenneth Tynan among them. And on the plays he wrote, among them: The Vortex; Hay Fever; Private Lives; Design For Living; Blithe Spirit. Here is the Master on the producers who crossed his path: André Charlot, C. B. Cochran, Binkie Beaumont. And the actors in the Coward galaxy: John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Gertrude Lawrence, the Lunts, etc. . . . His views on the art of acting: auditions, rehearsals, learning the lines, clarity of delivery, timing, control, range, stage fright, fans, theater audiences, revivals, comedy, "the Method," plays with a "message," taste, construction, "Star Quality," etc. . . . And last, but Noël Coward least, his experience in, and thoughts on: revue, cabaret, television, and musical theater, Bitter Sweet, Conversation Piece, Pacific 1860, After the Ball, Ace of Clubs, Sail Away, The Girl Who Came to Supper, Words and Music, This Year of Grace, London Calling! . . . and much more. Ingeniously, deftly compiled, edited, and annotated by Barry Day, Coward authority and editor of The Noёl Coward Reader and The Letters of Noёl Coward.
Download or read book No l Coward written by Russell Jackson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-04-21 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Coward Playwright written by John Lahr and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Noel Coward written by Philip Hoare and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998-05-22 with total page 652 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a look at the professional and personal life of the noted playwright.
Download or read book A Study Guide for Noel Coward s Hay Fever written by Gale, Cengage Learning and published by Gale, Cengage Learning . This book was released on with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Study Guide for Noel Coward's "Hay Fever," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.
Download or read book Present Laughter written by Noël Coward and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-05-04 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An honest, even profound reflection on the price of fame, with some genuine sexual frisson and an undercurrent of pathos." - The Hollywood Reporter At the centre of his own universe sits matinee idol Garry Essendine: suave, hedonistic and too old, says his wife, to be having numerous affairs - his line of harmless, infatuated debutantes is largely tolerated but playing closer to home is not. Just before he escapes on tour to Africa the full extent of his misdemeanours is discovered... and all hell breaks loose. Noël Coward's Present Laughter premiered in the early years of the Second World War just as such privileged lives were threatened with fundamental social change, and remains one of the playwright's most enduring hits. This new edition is published in Methuen Drama's iconic Modern Classics series to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Coward's death and features a new introduction by Russell Jackson.
Download or read book The Importance of Happiness written by Elliot James and published by Troubador Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2021-05-29 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Actors’ Orphanage was a home for the abandoned children of struggling or incapacitated Actors. In 1934 it was a harsh and brutal institution. Meanwhile however, the playwright and cultural phenomenon, Noël Coward, was looking for more meaning in his life. After success after success, he would always ask... “What now?”
Download or read book The Letters of No l Coward written by Noël Coward and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-10-31 with total page 785 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A uniquely charming and enticing journey through a remarkable life. Coward's own record is made all the more delightful by the wise and helpful interpolations of Barry Day, the soundest authority on the Master that there is.' Stephen Fry 'Precise, witty, remarkably observed and gloriously English' Dame Judi Dench 'Barry Day's analysis is both perceptive and irresistible' Lord Richard Attenborough With virtually all the letters in this volume previously unpublished - this is a revealing new insight into the private life of a legendary figure. Coward's multi-faceted talent as an actor, writer, composer, producer and even as a war-time spy(!), brought him into close contact with the great, the good and the merely ambitious in film, literature and politics.With letters to and from the likes of: George Bernard Shaw, Virginia Woolf, Winston Churchill, Greta Garbo (she wrote asking him to marry her), Marlene Dietriech, Ian Fleming, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Fred Astaire, Charlie Chaplin, FD Roosevelt, the Queen Mother and many more, the picture that emerges is a series of vivid sketches of Noel Coward's private relationships, and a re-examination of the man himself. Deliciously insightful, witty, perfectly bitchy, wise, loving and often surprisingly moving, this extraordinary collection gives us Coward at his crackling best. A sublime portrait of a unique artist who made an indelible mark on the 20th century, from the Blitz to the Ritz and beyond.
Download or read book Star Quality written by Noël Coward and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-02-17 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coward's 'forgotten' play, published to tie in with its world premiere. In his wickedly funny final play, NöeI Coward takes us behind the scenes of a new West End production. Conjuring up an authentic backstage world of talent and treachery, Coward creates a gallery of unforgettable characters; temperamental leading lady, ruthless director, jaded old troupers and, caught somewhere between them all, innocent young playwright. From tentative first rehearsal to triumphant opening night, the clash of egos becomes increasingly and hilariously bloody. But what emerges from the mayhem is a startling evocation of that most elusive gift of all - star quality. This edition, adapted by Chris Luscombe and introduced by Sheridan Morley, is published to coincide with the play's West End premiere in October 2001.
Download or read book In Churchill s Shadow written by David Cannadine and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2003 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With In Churchill's Shadow, David Cannadine offers an intriguing look at ways in which perceptions of a glorious past have continued to haunt the British present, often crushing efforts to shake them off. The book centers on Churchill, a titanic figure whose influence spanned the century. Though he was the savior of modern Britain, Churchill was a creature of the Victorian age. Though he proclaimed he had not become Prime Minister to "preside over the liquidation of the British Empire," in effect he was doomed to do just that. And though he has gone down in history for his defiant orations during the crisis of World War II, Cannadine shows that for most of his career Churchill's love of rhetoric was his own worst enemy. Cannadine turns an equally insightful gaze on the institutions and individuals that embodied the image of Britain in this period: Gilbert & Sullivan, Ian Fleming, Noel Coward, the National Trust, and the Palace of Westminster itself, the home and symbol of Britain's parliamentary government. This superb volume offers a wry, sympathetic, yet penetrating look at how national identity evolved in the era of the waning of an empire.
