Private Lives
Private Lives is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It concerns a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realise that they still have feelings for each other. Its second-act love scene was nearly censored in Britain as too risqué. Coward wrote one of his most popular songs, ‘Someday I'll Find You’, for the play.
After touring the British provinces, the play opened the new Phoenix Theatre in London in 1930, starring Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Adrianne Allen and Laurence Olivier. A Broadway production followed in 1931, and the play has been revived at least a half-dozen times each in the West End and on Broadway. The leading roles have attracted a wide range of actors: among those who have succeeded Coward as Elyot are Robert Stephens, Richard Burton, Alan Rickman and Matthew Macfadyen, and successors to Lawrence as Amanda have included Tallulah Bankhead, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Collins, Elaine Stritch, Maggie Smith, Penelope Keith and Lindsay Duncan. Directors of new productions have included John Gielgud, Howard Davies and Richard Eyre. The play was made into a 1931 film and has been adapted several times for television and radio.
Background
Coward was in the middle of an extensive Asian tour when he contracted influenza in Shanghai. He spent the better part of his two-week convalescence sketching out the play and then completed the actual writing of the piece in only four days. He immediately cabled Gertrude Lawrence in New York to ask her to keep autumn 1930 free to appear in the play. After spending a few more weeks revising it, he typed the final draft in The Cathay Hotel in Shanghai and sent copies to Lawrence and his producer and manager, John C. Wilson, with instructions to cable him with their reactions.Coward received no fewer than 30 telegrams from Lawrence about the play. She first said that she had read the play and there was "nothing wrong with it that can't be fixed." Coward "wired back curtly that the only thing that was going to be fixed was her performance." Lawrence was indecisive about what to do about her previous commitment to André Charlot. Coward finally responded that he planned to cast the play with another actress. By the time he returned to London, he found Lawrence not only had cleared her schedule but was staying at Edward Molyneux's villa in Cap-d'Ail in southeastern France learning her lines. Coward joined her, and the two began rehearsing the scenes they shared.
At the end of July they returned to London where Coward began to direct the production. Coward played the part of Elyot Chase himself, Adrianne Allen was his bride Sibyl, Lawrence played Amanda Prynne, and Laurence Olivier was her new husband Victor. Coward wrote Sibyl and Victor as minor characters, "extra puppets, lightly wooden ninepins, only to be repeatedly knocked down and stood up again." He later insisted, however, that they must be credible new spouses for the lead characters: "We've got to have two people as attractive as Larry and Adrianne were in the first place, if we can find them."
Rehearsals were still under way when the Lord Chamberlain took exception to the second act's love scene, labelling it too risqué in light of the fact the characters were divorced and married to others. Coward went to St. James's Palace to plead his case by acting out the play himself and assuring the censor that with artful direction the scene would be presented in a dignified and unobjectionable manner. Coward repeats one of his signature theatrical devices at the end of the play, where the main characters tiptoe out as the curtain falls – a device that he also used in Present Laughter, Hay Fever and Blithe Spirit.
The play contains one of Coward's most popular songs, "Some Day I'll Find You". The Noël Coward Society's website, drawing on performing statistics from the publishers and the Performing Rights Society, ranks it among Coward's ten most performed songs.
Synopsis
;Act 1Following a brief courtship, Elyot and Sibyl are honeymooning at a hotel in Deauville, France, although her curiosity about his first marriage is not helping his romantic mood. In the adjoining suite Amanda and Victor are starting their new life together, although he cannot stop thinking of the cruelty Amanda's ex-husband displayed towards her. Elyot and Amanda, following a volatile three-year-long marriage, have been divorced for five years, but they now discover that they are sharing a terrace while on their honeymoons with their new and younger spouses. Elyot and Amanda separately beg their new spouses to leave the hotel with them immediately, but both new spouses refuse to cooperate and each storms off to dine alone. Realising they still love each other and regretting having divorced, Elyot and Amanda abandon their spouses and run off to Amanda's flat in Paris.
;Act 2
After dinner at the Paris flat several days later, Elyot and Amanda use their code word "Solomon Isaacs", soon abbreviated to "Sollocks", to stop their arguments from getting out of hand. They kiss passionately, but the harmony cannot last: whilst Elyot and Amanda cannot live without each other, neither can they live together. They argue violently and try to outwit each other, just as they had done during their stormy marriage. Their ongoing argument escalates to a point of fury, as Amanda breaks a record over Elyot's head and he retaliates by slapping her face. They seem trapped in a repeating cycle of love and hate, consumed by their private passions and jealousies. At the height of their biggest fight, Sibyl and Victor walk in.
;Act 3
The next morning Amanda tries to sneak away early but is surprised to find Sibyl and Victor there. As they talk, Elyot enters, and he and Amanda start bickering again. It has been decided that neither of the new spouses will grant a divorce for a year, to give Amanda and Elyot time to confirm if this is really what they want. As tempers rise, Sibyl and Victor begin to bicker with each other, defending their respective spouses. Amanda and Elyot realise that Sibyl and Victor are as suited to each other as they are, forgive each another and sneak out, leaving the younger two together. As Elyot and Amanda tiptoe out, Victor and Sibyl have reached the point of mutual violence.
Productions
Original productions
Produced by C. B. Cochran, the play premiered on 18 August 1930, at the King's Theatre in Edinburgh, directed by Coward and starring Coward as Elyot, Gertrude Lawrence as Amanda, Laurence Olivier as Victor and Adrianne Allen as Sibyl. Sets and costumes were designed by Gladys Calthrop. After successfully touring Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester and Southsea for five weeks, the production opened the new Phoenix Theatre in London on 24 September 1930. A week after the play opened, Heinemann published the text; a week later, His Master's Voice issued recordings of scenes from the play performed by Coward and Lawrence. Coward disliked appearing in long runs, and the London run was therefore a limited three-month season. It sold out within a week and was still playing to packed houses when, despite "the gratifying knowledge that we could have run on for another six ," it ended on 20 December 1930.The first Broadway production opened at the Times Square Theatre on 27 January 1931 with Coward, Lawrence and Olivier reprising their roles and Jill Esmond, who had married Olivier a few months earlier, as Sibyl. Walter Winchell described the production as "something to go quite silly over." The New York critics were enthusiastic about the play and Coward's performance. A few weeks before Coward and Lawrence were scheduled to be replaced by Otto Kruger and Madge Kennedy, Lawrence collapsed with a combined attack of laryngitis and nervous exhaustion. Coward appeared at five performances with her understudy, and then closed the production for two weeks to allow Lawrence to recuperate. She returned, and the two continued in their roles until 9 May 1931. The production ran a total of 256 performances.
Major revivals (1940s to 1970s)
The first West End revival was at the Apollo Theatre in 1944 starring John Clements and Kay Hammond. Googie Withers took over as Amanda during the run.Over the years, the play has been revived on Broadway six times. The first of these, in 1948, starred Tallulah Bankhead as Amanda and Donald Cook as Elyot, with Barbara Baxley as Sibyl and William Langford as Victor, in a production directed by Martin Manulis at the Plymouth Theatre, where it ran for 248 performances. The production toured all but three states of the U.S., and grossed more than $1.5 million. Coward went to see the production "with my heart in my boots and was very pleasantly surprised... her vitality was amazing, and, strange to say, she played the love scene quite beautifully."
In 1963, at the start of what Coward called "Dad's Renaissance", a London revival directed by James Roose-Evans at the Hampstead Theatre Club heralded Coward's return to critical favour. The success of the production, with Edward de Souza as Elyot and Rosemary Martin as Amanda, led to its transfer to the Duke of York's Theatre. The West End producer wanted to cast established stars in the transfer, but Coward insisted that the young Hampstead cast should be retained. It ran in the West End for 212 performances. A May 1968 Off-Broadway production directed by Charles Nelson Reilly starred Elaine Stritch as Amanda, and ran for nine performances at the Theatre de Lys. A 1969 production, directed by Stephen Porter and starring Brian Bedford as Elyot and Tammy Grimes as Amanda, with David Glover as Victor and Suzanne Grossman as Sibyl, opened at Broadway's Billy Rose Theatre and then moved to the Broadhurst Theatre to complete its run of 198 performances. The last major revival during Coward's lifetime was at London's Queen's Theatre in 1972. It was directed by John Gielgud and starred Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens. During the run of the production, John Standing took over as Elyot, and Jill Bennett was a replacement as Amanda. Gielgud directed a 1975 Broadway transfer of his production, starring Maggie Smith and John Standing at the 46th Street Theatre, where it ran for 92 performances. In 1978, Smith reprised her role in a Stratford Festival production of the play.