Shadow Play (play)
Encyclopedia
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30
Tonight at 8:30
Tonight at 8.30 is a cycle of ten one-act plays by Noël Coward. In the introduction to a published edition of the plays, Coward wrote, "A short play, having a great advantage over a long one in that it can sustain a mood without technical creaking or over padding, deserves a better fate, and if,...
, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings. In the introduction to a published edition of the plays, Coward wrote, "A short play, having a great advantage over a long one in that it can sustain a mood without technical creaking or over padding, deserves a better fate, and if, by careful writing, acting and producing I can do a little towards reinstating it in its rightful pride, I shall have achieved one of my more sentimental ambitions."
The play was first produced in 1935 in Manchester and on tour and played in London (1936), New York (1936–1937) and Canada (1938). It has enjoyed several major revivals and has been adapted for television. At its premières in Manchester and London, Shadow Play was played on the same evening as Fumed Oak
Fumed Oak
Fumed Oak is a short play in two scenes by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings. Coward billed the work as an "unpleasant comedy in two scenes"...
and Hands Across the Sea
Hands Across the Sea (play)
Hands Across the Sea is a short comic play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings...
. Like all the other plays in the cycle it originally starred Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:...
and Coward himself.
History
Six of the plays (We Were DancingWe Were Dancing
We Were Dancing is a short play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed in alternating groups of three plays, across three evenings...
, The Astonished Heart
The Astonished Heart
The Astonished Heart is a short play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings. The play, described at its first production as "a tragedy in six scenes", is told through a series of flashbacks in reverse order...
, Red Peppers
Red Peppers
Red Peppers is a short comic play by Noël Coward, one of the ten plays that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings...
, Hands Across the Sea
Hands Across the Sea (play)
Hands Across the Sea is a short comic play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings...
, Fumed Oak
Fumed Oak
Fumed Oak is a short play in two scenes by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings. Coward billed the work as an "unpleasant comedy in two scenes"...
and Shadow Play) were first presented at the Manchester Opera House
Manchester Opera House
The Opera House in Quay Street, Manchester, England is a 1,920 seater commercial touring theatre which plays host to touring musicals, ballet, concerts and a Christmas pantomime. It is the sister to the Palace Theatre which is a similar venue in nearby Oxford Street at its junction with Whitworth...
beginning on 15 October 1935. Shadow Play premiered on the third night, 18 October 1935. A seventh play, Family Album
Family Album (play)
Family Album is a short play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings...
, was added on the subsequent provincial tour. The final three were added during the London run. The plays were performed in various combinations of three at each performance during the original run. The plays chosen for each performance were announced in advance, although a myth evolved that the groupings were random. Matinées were sometimes billed as Today at 2:30.
The first London performance was on 18 January 1936 at the Phoenix Theatre
Phoenix Theatre (London)
The Phoenix Theatre is a West End theatre in the London Borough of Camden, located on Charing Cross Road . The entrance is in Phoenix Street....
. Coward directed all ten pieces, and each starred Coward and Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:...
. Coward said that he wrote them as "acting, singing, and dancing vehicles for Gertrude Lawrence and myself". Four of the plays in the cycle "break into spontaneous song... in the most unexpected places". Coward's song, "You Were There" is central to the play. The Manchester Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
called the play "warmed with human feeling", though doubting the durability of the couple's reconciliation.
The Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
openings for the three parts took place on 24 November 1936, 27 November 1936 (including Shadow Play) and 30 November 1936 at the National Theatre
Nederlander Theatre
David T. Nederlander Theatre is a 1,232-seat Broadway theatre located at 208 West 41st Street, in New York City . One of the Nederlander Organization's nine Broadway theatres, the legacy of the theatre began with David Tobias Nederlander, for whom the theatre is named.Built by Walter C...
, again starring Coward and Lawrence. Star Chamber was not included. The London and New York runs were limited only by Coward's boredom at long engagements.
Major productions of parts of the cycle were revived in 1948 and 1967 on Broadway (Shadow Play was included in 1948 but omitted in 1967), 1981 at the Lyric Theatre
Lyric Theatre (London)
The Lyric Theatre is a West End theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster.Designed by architect C. J. Phipps, it was built by producer Henry Leslie with profits from the Alfred Cellier and B. C. Stephenson hit, Dorothy, which he transferred from the Prince of Wales Theatre to open...
in London (Shadow Play, Hands Across the Sea and Red Peppers), starring John Standing
John Standing
Sir John Ronald Leon Standing, 4th Baronet is an English actor.-Early life:Standing was born John Ronald Leon in London, the son of Kay Hammond , an actress, and Sir Ronald George Leon, a stockbroker...
and Estelle Kohler
Estelle Kohler
Estelle Kohler is a British theatre and television actress. Born in South Africa, Kohler made a name for herself as a Shakespearean actor in England...
and at the Chichester Festival in 2006 (Shadow Play, Hands Across the Sea, Red Peppers, Family Album, Fumed Oak and The Astonished Heart). In 1971, the Shaw Festival
Shaw Festival
The Shaw Festival is a major Canadian theatre festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, the second largest repertory theatre company in North America...
revived We Were Dancing, Family Album and Shadow Play, and in 2000, the Williamstown Theatre Festival
Williamstown Theatre Festival
The Williamstown Theatre Festival is a regional summer stock theatre on the campus of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, founded in 1954 by Williams College news director, Ralph Renzi, and drama program chairman, David C. Bryant. The theatre was conceived as a way to use the Adams...
revived We Were Dancing, Family Album, Hands Across the Sea (all starring Blythe Danner
Blythe Danner
Blythe Katherine Danner is an American actress. She is the mother of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jake Paltrow.-Early life:...
), Red Peppers, Shadow Play and Star Chamber. The Antaeus Company in Los Angeles revived all ten plays in October 2007, and in 2009 the Shaw Festival also did so.
In 1954, Otto Preminger
Otto Preminger
Otto Ludwig Preminger was an Austro–Hungarian-American theatre and film director.After moving from the theatre to Hollywood, he directed over 35 feature films in a five-decade career. He rose to prominence for stylish film noir mysteries such as Laura and Fallen Angel...
directed a "Producers' Showcase" television production of Shadow Play, Still Life and Red Peppers (featuring Martyn Green
Martyn Green
William Martyn-Green , better known as Martyn Green, was an English actor and singer. He is best known for his work as principal comedian in the Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas, which he performed and recorded with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and other troupes.After army service in World War I,...
and Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
). In 1991, BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television mounted productions of the individual plays with Joan Collins
Joan Collins
Joan Henrietta Collins, OBE , is an English actress, author, and columnist. Born in Paddington and raised in Maida Vale, Collins grew up during the Second World War. At the age of nine, she made her stage debut in A Doll's House and after attending school, she was classically trained as an actress...
taking the Lawrence roles. The sheer expense involved in mounting what are effectively ten different productions has usually deterred revivals of the entire Tonight at 8:30 cycle, but the constituent plays can often be seen individually or in sets of three.
Roles and original cast
- Martha Cunningham – Alison LeggattAlison LeggattAlison Leggatt was an English character actress.-Career:Born as Alison Joy Leggatt in the Kensington district of London, Leggatt spent the early part of her career primarily on the stage. Her first major film credit was as Aunt Sylvia in This Happy Breed , Noel Coward's homage to the British...
(Joyce CareyJoyce CareyJoyce Carey, OBE was a British actress, best known for her long professional and personal relationship with Noël Coward. Her stage career lasted from 1916 until 1984, and she was performing on television in her nineties. Though never a star, she was a familiar face both on stage and screen...
in New York) - Hodge – Kenneth Carten
- Simon Gayforth – Noël CowardNoël CowardSir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
- Victoria Gayforth – Gertrude LawrenceGertrude LawrenceGertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:...
- A Young Man – Anthony PelissierAnthony PelissierHarry Anthony Compton Pelissier was an English actor, screenwriter, producer and director.-Biography:Pelissier was born in Barnet and came from a theatrical family. His parents were the theatre producer H. G. Pelissier and the distinguished actress Fay Compton...
- Sibyl Heston – Everly Gregg (Joan Swinstead in New York)
- Michael Doyle – Edward UnderdownEdward UnderdownEdward Underdown was an english theatre, cinema and television actor. He was born in London.Early theatre credits include: Words and Music, Nymph Errant, Stop Press and Streamline ....
- George Cunningham – Alan WebbAlan Webb (actor)-Biography and Career:Educated at Bramcote School, Scarborough, and RN Colleges Osborne and Dartmouth. He served in the Royal Navy.Webb's early days were spent performing with the Lena Ashwell Players , J. B. Fagan's Oxford Players , The Croydon Repertory Company , and the Old Vic-Sadler's Wells...
Plot
Simon Gayforth asks his wife Victoria for a divorce. She takes an overdose of pills. Through the theatrical device of a shadow playShadow play
Shadow play or shadow puppetry Shadow puppets have a long history in China, India, Turkey and Java, and as a popular form of entertainment for both children and adults in many countries around the world. A shadow puppet is a cut-out figure held between a source of light and a translucent screen...
, they remember fondly the days of their first meeting and falling in love. Their love is rekindled, and they reconcile.
Reception
The Observer noted, "A neat production, coupled with one first-rate song, 'You Were There,' whose tune is one of the best in the tender line that Mr Coward has ever given us, carries this fantasy with a dancing motion past the banalities on which it might easily stumble." The drama critic Kenneth TynanKenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial English theatre critic and writer.-Early life:...
later asserted that Coward's "Small talk, small talk with other thoughts going on behind" in this play and others were an influence on Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
.
Coward later wrote of his score for the play: "At the end of the first scene of the play we belted out "Play, Orchestra, Play" in the teeth of the audience while the stage staff was changing the scene behind us. "You Were There" we sang and danced more tranquilly in a moonlit garden. It was reprised by me later in the show while Gertie was scrambling breathlessly into a grey bouffant dress in the quick-change room at the side of the stage. It is a pleasant, sentimental little song and we both enjoyed doing it."