Work Of The Month: Present Laughter
In last month’s post on Fallen Angels, it was the Lord Chamberlain who threatened to block Coward’s play. This time, a production is cancelled at the last minute by… Adolf Hitler. Read on to discover what, why and how:
Page from Notebook 14 (c.1922) (C) NCAT
“What is in a name?” Well, if you were Coward, not much. The titles of Coward’s plays were often only indirectly related to the action onstage. Many were quotations taken from well-known literature as in the case of Blithe Spirit (itself a quotation from Shelley’s To A Skylark - more on that here) but the two – yes, two – titles used for this Work of The Month came from William Shakespeare. Coward would collect these quotations (and any other catchy phrases he thought of) in his many notebooks, creating lists he could check for a suitable matching title. Have a look at this example from Notebook 14 in the Coward Archive, dating from around 1922. Do you recognise any of them?
The title originally chosen for the play about Garry Essendine and his entourage was Sweet Sorrow, an oxymoronic quotation taken from Romeo and Juliet:
“Parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”
Juliet, Act II scene ii, Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
But at some stage during the original rehearsals, the title was changed to Present Laughter, taken from Feste’s song in Twelfth Night, commonly known as O Mistress Mine:
NC & Shakespeare. (C) Cole Lesley Collection, NCAT
O Mistress mine where are you roaming?
O stay and hear, your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low.
Trip no further pretty sweeting.
Journeys end in lovers' meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.
What is love, 'tis not hereafter,
Present mirth, hath present laughter:
What's to come, is still unsure.
In delay there lies no plenty,
Then come kiss me sweet and twenty:
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
Feste, Act II Sc iii, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare
Coward wrote Present Laughter at his Kent home Goldenhurst in the April and May of 1939. He later recalled that the play was “written with the sensible object of providing me with a bravura part”: the lead role of Garry Essendine. Coward wrote to Jack Wilson “Present Laughter is not so much a play as a series of semi-autobiographical pyrotechnics” and many of the other characters in the play are reminiscent too of Coward’s own entourage. Wilson himself can be seen in the roles of Henry and Morris (perhaps alongside Binkie Beaumont). Monica, the down-to-earth secretary was modelled on his own Lorn Loraine and Liz certainly has element of his closest friend Joyce Carey (who would play the role in 1942).
Very soon, Present Laughter was in rehearsals. During this time, Coward would disappear off to top secret meetings about setting up a ‘Bureau of Propaganda’ in Paris if and when war broke out between Britain and Nazi Germany. Prior to rehearsals, he had undertaken a personal tour of Northern Europe, but the rumour was that he was already engaged on an informal reconnaissance mission. (More on that trip, in which he met Sibelius and stayed with Somerset Maugham, another time.)
As rehearsals got closer to the opening night in Manchester on September 11th, so did the shadow of war. Dress rehearsals completed on August the 30th and 31st, the play was ready to go, but only days later war was declared, the production abandoned and Coward found himself at the Ritz in Paris.
The play would eventually be performed a couple of years later on a national tour, alongside This Happy Breed and Blithe Spirit, the trio presented as Play Parade. Noting the irrelevance of the title, the reviewer from the Daily Telegraph considered it still aptly described the reaction of the audience. No doubt Coward expected that all along. When the play was published, he dedicated it to Clemence Dane (more about her here).
If you want to compare productions, it’s worth watching the recording (available on DVD and online) of Donald Sinden playing Garry almost 40 years after Coward and then Andrew Scott in the recent Old Vic production nearly another 40 years later. More on them in a future post.
