Work of the Month: The Rat Trap
On October 4th, The Guildhall Art Gallery Art & Style Exhibition hosted a script-in-hand performance of The Rat Trap. We look at the original and latest incarnations of Coward’s first full-length play.
Director Alexander Lass with the cast of the script-in-hand performance of The Rat Trap
Coward wrote The Rat Trap in 1918 at the age of 18. Reflecting on the play in later life, he described it as his 'first really serious attempt at psychological conflict' though he thought the dialogue, “excruciatingly sophisticated”. He never actually saw it performed though, as he was on a boat to America when it premiered on 18 October 1926, at the Everyman Theatre, Hampstead, London.
According to Alexander Lass, the director of the sell-out script-in-hand performance at the Guildhall Art Gallery, The Rat Trap is
“an acerbic study of gender politics featuring a cast of seven (five women and two men). The plot follows Sheila, a burgeoning novelist, and Keld, an aspiring playwright, who marry in haste and repent at Belgravian leisure. Despite being written in the last few weeks of The Great War, The Rat Trap is an arrestingly modern domestic drama exploring themes which remain relevant to a 21st Century audience’
Other than a short run at the Finborough Theatre in 2006, the play had not been performed professionally for 80 years, but a full audience at the Guildhall Art Gallery enjoyed a young cast who really brought out the humour and passion of the play. The producer, Sarah Lawrie told us there were plans for a fuller production in the new year.
The original production, which ran for 12 performances across 2 weeks starred Joyce Kennedy and Robert Harris as the leading roles of Sheila and Keld along with Adrianne Allen as Ruby and Raymond Massey as Edmund, who also co-produced the production. Allen and Massey married following with production and the following year Allen originated the role of Sibyl in Private Lives. The couple remained friends with Coward who became godfather to their son Daniel. who in turn would portray Coward in the Gertrude Lawrence biopic and Julie Andrews vehicle Star!.
When Coward came to publish The Rat Trap in 1924, Coward dedicated it to ‘the dear memory of Meggie Albanesi’, one of the brightest theatre stars of the day who died tragically young at the age of 24 the previous December. It was she who introduced Coward to Lorn McNaughton, who became his life-long secretary. More about both these women in a future post…
