Noël Coward’s plays don’t interest American actors or audiences very much, so why are they written about here !?
Because actors just forget what the plays were about when they were written. And his plays hold the secret of how modern actors can play the comedies of today.
When Coward’s plays were written, 1925 to 1960, there was one little quality which was ridiculously important for characters in most British plays and films. And it is a quality which modern actors can act easily. The characters were always polite. They nearly all had good manners . And they made it a big deal !
And this politeness was a big part of comedy, and still can be, because politeness can hide what characters are really thinking, and bad manners can lead to stupid arguments. So if actors today see is behind the lines of Coward’s plays, they may learn see what could be between the lines of modern comedies by Mamet, Neil Simon, Michael Frayn, and many tv series like FRIENDS.
In FRIENDS a character will propose marriage and split second later change their mind. The actors may simply work out that their character is tired and a bit drunk when they propose the marriage, but enjoying the ridiculous politeness of being so friendly! And when their ‘manners’ immediately remind them they have been very rude they can instantly change their minds! Actors just have to know what is behind their lines.
Coward’s plays are often about small family problems, and the first thing he does is to stop his characters ever sounding very serious. This makes the audience ‘ready’ for accidents to happen, and in the short scene (below), from his play HAY FEVER, there may seem to be no comedy at all, but hidden between the lines is what keeps the audience interested, and helps the actors build the comedy.
All that seems to happen is that CLARA, a housekeeper, comes into a room to open the front door, and complains briefly about her job as she passes three people sat on the floor. But each line there is a quality which shows that the characters are all rather mad!
The housekeeper, CLARA, enters the living-room because the door-bell has just rung. The actor playing CLARA should make this her only reason for entering the room, so that there is already a very slight feeling of friction between her and the family sat on the floor.
JUDITH, her employer, is sat on the floor with her teenage daughter and son, and the three of them are each waiting for guests whom they have invited to stay for the weekend. We soon learn that JUDITH’s husband – who is in another room, has also invited a guest to stay.
CLARA is half-way across the room when she is stopped by JUDITH’S first line, which shows that JUDITH has not warned CLARA about the visitors until now.
JUDITH, the mother of the two teenagers and employer of CLARA, must not sound unkind when she gives the bad news to CLARA, because unkindness does not ‘fit’ into comedy, it is not funny! So the actor playing JUDITH has to give CLARA the news calmly, while knowing that CLARA won’t be pleased.
CLARA is right not to be pleased, because she will have to cook and prepare four rooms in a few minutes! That is the situation in the first two lines!
JUDITH: Clara – before you open the door, – we shall be eight for dinner.
CLARA: My God!
SIMON: (Judith’s son) And for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner tomorrow.
JUDITH: (to Clara) Will you get various rooms ready?
CLARA: I shall have to.
SOREL: (Judith’s daughter) Now we’ve upset Clara!
JUDITH: It can’t be helped – nothing can be helped. It’s Fate. Everything that happens is fate. That’s always been a great comfort for me.
CLARA: More like arrant selfishness.
JUDITH: You mustn’t be pert, Clara.
CLARA: Pert I may be, but I ‘ave got some thought for others. Eight for dinner – Amy going home early! It’s nothing more or less than an imposition.
(Doorbell rings again)
SIMON: Hadn’t you better let them in?
The actors playing JUDITH’s children must show no surprise when their Mother gives CLARA the bad news, so they do not even look up, – which shows the audience that they already knew that four guests are about to arrive. And the next lines show that JUDITH, both her children, the housekeeper, and Judith’s husband – who is not even there, (as well as the four guests probably who may be waiting outside the front door,) in fact every one them, all eight, think that he or she is only important person in the house!
So problems can be expected.
This all starts with JUDITH’s next line, when she begins “It can’t be helped – ”. JUDITH is using odd language, and we guess she is quoting from another play because we have just learned – in a previous scene – that JUDITH is a professional actor. So she says the line very dramatically, but only this one line, because if she says all her lines like a diva she will be boring, but one new thing is clear, – that JUDITH likes to ‘perform’.
Al the language is careful, so the family is obviously well-educated, and middle-class, so an audience might already feel they are watching a play similar to those of Oscar Wilde, Shaw, and Tom Stoppard, where characters also express themselves clearly and pretend to have good manners. But the audience will also feel – just for this moment – that JUDITH is being rather rude to her housekeeper by only telling her about the four guests at the last minute, and rudeness has no place in comedy. It isn’t funny. It can’t be the right way to say the line!
In fact JUDITH has only just found out about the four guests herself, so has had had no chance to warn CLARA until now, and the audience will need a reason for JUDITH not giving CLARA the news more gently.
And, surprisingly, CLARA replies to JUDITH in the same rather sharp tone, so the an employer and a housekeeper are speaking to each other like equals! All we know, for now, is that neither of them minds the way other talks, and when the play continues we learn that during JUDITH’s long career as an actor she has had CLARA as her ‘dresser’, – probably helping JUDITH through frequent disasters backstage, – so the two have become more like ‘stage-sisters’ than employer and employee, which allows CLARA sometimes to speak as if she is in charge.
And CLARA has another reason for being ‘sharp’ with JUDITH, which she explains in this scene’s final line, that CLARA’s assistant – ‘Amy’ – who sometimes helps in the kitchen, has not come to work today, claiming to have a cold. This means that CLARA will have to do all the extra work on her own, and she may also be annoyed because Judith or her children could have answered the doorbell themselves!
So, after the first three lines, there is some tension building.
Americans who remember the wonderful actor Conchata Ferell, playing the bossy Housekeeper in the tv series TWO AND A HALF MEN , will know a character very similar to CLARA. Ms Ferell’s character was ‘got away’ with being rude to her employer, played by Charlie Sheen, because she was old enough to be his mother, but CLARA is the same age as JUDITH, and the audience now guesses that CLARA and JUDITH have been like together for some years, and when they learn that Clara was Judith’s assistant backstage, a British audience will remember the tradition in UK theatre that actors and their ‘dressers’ often have a mutual respect.
Then SIMON, Judith’s innocent-looking son, adds to the tension by gently throwing in the news that the guests will stay for the whole weekend. He does not mean to upset CLARA, he just thinks it is best to give her all the bad news at the same time, so he is not being unkind, (and unkindness has no place in comedy, unless it is explained), but he simply feels in charge because he has told Clara the main news, and because he is the only male in the room ! Remember the play was written in 1924 when all males thought they had extra powers.
However, CLARA, the housekeeper, out-ranks SIMON because of her age, and JUDITH fears CLARA may now explode, so tries to take charge by asking CLARA “Will you get various rooms ready?”– slipping in the word ”various” as if the number of rooms could be a number which CLARA fishes out of the air! This could seem unkind of JUDITH so the actor playing her must try to sound humorous about it. CLARA does not laugh.
The speed of the dialogue in the tv series FRIENDS is a modern example of how every attitude has to be worked out so that none of the characters is ever upset for more than half a second, never given time to realize if they have been insulted, – despite 50% of the lines in most episodes of FRIENDS including an insult, – and the actors in FRIENDS must have studied their lines day and night to keep up the goodwill which the characters all share.
If JUDITH were American she might not worry what her housekeeper thinks, or notice that her son has just made things worse, but this is the UK, and the actor playing CLARA has the choice of returning Judith’s attempt at humor, by rebuking Judith’s slight thoughtlessness with wit of her own, and she replies, “I shall have to – they can’t sleep in the passage”. So CLARA’s line is not serious.
CLARA is pointing out that all this has happened before, – and that without her help the guests actually might all end up on the floor, so the actor playing CLARA needs to include in her ‘Subtext’ (see a video with that title on Free Videos page), a new feeling of relaxing because she can guess how many times this actually has nearly happened.
Neither JUDITH nor her son comment on CLARA’s rebuke, and possibly manage a smile as if everything is going well, that then encourages SOREL, Judith’s daughter, to jump in, criticizing what she thought was her mother’s rudeness, with – “Now we’ve upset Clara!”, as if CLARA were no longer present, unable to speak for herself , and allowing SOREL, for a moment, to be in charge!
Each of them wants to rule the roost. So we can also guess that they won’t go to much trouble looking after their four guests! And at this point JUDITH recovers from hertries to regain everyone’s attention with another dramatic line from another play she has performed in the past:
– “It can’t be helped – nothing can be helped. It’s Fate. Everything that happens is Fate. That’s always been a great comfort to me.”
The audience may believe, for a moment, that Judith is genuinely upset, but the audience will realize that JUDITH is only ‘putting on an act’ because the children show no interest, and possibly applaud at the end of her line! The actor playing JUDITH has suddenly, out of nowhere, tried to appear like Shakespeare’s CLEOPATRA.
And – inside their heads – each of the family may be desperately hoping that their guests will soon be giving them full attention.
The housekeeper, Clara, knows that Judith has been ‘acting’, and replies – equally pompously – “More like arrant selfishness.” and CLARA may say her own line like a Diva, but JUDITH does not mind that CLARA rebukes her, what she dislikes is that CLARA has tried to upstage her with a better performance! JUDITH’s line “You mustn’t be pert” is not calling CLARA rude, it is suggesting that CLARA’s diva performance was not very good !
CLARA wants the last word, and slips in: “Pert I may be, but I ‘ave got some thought for others. Eight for dinner – Amy going home early! It’s nothing more or less than an imposition”. But CLARA cannot match the authority of Judith’s drama, and sounds like a Cockney version of Mrs Malaprop * , for she has probably learned words like “imposition” and “pert” from Judith, and may not really know what they mean !
CLARA tries to think of a biting reply, but is interrupted by the doorbell.
*(The eccentric character in Sheridan’s play THE RIVALS.)
The doorbell gives SIMON a last chance to try his ‘Lord-of-the-manor’ arrogance, by suggesting – “ Hadn’t you better let them in?”
CLARA marches briskly to the front door, as if she had been about to do so anyway, not because of Simon’s suggestion, but because she wants to get back to her kitchen where she can take charge. And she may now swing the front door open abruptly to reveal the first guest, and turn away allowing the door to close before the guest can enter!
In eleven lines the playwright establishes the tension before a family’s guests arrive, that Judith is sometimes a Diva, that the Housekeeper is her friend, and that her children are selfish, so the audience is prepared to see the four guests get a rough weekend before they even arrive . A weekend’s journey to hell has begun.
Cowards plays do not have the depths of Chekhov, whose plays involve a more horrible background than the stupidity of the British middle-class. But in good translations Chekhov’s characters can be seen to be just as selfish and even as stupid as those of Coward. Russians who have seen good productions of Chekhov call most of his plays comedies, because they see that, as in Coward, there is a war going on between all the lines. A war guys!
Choosing monologues from Coward’s plays only needs careful study, maybe combining several short speeches in which a character contradicts themself. I’ve only seen it done at once out of hundreds of drama school auditions, but it could impress if done well, by beginners or a veteran, simply showing the light dialogue which has become famous again in tv series like SUITS.
John Windsor-Cunningham, April, 2024.
