The Letters of Noel Coward

by Noel Coward

  Here is The Kitchen, I send it to your irreverence and as a small token of my regard and thanks.

  Till I hear from you

  ARNOLD

  Les Avants

  16.1.62

  No, dear Arnold, it was not an unfair question, it might be considered impertinent perhaps, but really it was prompted by nothing more than an affectionate desire to find out as much as possible about a new friend in the very short time at our disposal. Don't reproach yourself, there was no disloyalty.

  Since you left I discovered the Trilogy right under my nose in my work-room. I read it straight through with care. Roots is the most successful technically and Jerusalem, to me, the most moving. I find Chicken Soup too over-loaded with dear old Lavender-and-Old Lace-Left Wing propaganda. Sarah, of course, is fine and remains consistent throughout…

  Now, of course, I have read The Kitchen, which is tremendously dramatic and bloody good theatre. I wish I had seen it. It's difficult to get its full impact from reading, which is after all just as it should be.

  I have got to talk to you more…You have been victimized by those foolish men, but your talent is too rich to be lastingly affected either by over-praise or over-blame. Please, dear Arnold, don't grumble so much in your heart about political and Governmental injustices and stupidities. You can't change human nature. All you can do with your gifts is observe and comment with compassion and humour and as theatrically effectively as possible, so long as you continue to write plays.

  And please remember that “Failure” unless written with pure genius, is rarely entertaining. I have deep sympathy for Beattie, whom I feel will eventually succeed with her own life. I have none for Dave, who is conceited, stubborn, woolly-minded and basically incompetent. I love Sarah who succeeds triumphantly as a human being. It seems to me that the women in the Trilogy are conceived with more depth and understanding than the men. The Kitchen from this point of view is a great step forward.

  And now you are going to waste an enormous amount of your energy and creative talent in coping with mediocre little Bureaucrats and organizing a “Cultural Revolution”! Do me a favour! Leave those cheerful old girls to enjoy their Bingo. Let the great majority enjoy itself in its own way. Don't try to force them to stare at Henry Moore nudes with holes in their middles and sit on pre-fabricated mobile benches to see inevitably dodgy performances of plays in the Round. They won't go anyway. It will all turn out to be, as our mutual colleague Shakespeare said, “An expense of spirit and a waste of shame.” Nor will it avail the world situation one iota for you and [playwright] Robert Bolt to spend occasional weeks in the clink in protest against humanity's yearning for self-destruction. To Hell with Centre 42! Those among the great masses who really want and need culture will manage to get it anyhow. Those who don't, won't. If this is cynicism then I am a dyed-in-the-wool old Cynic, but it just may be common sense. One thing is clear to me however and that is that you are a strange, vulnerable and wonderfully gifted creature. Your first allegiance is not to Humanity or Political dogmas, or world reform, but to your talent which, incidentally, you are bloody lucky to have.

  When you had left the house I had pangs of guilt for having been so unresponsive to your project, but they have since died away. I am unregenerate: still hopeful and eager to contribute to the world's entertainment and transient enjoyment, but only after I have contributed to my own integrity. I will enlarge on this jolly little theme when we meet again and I defy you to shout me down. In the meantime I wish you success and happiness in whatever you do, even if it is only organizing Maypole dances in South Shields.

  Never wear your wife's sweater again, it is not becoming.

  Yours in Science,

  NOËL

  Wesker observed forty years later that Noël:

  didn't always get it right. The sweater he referred to had been bought a few weeks earlier at Simpsons on Piccadilly in the department of “unisex clothes” that were just coming into fashion…And he didn't like Chicken Soup with Barley because he didn't know anything about politically quarrelling East End Jews. It read like “propaganda” to him. He might have understood more if he had seen it acted. Or just met my family!!

  But Wesker did not give up so easily. On July 21 he is sending Noël a copy of his play Chips with Everything on Centre 42 stationery and adding a PS.: “We are eight weeks away from our festivals, money is coming in very slowly. There is great enthusiasm, a lot of hard work from a lot of talented people, but no lucre. Are you sure you won't change your mind and help us?”

  LES AVANTS

  sur MONTREUX

  29th July 1962

  Dear Arnold,

  It was sweet of you to remember to send me the play and I can't wait to read it, nor, for the matter of that, to see it again. I had a sweet telegram from your Company which pleased and touched me enormously.

  I can't, or rather, won't help you over “Centre 42,” because I really do disapprove of the whole idea. You mustn't be cross with me about this but I can't bear to think of all those talented people you mention, and you most particularly, pursuing with such ardour, a goal that I really cannot feel you will achieve successfully. As I said before, I think that your first allegiance should be to your own rich talent and that you should go on using it and enlarging it instead of wasting valuable time trying to bring art and culture to a great number of people who neither need it nor want it. After seeing Chips I feel more strongly about this than ever.

  I know you have a heart that is both loving and idealistic, but you have also a great gift that should not be jettisoned for any cause however worthy. Much more has been achieved in the world by private and personal talent than by public and impersonal good works.

  As well as admiration I have a great deal of affection for you and as you know I deplore this tiresome bee in your bonnet you can't blame me for not encouraging it to buzz!

  Forgive me for my unregenerate cynicism (!) and thank you again for the play.

  Love,

  Noël

  Friends of Centre 42

  20 Fitzroy Square

  London W.I.

  August 4th 1962

  My dear Noël,

  I do not see the difference between a poster in Shaftesbury Avenue advertising a Noël Coward play to the “masses” and the poster which I now enclose (for your delight). The real difference, of course, is that the Coward play is advertised within the commercial set-up— which puts it beyond suspicion; whereas our festivals are not commercially funded—which makes us appear presumptious [sic]. But on the contrary it is Coward, Wesker, Osborne and the others who are presumptious—the public do not ask for their work in the beginning, whereas the trades councils have asked for us to put on a festival. We are being requested,

  I don't mind your cynicism—what I do mind is that—though you cannot understand my revolution, yet you will not bless it and help it as the work of a new generation, just as your early plays were their own sort of revolution and needed to be blessed in their day.

  Give us a trial, allow us to fail, permit us the chance to discover for ourselves our own mistakes—I think this is a right, surely?…We are not arty, we are not bumptious, we have no arrogance—we are artists taking art a step further.

  Stay well for a long time

  Love

  ARNOLD

  Les Avants

  sur Montreux

  September 5 th 1962

  My dear Arnold,

  Once and for all you really must stop calling me “cynical” just because I have told you quite honestly that I do not approve of the aims and objects of “Centre 42.” According to the dictionary a cynic is (1) a member of a school of Greek philosophers who taught that the essence of virtue was self-control and later came to be regarded as representing a gloomy revolt against current philosophy and social customs. (2) A captious, sneering, fault-finding person, especially one who attributes human conduct to low motives of self-interest. Frankly I do not feel that I could be described accurately as either
of these. I have never for an instant thought that your enthusiasm for your project was in any way dictated by self-interest. On the contrary, as far as your brilliant talent is concerned, it seems to be dictated by a curious urge of self-destruction. In my opinion, which God knows is far from infallible, your expenditure of personal energy and time upon this immense scheme is wasting very possibly something of infinite greater value, which is your gift for writing and developing as a dramatist.

  I, who have earned my living all my life by my creative talents, cannot ever agree with your rather high-flown contempt for “commercial art.” In my experience, which is not inconsiderable, the ordinary run of human beings, regardless of social distinctions, infinitely prefer paying for their amusements and entertainments than having them handed out to them for nothing, or comparatively nothing. There is nothing disgraceful or contemptible in writing a successful play which a vast number of people are eager and willing to buy tickets for. You yourself should be the first to appreciate this having written a deservedly smash success. On the other hand I consider that the forming of committees to decide what sort of art and entertainment the masses should properly enjoy, is not only presumptious [sic] but fairly silly. I cannot for the life of me see why a hard-working provincial housewife who has spent a whole week doing her job and earning her living should not, on a Saturday and Sunday play Bingo or go to a bad movie or enjoy herself in any way she sees fit. There is after all no guarantee that your avant-garde painters and sculptors and musicians and playwrights are so tremendously necessary to culture as they naturally think they are. None of them, has as yet, stood the test of time. Personally I would rather play Bingo every night for a year than pay a return visit to Waiting for Godot, This of course is a personal view, but then average English men and women also have personal views and one of their most personal personal views is an inherent dislike of being bored stiff. This is not to say that I think all your cultural activities will inevitably bore the public, but, judging by the purple and black brochure you sent me, quite a number of them are bound to.

  You mustn't be cross with me for holding these very definite views because, if you analyse them, you may find that they are based on common sense rather than cynicism. As I have told you from the first, I do not approve of your so-called cultural revolution or Centre 42 or anything to do with it. I am perfectly prepared to admit that I may be dead wrong over all this and if the future proves me to be so I shall be entirely delighted for your sake, because I am very fond of you and admire and respect your sincerity. In the meantime be a dear and stop bullying me.

  Yours with wicked, cynical love,

  NOËL

  In June 1966 he was able to make partial amends by spending “four hours at the Old Vic in wig, eyebrows and moustache, waiting to say my five lines in Wesker's The Kitchen—in a memorial performance to actor/director George Devine.”

  •

  THE OTHER CONTEMPORARY writer to whom Noël became a dedicated convert was Harold Pinter (b. 1930). To begin with he could see absolutely no merit there. This was the “surrealist school of non-playwriting.” But then when he saw The Caretaker in May 1960, “I think I'm on to Pinter's wavelength. He is at least a genuine original.” The play was “on the face of it…everything I hate in the theatre—squalor, repetition, lack of action, etc., but somehow it seizes hold of you.”

  Two years later Caretaker Films was formed—a group that included Alan Bates, Lord Birkett, Clive Donner, Pinter, Donald Pleasance, and Robert Shaw. Pinter wrote to Noël (among others):

  Fairmead Court

  Taylor Avenue

  Kew, Surrey

  29.11.62

  Dear Noël Coward,

  We intend to make this film!

  It would be wonderful if you could help.

  Yours sincerely,

  HAROLD PINTER

  Noël did help, to the tune of a thousand pounds in a budget of thirty thousand. When the Hollywood backers pulled out ten days before shooting was due to begin, Birkett recalls that they had to “find ‘angels’, just like a West End stage show.” His roll call of “angels” was an impressive one: Peter Hall (a founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company), his then wife Leslie Caron, producer Harry Salzman, Peter Sellers, Elizabeth Taylor, and Richard Burton among them. Pinter wrote again, his letters as spare as his dialogue:

  December 15th 1962

  Dear Noël Coward,

  I can't tell you how delighted I am at your help with The Caretaker]

  Thank you.

  We are very busy shooting. Most exciting.

  Everyone sends their love and appreciation.

  Why don't you come down to Hackney one day?

  Warm wishes.

  HAROLD PINTER

  Lord Birkett, the play's producer, continues the story in a letter to the editor:

  Peter Cadbury (another investor) brought Noël down to the dismal Hackney house where we were shooting. Noël stayed for two days, came to rushes in Soho with us in the evening, and finally said he had to go back home to Switzerland in the morning, but would I please send him news from time to time of how the film was going. “I'll send you lots of postcards,” I said, “but what's your address in Switzerland?” Noël said, “Oh, just write ‘Noël Coward, Switzerland’.”

  In 1965 Noël was equally impressed with Pinter's The Homecoming and concluded that Pinter was “a sort of cockney Ivy Compton-Burnett.”

  Flat 4

  5 Queen's Gate Place

  London S.W.7.

  August 6th, 1965

  Dear Noël,

  … I can't tell you how much it means to me that you felt about the play as you did. I am so pleased.

  I would love to talk to you. Perhaps one day I shall descend by parachute on to your mountain stronghold. But on the other hand, when you're next in London, please ring me, will you? And we can meet. You appear into London so swiftly and mysteriously, that there's no way of knowing that you're here.

  By the way I haven't been able to write to you before this as I was in Venice all last week. I've decided now, quite conclusively, that I detest beaches, sun lotions, heat and mosquitos. I enclose a copy of the play with all my love. And again, many many thanks.

  Yours

  HAROLD

  Les Avants sur Montreux

  August 21 st 1965

  Dear Harold,

  I have just read The Homecoming twice through. I had thought that perhaps the impeccable acting and direction might have clouded my judgement of the play itself. But I was dead wrong. It reads as well if not better than it plays. Your writing absolutely fascinates me. It is entirely unlike anyone else's. You cheerfully break every rule of the theatre that I was brought up to believe in, except the cardinal one of never boring for a split-second. I love your choice of words, your resolute refusal to explain anything and the arrogant, but triumphant demands you make on the audience's imagination. I can well see why some clots hate it, but I belong to the opposite camp—if you will forgive the expression.

  Why don't you fly out here for a night or two in September? I long to talk to you. I'm going to the South of France this minute until next Wednesday…Please call me. I have just written three new plays. One long and two short, so sucks to you! I am going to grace the London stage in all three of them next March!

  My love to Vivien and to you.

  NOËL

  In the years that followed more and more commentators came to understand the unlikely professional rapport between the two writers. The clue lay in two separate Coward lines: “Suggestion is always more interesting than statement.”

  And the speech in Shadow Play in which he has Gertrude Lawrence say, “Small talk, a lot of small talk with other thoughts going on behind.”

  Today a young playwright would consider it an accolade to be dubbed “Pinteresque.” But Pinter could equally well be called “Cowardesque.”

  •

  NOëL'S CONNECTIONS weren't limited to English playwrights, although he was not greatly enamored
by the postwar generation of Americans, finding them too concerned with the “significance” of their work.

  This disenchantment had begun with Eugene O'Neill back in the 1920s, when Noël had been coerced into sitting through—twice!—the whole seven acts of Strange Interlude, which his beloved Lynn Fontanne happened to be starring in. Noël tended to echo Alfred Lunt's verdict: “If it had had two more acts I could have sued her for desertion.”

  Arthur Miller (1915—2005) seemed to Noël to follow the same portentous tradition, even though he liked the man perfectly well. When told by an overexuberant playgoer that Death of a Salesman was not a play but an “experience,” Noël murmured that he rather wished it had been 2.play.

  However, in the mid-1960s Noël did establish a dialogue of sorts with the rising Edward Albee (b. 1928), whose play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) had brought him critical acclaim.

  In 1963 Noël met Albee for the first time—“ Very intelligent but badly tainted with avant-garde, Beckett, etc.” In 1965, on his way to Jamaica, Noël passed through New York and saw Tiny Alice, “altogether a maddening evening in the theatre, so nearly good and yet so bloody pretentious.” He found himself “as bewildered as everyone else including the cast” and John Gielgud, “who was strained and unconvincing.” Noël expressed his views to Albee, who was “very amiable about it” and later sent Noël a copy of the text.

  BLUE HARBOUR

  PORT MARIA

  JAMAICA, WEST INDIES

  18th February 1965

  My dear Edward,

  I have read Tiny Alice with the utmost concentration and considerable enjoyment. Your sense of Theatre is superb and your writing brilliant. You were right, I did get more of it from the printed page but not enough to clear up my confusion. I know now, or I think I know, what's happening but what I don't know is what you think is happening. Your basic premise still eludes me. I can fetch up several suitable—agreeably suitable—labels, “Destruction of Innocence,” “Black Over White,” “The Evil in Good,” “The Good in Evil,” etc., all facile and unsatisfactory. Your character drawing of Butler, the lawyer and the Cardinal clear and believable. Alice and Julien not only unbelievable but, to me, cracking bores. He seems to be a sex-obsessed prig and she an over-articulate shadow. Your other dimension is too vague for me to visualize. Perhaps my stubborn sanity clips my wings. Sex obsession and religious ecstasy, I agree, are on the same plane but it is not a plane on which I can move with much tolerance. I have enjoyed sex thoroughly, perhaps even excessively all my life but it has never, except for brief wasteful moments, twisted my reason. I suspect that my sense of humour is as stubborn as my sanity, perhaps they're the same thing. Your seduction scene neither moved, shocked or appalled me, it made me want to laugh. You must forgive me for saying these things. I have a profound respect for your rich talent and a strong affection for you, although I only know you a little. Expert use of language is to me a perpetual joy. You use it expertly all right but, I fear, too self-indulgently. Your duty to me as a playgoer and a reader is to explain whatever truths you are dealing with lucidly and accurately. I refuse to be fobbed off with a sort of metaphysical What's My Line]