The Letters of Noel Coward

by Noel Coward

  You must (or might be) sick of this letter—except in fairness quite a lot's about you!

  Love,

  ENID

  The dialogue continued. In July 1966, Noël was appearing in London in Suite in Three Keys. Enid, who had seen it, was staying with the Lunts, who had not, and wrote from there:

  TEN CHIMNEYS

  GENESEE DEPOT

  WISCONSIN

  July 14th 1966

  Darling Noël,

  I've just crept through Jule's “suite” to write to you. It's Thursday, his day off, and he's left the outer door of the little room I write in— locked. It's been 90 [degrees] as you've heard, but this morning it's softly dripping, every tree-branch hanging a little lower because of the water.

  I left Lynnie sewing a collar on to a white sharkskin dress (she bought for you and Jamaica but never wore) that she gave me.

  If you knew (but I bet you do) how we talk of you. What a factor you are in our everyday life, which is made of plays. Old plays, plays to be, plays I haven't written, plays that you have. A continual preoccupation with that Rock. The Rock I can't climb. I can plant the Alpine flowers on it but that's all. The Rock called How you make the Story. I'm sick of the word Construction. It ceases to mean anything to me. What we want is to hold them “breathless.” And the word “Construction” isn't wholly that. It's dear William Archer [a Scottish Victorian theater critic] … “forewarning but not foretelling” … and the second awful tremendous duty la scene a faire,

  I discuss that play of yours {Suite in Three Keys). They haven't seen it, have they? But they will at Christmas in New York … I particularly say how instantly I saw what you meant about “introducing.” The swift lines, like a Japanese drawing, indicating the relationships, the “tease” of a relationship all the richer for being momentarily misunderstood.

  In the audience one admires backwards as well as forwards … You said, I think, at one moment, that audiences are stupider than writers. I don't think they are. It's extraordinary the tiny flashing motes they can perceive. Motes the Management would have thought unseeable. But if the author trusts them, they see it. (How right, in a worldly sense, that I should write a capital M and a small a.)

  The fridge is humming. My teeth are comfortably beside me. Jule has lent me his bedside lamp to type by. All, all is before me. I have this gift of words killing me—locked in a box with no key.

  Alfred said, “How you talk of death!.” I said “I don't think of it and except as the Grand National jockey thinks ‘Can I make it when I get into the Straight?’ ” It's not this death I mind. It's not having been acclaimed. You see I believe in myself. That is so terrible. I expect when I am writing that there should be an audience who can relish the relish I take in words! But there isn't. Or if there were, there is no management to believe in it. I wish I was 18 and on the stage (for experience) and immensely rich (another twerk, not the same one) so as to have a school of acting all my own. I wish I had been born a damned director, in swaddling clothes, with eyes like footlights and a dry voice of terrible authority. I shall say to God when I jump over the chasm, “You mucked me up!”

  Noël, how kind you were. When I said it to Lynnie she said “That is the marvellous thing—among others about Noël—he wants to help. He wants one to be perfect”.

  I believe if I wrote a play quite suddenly that had an immense success and ran longer than yours you'd be delighted {”‘Longer: than yours” is only a way of speaking).

  We have been hanging naked in the pool staring into the golden eyes of toads with throbbing throats that sit along the gutter at the fringe under the grass. Alfred said, “When do you like your drink?” I said “I like to hang alcoholised in the water.” And it's true. That strange element, that extraordinary shock all over the flesh and the quick recovery, and the alteration (moonwise) of weight. We had a storm in the middle of the night and the heat, and the thunder leapt into my bedroom like a devil, all among the Mazo de la Roches [a popular woman novelist of the period] and a lot fell out on the sofa.

  I'll send this now or I'll be writing myself into corners and byways that will bore you, because not on the central subject. I want to say compactly—thank you for that wonderful evening, and to tell you again that the word “Noël” here is all their past, and our present. And the stories Alfred begins to tell (of you) and that Lynn takes from him and finishes.

  We send our love

  ENID

  Noël managed to get through the London run of his trilogy, but impaired health and the telltale first signs of failing memory caused him to cancel his plans to take the show to Broadway that fall.

  Enid voiced the general disappointment of the New York theatrical community:

  Rottingdean

  October 24th 1966

  Dearest Noël,

  Cathleen Nesbitt has just told me you are ill again and Broadway postponed. I know it will take all the courage and toughness that you have to bear this. I ache for you. How kind and dear you've always been to me … I know that you will have that marvellous golden successful time on Broadway—that it's only postponed and the deep, deep disappointment they've all felt from Alfred and Lynn down will make all the more tumultuous the welcome when you arrive there well again.

  Don't drink—don't smoke—don't stay up late—don't carouse with buddies—it's worth it to be dull for a bit. By my standards you are so young.

  Oh, success—success—it never grows stale—in spite of what they think.

  Question: “What is better than success?” Answer: “Having it again.”

  Love,

  ENID

  •

  NOëL HIMSELF was not above asking for advice—if not on the writing of plays, then on the writing of novels. During the war years he wrote to his childhood friend “Peter,” the novelist G. B. Stern (1890—1973):

  Caledonian Hotel, Aberdeen

  —1942

  Tell me, Miss Stern, do you find it difficult to write novels about a lot of people all at once—I mean, do you ever get muddled? I mean, do you sometimes find yourself having the characters say things that ought to be said by someone else? I mean, how do you manage to keep the whole God damned thing going without confusion and I really bloody well do mean that!

  bull;

  NO EL'S CLOSEST CONTEMPORARY and the dramatist with whom he is most often compared was Terence Rattigan (1911—1977). Noël admired Rattigan as the true successor in the tradition of Arthur Wing Pinero, Shaw, and Maugham as the author of the “well-made play,” and in terms of commercial success Rattigan's eclipsed his own. Noël's major hits covered a wider range of genres, but none of his “serious” plays—with the possible exception of The Vortex, with its initial shock value—enjoyed the success of Rattigan's The Winslow Boy (1946), The Browning Version (1948), The Deep Blue Sea (1952), or Ross (1960). The two men could be most closely compared in the short play format, when Rattigan paid homage to Noël in the 1954 Separate Tables, where he had the same actors play different roles in two one-act plays with the same setting.

  Terence Rattigan (1911-1977) (left) wrote to Noël, “I sincerely believe that you and I are the last two playwrights on earth to continue to respect [the public].”

  Their paths first crossed when Rattigan, as an Oxford undergraduate, was asked to review Cavalcade for the university tabloid, Cherwell, Briefed that the more serious rival magazine, The Isis, had given the piece a favorable notice and that Cherwell could not possibly follow suit, irrespective of the play's merits, Rattigan wrote, “[Coward] has the happy knack of feeling strongly what other people are feeling at the same time. If he has this ability to transform this knack into money and success, we should not begrudge them to him. But such cannot be the qualities of genius.” Ironically, this was precisely the kind of comment that would in due course be applied to him.

  Noël, in reality, had always been something of an icon for Rattigan. The latter's first completed play, The Parchment, was written in his public school days. It had two act
s and a running time of approximately ten minutes. On the cover he listed his Wish List cast, which included just about every well-known actor of the day. Among them, cast as a poet in a velvet jacket, was the rising young Noël Coward.

  In later years Rattigan made ample amends to Noël, who was by this time a close friend, when he wrote the preface to Mander and Mitchenson's Theatrical Companion to Coward, As a lyricist, Coward was, Rattigan declared, “the best of his kind since W S. Gilbert.” And “he is simply a phenomenon, and one that is unlikely to occur ever again in theatre history. Let us at least be grateful that it is our own epoch that the phenomenon has so signally adorned.”

  Over the years Rattigan was to be the recipient of Noël's well-intentioned but often critical “advice.” When the Lunts were on tour in the United Kingdom prior to London with Rattigan's hove in Idleness, Noël had traveled up to Leeds to see a performance. Afterward he gave all concerned the famous Coward finger wag. Really, darlings, it would not do. On no account must they bring the play into town. Later Lynn sought out the wretched playwright and told him not to be depressed. Alfred would undoubtedly heed Noël's advice and want to close the play on the road, but she had faith in it and would talk her husband out of closing. A little while later Alfred took Rattigan aside and had the identical conversation. The Lunts were to play the piece in London and New York (retitled 0 Mistress Mine) for some four years.

  Noël, as always, had the grace to admit when he was wrong, and he sent Rattigan a congratulatory first-night telegram telling him so. Rattigan replied:

  K5 Albany

  Piccadilly

  W.I.

  December 29th 1944

  Dear Noël,

  Many thanks for your very touching wire on the first night. I do indeed forgive you your trespasses and more than that, am most sincerely grateful to you for the probably well-deserved and certainly highly efficacious shaking up you gave us in Leeds. Also for your most generous recantation on the first night.

  Love

  Terry

  Noël continued to offer his own brand of constructive criticism, which Rattigan learned to take in the spirit in which it was intended.

  After The Deep Blue Sea (1951) Rattigan would write: “Ever since your very generous letter about French Without Tears fifteen years ago—you have probably forgotten writing it—I've always been deeply concerned that you should like my work …” And, on June 1, 1960: “There is no judgement I would rather have about a play than yours (except perhaps the public's, which, I sincerely believe, you and I are the last 2 playwrights on earth to continue to respect) and a word of praise from you is worth a paean from the press.”

  On July 20 he is writing to congratulate Noël on a pair of well-deserved but somewhat surprising successes:

  Enormous gratters on Private Lives [which had just been revived at the Hampstead Theatre and would prove to be the beginning of “Dad's Renaissance”]. Wasn't it nice for you to read those notices? The sound of all those critics’ Woodbine-stained teeth chewing their words must have been very agreeable to you. It was to me. [Wild Woodbines was a brand of cheap cigarettes much beloved by tabloid journalists.)

  P.S. Also I hear you're going to be “National Theatred.” [The revival of Hay Fever at Olivier's new National Theatre on the South Bank would be the first by a living dramatist and would set the Coward snowball rolling even faster.] Any more such and I might get jealous. Enough is enough, please.

  And by the time of A Bequest to the Nation (1970) Rattigan had learned to brush firmly aside the critical slings and arrows that “classical” playwrights—such as Noël and he had become—could predictably expect.

  47 Rue des Vignes

  XV10

  October 6th 1970

  Dear Noël,

  I should have thanked you before—long before—this but … somehow or other, unlike you, I don't seem to get any younger, although of course I still look the merest boy—or is it that I just don't see so good these days?—anyway this sentence seems to have left out what I'm thanking you for, which is your sweet telegram for the first night of my Nelson play—years ago, it seems.

  We opened in a newspaper strike, which seemed like a good idea when I read my Daily Express, but later, and more happily seemed a very bad idea indeed, as some very unexpected ones were very kind, and not even very patronizing.

  Anyway, it presses along merrily, and I suppose, one day, we'll advertise the good notices we did get, and which no one in London read.

  A New Statesmannerie will make you laugh. “Mr. Rattigan,” someone wrote, with loathing, “seems to regard the Battle of Trafalgar with patriotic satisfaction, as an object (even) of pride, and not a regrettable political necessity.”

  I've written back—one shouldn't, but it was too good a chance to miss—that I was really most terribly, terribly sorry, but I did regard the Battle of Trafalgar with a certain pride, and if the gentleman would care to meet me one sunny afternoon in the Square of Regrettable Political Necessity, I'd try and explain why.

  Was I naughty? Or just camp? Or both?

  Much, much love

  Terry

  •

  THEIR SHARED PROBLEMS —of professional failure and success— brought the two men close together and a genuine friendship developed.… my admiration and affection for you have grown to a point where they could be covered by a much stronger word—a word, let me hastily add, that needs neither disturb John Gordon [the Calvinistic columnist for the Sunday Express] nor alarm yourself, but which nevertheless means simply what it says.

  Love

  Terry

  In the 1971 Honours List, Rattigan received his knighthood. The previous year—after a wait of several decades—Noël had been given his and become the first playwright to be ennobled in the twentieth century.

  Rattigan writes to acknowledge Noël's cable of congratulations:

  Bermuda

  June 26th 1971

  Darling Marquis Noël,

  (If you remember, my efforts to award you a Dukedom 2 years ago were thwarted by Bermuda Cable & Wireless insisting on making it a “Dykedom”—to the consternation of all. Even they can't fuck up a “Marquisate”.)

  Thank you for your sweet wire which touched and delighted me. You know that you should have had yours forty years ago—at the time of Cavalcade, I don't think I should have had mine before—in fact I'm not at all sure I should have had it now—but it would have been nice, say, five years ago when “Old Blighty” [Rattigan's mother] could have swaggered about her hotel saying: “My younger son, Sir Terence …” etc., etc. “Your father would have had his at forty, you know, if he hadn't had that row with Curzon.” (Which is true.)

  The poor old love died only six weeks before, which seems a miracle of mis-timing all round.

  Oh well, it's very nice anyway—and it's even nicer to have you congratulating me.

  Much, much love,

  TERRY

  Over the years the friendship deepened, with both of them continuing to do what there was to be done theatrically and fully expecting by now to collect more “kicks than ha'pence” for their efforts to maintain theatrical standards. Both of them died with the outcome uncertain. Yet the rhetorical question remains—who will be revived a hundred years hence? Coward or Osborne? Rattigan or Wesker?

  Despite his commercial success, Rattigan always felt a little overshadowed by Noël, for whom playwriting was only one of many achievements. But this in itself could be a double-edged sword, as Noël knew only too well.

  After Rattigan's play The Sleeping Prince received a lukewarm reception in 1953, Noël consoled him: “Don't worry, Terence. I not only fuck up some of my plays by writing them, but I frequently fuck them up by acting in them as well.”

  CHAPTER 10

  CAVALCADE

  (1931)

  Let's drink to the hope that one day this country of ours, which we love so much, will find Dignity and Greatness and Peace again!

  JANE MARRYOT'S TOAST, FROM CAVALCADE (1
9 5 1)

  I hope that this play has made you feel that, in spite of the troublous times we are living in, it is still pretty exciting to be English.

  NOËL'S CURTAIN SPEECH ON THE FIRST NIGHT OF CAVALCADE

  DURING HIS 1931 stay in America, Noël had had his research material with him, and ideas for Cavalcade were crowding everything else out of his mind. From the ship, he sent Charles Cochran a cable in response to the impresario's request for production details:

  PART ONE ONE SMALL INTERIOR TWO DEPARTURE OF TROOPSHIP THREE SMALL INTERIOR FOUR MAFEKING NIGHT IN LONDON MUSIC HALL NECESSITATING PIVOT STAGE FIVE EXTERIOR FRONT SCENE BIRDCAGE WALK SIX EDWARDIAN RECEPTION SEVEN MILE END ROAD FULL STAGE BUT CAN BE OPENED UP GRADUALLY AND DONE MOSTLY WITH LIGHTING PART TWO ONE WHITE CITY FULL SET TWO SMALL INTERIOR THREE EDWARDIAN SEASIDE RESORT FULL SET BATHING MACHINES PIERROTS ETC. FOUR TITANIC SMALL FRONT SCENE FIVE OUTBREAK OF WAR SMALL INTERIOR SIX VICTORIA STATION IN FOG SET AND LIGHTING EFFECTS SEVEN AIR RAID OVER LONDON PRINCIPALLY LIGHTING AND SOUND EIGHT INTERIOR OPENING ON TO TRAFALGAR SQUARE ARMISTICE NIGHT FULL STAGE AND CAST PART THREE ONE GENERAL STRIKE FULL SET TWO SMALL

  “The Toast to the Future.” Jane Marryot (Mary Clare): “Let's drink to the hope that one day this country of ours, which we love so much, will find Dignity and Greatness and Peace again!”

  interior three fashionable night club full set four small interior five impressionistic summary of modern civilization mostly lights and effects six complete stage with panorama and union jack full cast necessitates one best modern lighting equipment obtainable two company of guards three orchestra fifty four facilities for complete blackouts five full week of dress rehearsals six theatre free for all rehearsals seven about a dozen reliable actors the rest walkons a few strong singers eight fog effect individuals necessary one frank collins stage supervision two dan o'neill stage management three elsie april music supervision four cissie sewell crowd work five gladys calthrop supervision of costumes and scenery and your own general supervision this synopsis is more or less accurate but liable to revision please take care that no detail of this should reach private or particularly press ears regards noëL