The Play
Private Lives opens on the terrace of a French hotel overlooking the seaside. Two suites of rooms open onto the terrace, which faces the audience and is separated from it by a stone balustrade. It is evening, the cocktail hour, and an orchestra plays not far away. From the suite stage right enters Sibyl Chase, twenty-three, blonde, and very pretty in her traveling clothes. Soon afterward, Elyot Chase, her new husband, enters, also in traveling clothes. Sibyl and her older husband are English, moneyed, and—especially he—sophisticated in their disregard for conventional propriety. It is their honeymoon, yet she quizzes him about his first wife, Amanda. Her questions provoke his wit, tinged with sarcasm. As the repartee unfolds, the audience realizes that the witty Elyot is easily exasperated by Sibyl’s harping, which barely conceals her wish to shape him into a conventionally acceptable husband. He resists petulantly. They go inside to dress for dinner.
Victor Prynne next enters from the suite stage left. A handsome man in his mid-thirties, Victor is the new husband of Amanda, Elyot’s former wife, who joins him in her negligee. They too are honeymooners just arrived. Like the other new spouse, Victor is trying to draw Amanda out about her former partner, but as the conversation unfolds, it becomes evident that Amanda will no more accept Victor’s assessment of Elyot as a cad than Elyot would accept Sibyl’s poor opinion of Amanda. Like Sibyl, Victor is conventional, blustering about Elyot’s bad behavior and wishing to disparage him. Like Elyot, Amanda is not prepared to go along, and she somewhat flippantly defends her former spouse. She and Victor go in to dress for dinner.
In a beautifully comic double take, exquisitely drawn out, first Elyot and then Amanda enter their separate parts of the terrace with champagne cocktails. They sit down facing away from each other. The band plays a romantic tune, and Elyot begins to hum along; Amanda gasps, turns, sees who it is, and then begins to hum too. Now Elyot gasps, turns, and sees her. They both retreat in a huff. Elyot’s attempts to persuade Sibyl to return at once to Paris are no more successful than Amanda’s attempts to persuade Victor to leave. The two new spouses stalk off, inadvertently leaving Elyot and Amanda alone on the terrace, each in a rage at the turn of events. From sharing cigarettes, they soon move to sharing complaints about their new spouses, nostalgia for their failed marriage, admission of their continuing love, and, finally, the impulsive decision to abandon their new spouses and leave for Amanda’s flat in Paris. They agree to forestall any incipient quarrel by uttering the words “Solomon Isaacs” and observing two minutes of silence. They leave at once. The first act closes with the puzzled Victor and Sibyl meeting on the terrace and toasting, with the remaining champagne, “To absent friends.”
Act 2 finds Amanda and Elyot some days later in the Paris flat. They have finished dinner and are lingering over coffee and liqueurs. Their wildly swinging moods—from ecstatic romance and passion to petty bickering and sharp repartee—seem to be leading to a seduction. They shorten “Solomon Isaacs” to “Sollocks,” and the conversation jumps on a comic roller coaster from their former marriage to their current spouses to the meaning of life, radio, modern medicine, and each other’s personality. Their celebration of unconventionality and of the insufficiencies of their second mates seems to make a passionate ending to the evening inevitable, until the mood shifts when Amanda, snuggled up to Elyot on the sofa, puts him off with the flip...
(This entire section contains 1009 words.)
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rejection: “It’s too soon after dinner.” They try to revive the passion—singing love songs from musicals—when the telephone (a wrong number) interrupts them. Soon they find themselves upbraiding each other for unfaithfulness during and after their marriage. Elyot defiantly turns off the gramophone, scratching the record, and now they begin to fight in earnest, knocking over lamps, hitting each other, and wrestling on the floor before rushing off to opposite rooms, slamming doors stage left and stage right. In the final moments, Victor and Sibyl have entered unobserved, to sink down onto the sofa as the fighters leave and the curtain falls.
Act 3 begins the next morning, with Sibyl and Victor stretched out on separate sofas, each in front of the door behind which the mate retreated. Louise, the French maid, enters and awakens them. Victor entreats Sibyl to stay and see things through; she agrees, though protesting that it is all a bit squalid. Amanda comes out of her room, dressed for traveling, carrying a small bag, and ready to flee. Victor demands that they talk. With elegant poise, she agrees, but insists on having breakfast served first. When Elyot enters, Sibyl breaks down in tears, and Amanda returns to her room. In an unconscious imitation of Amanda, Elyot apologizes to the guests for the state of the room, offers to order breakfast and coffee, and generally tries to smooth things over. When Amanda reenters, her high-handed manner provokes Elyot to sarcasm, which in turn provokes Victor to challenge Elyot to a fight. Amanda takes Sibyl into her room. After taunting Victor into a seething rage, Elyot slams into his room. Amanda and Sibyl reenter, and the comic minuet takes another turn. Now Sibyl’s hostility toward Amanda tempts her to reclaim Elyot, drawing him after her into his room to talk. In their absence, Amanda blames Elyot for drinking too much, and Victor pledges to allow her to divorce him (the gentlemanly thing to do).
Louise brings in the breakfast. In a delightful parody of breakfast small talk, travel plans are discussed. Victor and Sibyl begin to quarrel, he sarcastically accusing her of having had the intelligence to marry a drunkard, she accusing him of being “an insufferable great brute” and slapping his face. As she does, Amanda and Elyot go smilingly out the door with their suitcases, and the curtain falls.
Dramatic Devices
Master of the theater, Noël Coward embraced an art that is not afraid to proclaim itself. The comedy of manners, the genre of his most successful plays, presupposes an audience that knows and to some extent shares the cultural milieu of the characters. Thus, Coward assumes that the audience is familiar with the custom of dressing for dinner, the occasion that brings the two couples together. He also assumes that the audience knows the conventional attitudes of Victor and Sibyl, representatives of the British upper class, and, further, that audience members have heard about, even if they do not know at first hand, emancipated divorced people like Amanda and Elyot. Without such a common ground, the comedy can fall flat. Nevertheless, Private Lives plays well to urban audiences decades after its original production, remaining surprisingly fresh despite its Jazz Age milieu.
Coward’s dialogue is witty, often self-consciously so. In this he follows a comic tradition going back at least as far as the Greeks, who coined the word stichomythia to describe a verbal battle in which each side throws one-liners at the other. The wit arises in part from what is said—a sharp turn of phrase, a telling simile—but also, in large part, from what is not said. At one point in the play, for example, Amanda, in reference to her and Elyot’s rediscovered happiness together, intones, “How long, Oh Lord, how long?”—somewhat blasphemously echoing the complaint of Job in the Bible. Elyot responds that she has “no faith” and asks what she does believe:
Elyot: Don’t you believe in-—-? (He nods upwards.)Amanda: No, do you?Elyot (shaking his head): No. What about-—-? (He nodsdownwards.)Amanda: Oh dear no.Elyot: Don’t you believe in anything?Amanda: Oh yes, I believe in being kind to everyone, andgiving money to old beggar women, and being as gay as possible.
Such blase nonreaction to admissions of spiritual despair contributes as much to the witty humor as does Elyot’s reluctance to do more than point to Heaven and Hell.
Coward’s characters, especially the knowing Amanda and Elyot, seem to be “playing” their parts, now trying sincerity, now trying a bluff, slipping like eels from one social role to another but hinting wistfully at a wish for certainty and continuity. Sibyl and Victor serve as the tradition-bound foils to the emancipated, self-aware Amanda and Elyot. While one might find remote ancestors for the quarreling spouses in the commedia dell’arte or in Punch and Judy, their droll self-awareness makes them closer kin to the sophisticates of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Paris or New York. Coward’s characters, however, seem to suffer less than Fitzgerald’s, for they are protected by their wit and by their own sense of self-irony. Their experience is poignant and their response indomitable, even noble.
The plot works variations on bedroom farces usually associated with Restoration comedy: The true husband or wife discovers—as often as not in a bedroom closet—his spouse’s infidelity. Because Amanda and Elyot are divorced and because they do not try to conceal their affair, the plot has a modern twist that carries through to the unconventionally unresolved ending. Do they or don’t they? In a more traditional comedy, the tangled affairs of the lovers would have been resolved at the end. In this modern world, such an ending seems too pat.
The physical action alternates between smart, sophisticated behavior—the preparations for dinner at the hotel, the amorous activity on the sofa after brandy, the serving of breakfast by a French maid—and farcical slapstick. Faces are smacked, the men nearly come to blows as Victor huffs and puffs, and Amanda and Elyot end the second act rolling on the floor in pitched battle. As with the dialogue, characterization, and plot, in the staging of the play Coward builds on the ironic tension between the restraint of civility and the aggressions ready to burst out at any moment into bickering and slanging.
In terms of performance and staging, Coward’s requirements are straightforward, if not especially modest. The play requires two built sets: the hotel terrace and Amanda’s flat. It assumes, but does not absolutely require, a picture-frame stage and realistic decor. Because the play’s comedy depends in part upon the repeated breaking down of sophisticated behavior, an elegant, glamorous setting can only enhance the production. About costumes the script is explicit, asking for traveling clothes or a negligee, again with the assumption that the glamour of the costumes will provide a comic contrast to the behavior of those wearing them.
Places Discussed
French hotel
French hotel. Unnamed Parisian hotel in which the play is set. Noël Coward’s stage directions describe the terrace of a French hotel as the setting of the first act, which begins with a mood of honeymoon romance. He calls for two French windows at the back of the terrace to open onto two separate suites. In addition to the small trees in tubs and awnings shading the windows, a low stone balustrade separates the balconies. This simple division serves the action well, for the mechanics of the plot depend on the unexpected meeting of former spouses Elyot and Amanda, who are both on honeymoons with their new partners. The terrace setting, with an orchestra playing nearby, sets the scene for romance, but the coincidental meeting leads to amusing tensions.
*Avenue Montaigne
*Avenue Montaigne (av-new moh[n]-ten). Parisian street on which Amanda’s flat is located. The flat is supposed to be her urban retreat and blends well with Coward’s suggestion of characters who hunger for new adventures in exotic settings. Amanda and Elyot talk about their separate travels around the world, without really realizing that physical flight is not always the solution to one’s problems. Swapped partners lead to swapped settings, but things go awry here as well. While the piano helps the pair rediscover an intense romantic pull beneath their often-clashing dialogue, some of the other furniture and props (especially the uncomfortable sofa, gramophone, and records) suffer in the comedic farce that results from the inevitable quarrels between Elyot and Amanda and later those of Sibyl and Victor, who reappear on the scene.
Historical Context
During the 1920s and especially throughout the Great Depression of the 1930s, many of the most beloved plays and films were light-hearted comedies set among the affluent, privileged members of "high society." When these works are linked to the Depression, their popularity is often attributed to the audience's desire to escape their harsh realities, even if just for a short while and only in their imaginations. These productions offered dazzling fantasies of immense luxury to audiences struggling to obtain basic necessities. Given its upper-class setting and its release a year after the 1929 New York stock market crash, Private Lives might seem like a piece of Depression-era "escapism." However, when the play was created, the full and lasting impacts of the economic crisis were not yet widely understood, either in Europe or America. Although it can be classified as light entertainment meant more for diversion than enlightenment, Private Lives belongs to an earlier tradition linked to the social changes of the “Roaring Twenties." In this tradition, the antics of the "idle rich" were not only glamorous and entertaining but also served as a means to explore ongoing debates about manners and morals.
The 1920s are often depicted, both in Europe and America, as a decade of upheaval in which established beliefs of all kinds were questioned and traditional social norms were widely challenged. Following the unprecedented devastation of World War I, which took a massive toll in human lives, many people felt disillusioned with "the old order." They believed that the common practices of the nineteenth century had led to years of needless slaughter and economic suffering. Simultaneously, science was increasingly seen as a challenge to traditional religious beliefs, a fact exemplified by the Scopes Monkey Trial, which pitted the theories of divine human creation and evolution against each other. Rapid technological advancements, a continuation of the industrial revolution that began in the latter half of the 1800s, were transforming daily life in numerous ways, suggesting that a new, "modern" world was emerging—one that would necessitate new values and standards of behavior.
Although the United States had banned the sale and consumption of alcohol in 1920 through the eighteenth amendment to the Constitution, commonly known as Prohibition, the law was largely ignored. Criminal organizations arose to supply the illegal commodity that so many citizens desired. Many historians attribute the rise of powerful organized crime in the U.S. to the illegal alcohol trade, with crime bosses gaining significant prominence and wealth during this period, the most notorious being Al Capone. Ultimately, Prohibition was repealed in 1933, too late to stem the tide of organized crime or the American public's growing enjoyment of moderate disobedience.
Victorian social norms faced numerous challenges, especially regarding the evolving role of women, who began to demand and assume public roles traditionally reserved for men, such as voting, owning property, and pursuing careers. The alleged immorality of "the younger generation" became a hot topic, focusing on behaviors like smoking, drinking, dancing, and sexual promiscuity. The image of the amoral "flaming youth," celebrated in F. Scott Fitzgerald's bestselling novel, This Side of Paradise (1920), sparked public debate throughout the early 1920s. Stereotypes like the young female "flapper" (women who dressed provocatively and engaged in extensive socializing) and the illicit "speakeasy" (venues serving illegal alcohol) suggested a revolution in societal attitudes and a significant shift in moral standards. Depending on one's perspective, these cultural phenomena represented either a much-needed liberation from outdated, restrictive norms or a disastrous decline in civilization.
One of Fitzgerald's most famous sayings is that "the very rich are different from you and I." This difference seems to create a dual fascination in society, blending envious admiration with moralistic disapproval. "You and I" appear to enjoy fantasizing about the opulent lifestyles of the wealthy, while still holding onto the belief that a moderate lifestyle is safer and more secure; wealth cannot truly buy happiness and may even hinder personal fulfillment. The "idle rich," in their pursuit of fashionable excitement and self-indulgence, seem unaffected by traditional moral codes. They can afford to defy convention and risk public disapproval, though they often face consequences for their excesses in the long run. Thus, the world of the wealthy serves as a "safe" stage for exploring moral questions, presenting a "special case" distanced from everyday conditions; the wealthy are permitted to behave in ways that might be unacceptable for characters with whom the audience identifies more closely.
While Amanda and Elyot's casual attitude toward divorce and marital fidelity may seem unremarkable to contemporary audiences, it represented a controversial "new morality" in its time. Viewers could either admire their liberated, "progressive" outlook or relish the crisis and conflict resulting from their "immoral" actions. Though Coward portrays them as glamorous and sophisticated, their flaws are also evident, and they notably do not "live happily ever after." Regardless of one's moral standards, it is challenging to either idolize or condemn them without reservations.
Although Private Lives contains only a few subtle sexual references, it was still regarded as somewhat suggestive, yet comfortably within the accepted norms of its time. From the perspective of the era's morality, it was slightly provocative but ultimately comforting. If Elyot and Amanda had been portrayed as working- or middle-class individuals, their behaviors would have been more contentious, making their story seem less suitable for a light-hearted narrative. However, set in the glamorous, fantastical world of "high society," audiences could engage with themes that might otherwise have felt uncomfortably personal.
Literary Style
Although Coward is celebrated for his sharp dialogue, his work lacks many memorable "punch-lines" or one-liners, the hallmark of comedic writers like Neil Simon (The Odd Couple) and filmmaker Woody Allen (Annie Hall). The humor in Private Lives relies heavily on its skillful stagecraft and meticulously balanced structure. In the introduction to the anthology Play Parade, Coward humbly describes the play as "a reasonably well-constructed duologue for two experienced performers, with a couple of extra puppets thrown in to assist the plot and provide contrast." This modest evaluation highlights two of Coward's strengths: his understanding of the "experienced performers" he collaborated with and his focus on contrast and symmetry.
Coward often wrote with specific actors in mind, tailoring his characters to match their personalities and physical traits, and timing the dialogue to suit their delivery. (Private Lives was written expressly for Gertrude Lawrence, who played Amanda, and Coward himself; they had frequently worked together before the play's debut.) As Enoch Brater noted in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Coward's language "is not by itself inherently funny; what makes it effective on stage is the way it has been designed as a cue for performance." The shifting moods and dynamic chemistry of Elyot and Amanda's relationship are carefully orchestrated through their dialogue. While their witty exchanges "work" reasonably well on the page, it's challenging to read the text without imagining the interplay of gestures, expressions, and vocal inflections (not to mention the broad physical comedy of their slapstick fights) that characterize its performance. These are substantial, demanding roles, designed to captivate and hold the audience's attention. Despite the "literary" nature of their conversation, every nuance has been crafted with a focus on the visual, aiming for a vivid realization on stage.
Coward openly admitted that the play's secondary characters, Sibyl and Victor, were relatively insignificant ("little better than ninepins," he wrote in Play Parade, "lightly wooden, and only there at all in order to be knocked down repeatedly and stood up again"). Although they are the unfortunate "butts" of Coward's humor and never overshadow the main characters, their presence is vital to the play's success. Their traditional views on marriage contrast with the volatile, emotional bond between Elyot and Amanda; in turn, the protagonists' passion, glamour, and wit are accentuated by the blandness of their counterparts.
In the meticulously crafted first act, Coward strikes another form of balance through the individual scenes of the two newlywed couples, which build up to Elyot and Amanda's reunion. Alternating appearances of the couples present them as mirror images of one another, reenacting the same scenarios with exaggerated symmetry, including the pacing and content of their dialogue. The audience quickly notices the similarities between Sibyl and Victor—and between Amanda and Elyot. Long before the partners switch, each pair (Sibyl/Victor, Amanda/Elyot) is revealed as a kind of "couple," having more in common with each other than with their new spouses. The abandonment of Sibyl and Victor is a "scandal," but Coward has already garnered the audience's sympathy for it; dramaturgically speaking, the rearranged "couples" make far more sense, and their reshuffling allows each character to escape what would clearly have been a disastrous mismatch.
A similar symmetry marks the play's conclusion: as Elyot and Amanda sneak away together (echoing their sudden departure in Act I), their conventional, "respectable" spouses are locked in an escalating argument, mirroring Elyot and Amanda's explosive confrontation in Act II. Thrown together by circumstances, Sibyl and Victor have genuinely become a "couple," albeit temporarily, and their fight serves to make that fact evident. Given a few years, they might become well-matched, veteran combatants like their wayward spouses. Their argument, and Elyot and Amanda's stealthy escape, may each be humorous on their own, but the juxtaposition heightens the effect significantly, making a comic moment resonate with the themes Coward has developed throughout the play.
Compare and Contrast
1930: Astronomers at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, discover a ninth planet in our solar system and name it Pluto. This marks the first "new" planet identified since Neptune was observed in 1846. The discovery is made using the most advanced tool of the time for space exploration: a telescope.
Today: Humans have set foot on the moon, with the first landing occurring in 1969. Unmanned spacecraft have ventured to the farthest regions of the solar system, mapping the surfaces of planets that were merely points of light in 1930. The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in the mid-1990s, has provided astronomers with the most detailed images of space to date. Although no probes have closely studied Pluto, in 1978, a moon orbiting Pluto, named Charon, was discovered.
1930: The global population reaches two billion, with the vast majority residing in rural areas.
Today: The world population surpassed five billion during the 1980s and continues to grow. More than fifty percent of people now live in urban areas.
1930: In India, Mahatma Gandhi launches a civil disobedience movement against British colonial rule by leading his followers on a 165-mile march.
Today: Gandhi's efforts brought global attention to the cause of Indian independence, which was eventually achieved in 1947. His principles of passive resistance and civil disobedience inspired the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and influenced the philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. These peaceful tactics continue to be used by modern-day protesters.
Media Adaptations
A film adaptation of Private Lives was released in December 1931 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film featured Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery in the roles of Amanda and Elyot, with Reginald Denny and Una Merkel playing Victor and Sibyl. Although it preserved most of Coward's original story and dialogue, director Sidney Franklin made notable changes. He extended the "set-up" in Act I and condensed the events of Acts II and III. Additionally, the lovers escape to a Swiss chalet instead of a Paris flat. The film is available on videocassette through MGM/UA Home Video.
Bibliography and Further Reading
Sources
Atkinson, Brooks. Review of Private Lives in the New York Times, January 28, 1931, May 14, 1931.
Brater, Enoch. "Noel Coward" in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 10: Modern British Dramatists, 1900-1945, edited by Stanley Weintraub, Gale, 1982.
Coward, Noel. Introduction to Play Parade, Doubleday, 1933, p. xiii.
London Daily Mail, reprinted in the New York Times, September 25, 1930.
Morgan, Charles. Review of Private Lives in the New York Times, October 12, 1930.
Further Reading
Castle, Charles. Noel, Doubleday, 1972. This affectionate tribute to Coward is composed of recollections from friends and theatrical colleagues, along with Coward's own insights.
Coward, Noel. Present Indicative, Doubleday, 1937; and Future Indefinite, Doubleday, 1954. These two primary volumes of Coward's autobiography offer a window into his renowned personality and storytelling prowess. Present Indicative provides more detail from the era when Private Lives was written and first performed.
Hoare, Philip. Noel Coward: A Biography, Simon & Schuster, 1995. This meticulously-researched biography, created with the collaboration of Coward's estate, utilizes previously unavailable materials to deliver a comprehensive account of the playwright's life and career.
Levin, Miller. Noel Coward, Twayne, 1968. This concise overview of Coward's extensive career includes a biographical essay and a critical analysis of his major works.
Bibliography
Coward, Noël. Future Indefinite. New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1954. A continuation of his autobiography. Charmingly written, witty, gossipy, and with much of biographical interest.
Coward, Noël. Present Indicative. New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1937. Detailed autobiog-raphy, in which Coward says of Private Lives: “As a complete play, it leaves a lot to be desired. . . . (T)he secondary characters [Sybil and Victor] . . . are little better than ninepins, lightly wooden, and only there to be repeatedly knocked down and stood up again.” Declares that he wrote the play as a vehicle for himself and Gertrude Lawrence in the principal roles.
Lahr, John. Coward the Playwright. New York: Methuen, 1982. Chronological study, with extended excerpts from individual plays. Notes that Private Lives is the first play Coward wrote after the advent of the Great Depression following the stock market crash of October, 1929, and that the play catches the mood of dissolution: “a plotless play for purposeless people.”
Lesley, Cole. The Life of Noël Coward. London: Penguin Books, 1978. Thorough account of one of the most charismatic entertainment careers of the twentieth century. Replete with quotations from Coward’s peers, both friends and enemies.
Levin, Milton. Noël Coward. New York: Twayne, 1968. Survey of Coward’s body of work that neither idolizes nor condemns him. Sound comments on the structure and impact of Private Lives.
Mander, Raymond, and Joe Mitchenson. Theatrical Companion to Coward. London: Rockcliff, 1957. Full information on casts, productions, biographical background, and critical reception. Excellent introduction by Terence Rattigan.
Tynan, Kenneth. The Sound of Two Hands Clapping. London: Jonathan Cape, 1975. Witty book by one of Britain’s foremost drama critics. The passages on Coward sum up much that the post-World War II generation found objectionable in his work.