Three Plays: Blithe Spirit, Hay Fever, Private Lives

by Noël Coward

Noel Coward's reputation as a brilliant playwright and man of the theater has stood firm since 1925, when his earliest plays became hits in London. His name has, over the years, become synonymous with urbanity, sophistication, and incomparable wit. This new edition includes three of his best plays, about which Edward Albee has said in his introduction, "Read these plays. You are in for quite a treat and quite an experience."

Blithe Spirit, written in 1941, concerns the predicament of a man who must face his imperious and jealous wives when they return from the after-life to haunt him. Hay Fever, a hit in London in 1925, is a comic portrait of the smug, theatrical Bliss family, who have invited four unwelcome house guests for the weekend, only to bewilder them with their bizarre antics and gross indifference. Private Lives, which Clive Barnes called in a New York Times review "the only classic English comedy of manners since Oscar Wilde," was first prdouced in 1930. It is a humorous glimpse into the lives of a twice-married couple, who, having checked into a posh hotel, have nothing to do but eat, drink, bicker, make love, and congratulate themselves on their isolation from a world unworthy of them.

A prolific writer, lyricist, actor, director, and cabaret performer, Noel Coward was one of the most vibrant figures in the theater. He ranks among Britain's finest playwrights.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Fiction, Classics, Humor, Literature

254 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English actor, playwright, and composer of popular music. Among his achievements, he received an Academy Certificate of Merit at the 1943 Academy Awards for "outstanding production achievement for In Which We Serve."

Known for his wit, flamboyance, and personal style, his plays and songs achieved new popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, and his work and style continue to influence popular culture. The former Albery Theatre (originally the New Theatre) in London was renamed the Noël Coward Theatre in his honour in 2006.

Reviews

[Nat K · Rating 5 out of 5]

The opening sentence describes this as: "An Improbable Farce in Three Acts".

And what a farce it is! An absolute joy to read. Remember the good old days where there was witty repartee? Clever retorts and flashes of brilliance. When biting humour was clever without being malicious or relying on f*bombs for shock value.

Noël Coward is your man. A top notch playwright, with the uncanny ability of mocking the martini class with abandon.

We are in the home of the Condomine's, in Kent, the UK. Ruth and Charles. Both are having a second go at wedded bliss.

RUTH: I have a feeling this evening's going to be awful.
CHARLES: It'll probably be a bit of both.

Awful? No! Fun? You bet!

For a lark, Mr. Condomine - a Writer - invites Madame Arcati and her crystal ball over for an evening of psychic intrigue. A séance no less. He tells her it is for research purposes for his next book. That he is collecting atmosphere.

The Condomine's friends, Dr. and Mrs.Bradman join them to witness the supernatural phenomena.

MADAME ARCATI: There's someone who wishes to speak to you, Mr.Condomine...
CHARLES: Tell them to leave a message.
(The table bangs about loudly.)
MADAME ARCATI: I really must ask you not to be flippant, Mr.Condomine...

Are Madame Arcati's gifts even better than she gave herself credit for? Could it be...she has summoned the spirit of...Elvira (gasp!). Mr.Condomine's glamourous first wife. Dearly departed for the last seven years.

What is going on???

And this is when the shenanigans really begin. It is high farce indeed. Only Charles is able to see and converse with Elvira. Could the two Mrs.Condomine's be jealous of each other?

ELVIRA: Have a cigarette, it will soothe your nerves.
CHARLES: I don't want a cigarette.
RUTH: (indulgently) Then you shan't have one, darling.

As the misunderstandings mount, so does the humour. The battle of the sexes is on. Barbed quips fly left, right and centre.

RUTH: You called me a guttersnipe-you told me to shut up-and when I quitely suggested that we should go up to bed you said, with the most disgusting leer, that it was an immoral suggestion.
CHARLES: (exasperated) I was talking to Elvira!

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Even one from the other side.

I'm going to see the production of this onstage next Saturday. I saw it many moons ago, and it left an impression on me all these years later. I feel casting Courtney Act as Elvira is sheer brilliance. Cannot wait!

Blithe Spirit is the only one of the three plays featured in this anthology which I've read and reviewed. The other two will keep for another weekend.

Please see some links to the STC's production below.

https://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/what...

https://www.instagram.com/p/CbzGO7LMk...

[Micah Cummins · Rating 4 out of 5]

43rd book of 2022

I thoroughly enjoyed all three plays. My favorite is “Blithe Spirit” by far. Coward has such a gift for dialogue and quick conversations. A master.

Youtube review of "Blithe Spirit." https://youtu.be/OYGcfvf_cHI

[Sketchbook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blithe Spirit is Coward's best play and one of the
all-time best comedies; opening in 1941, it ran 2 years on Bwy and 4 years in London. (A daft Medium conjures up the hero's dead wife). Private Lives (1930) is a classic, or "charade," as Coward says, of 2 young married couples who become entangled by their own passions and immature temperaments. I want to focus on Hay Fever, a perfect screwballer about a confusion of guests at a houseparty. It isnt easy to write a play about Nothing, but Coward does precisely that w this souffle that rises to a tasty top.

Amateurs may find it a lark to produce, but, Coward warned,
it's probably his most difficult to perform --
it has no plot and little action. So it requires superb
technique by every cast member. Hay Fever (1925) is a vehicle for comic acting as Bohemian crackpotters - retired actress Mum, romantic novelist Dado and their two impudent teens - are blithering hosts to unsuspecting weekenders. Blissful nonsense inspired by socials at the NY home of actress Laurette Taylor and youthful weekend houseparties at the country estate of Mrs Astley Cooper.

What dates in the theatre? Moral judgments, political
opinions, and social messages. Coward does not date becos
he records the vanities and quirks and follies and pomposities of people, and people - as Congreve & Sheridan have shown - do not change.

It may sound easy, and obvious, to effect, but after a few
hundred years only a few have found it possible to do. As
one critic said, it's not a difficult idiom to imitate, but
just try to pull it off.

[Faye* · Rating 4 out of 5]

reread: 4 stars

I usually don't read plays but I just adore Noël Coward's witty and clever writing. I'm glad I finally reread this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1st read: 5 stars

[Paul Frandano · Rating 4 out of 5]

So...I bought this only for Private Lives, because I knew I'd be going to a well-reviewed DC production, and, if possible, I like to read a play before I see it - an acquired preference from classical theater and opera.

And speaking of acquired, Coward's that kind of taste, isn't he? Particularly 70-90 years after he wrote these confections? Well, it's a taste - for dry, bantering, cleverly corrosive wit - I acquired long ago, before Coward, and so I found Private Lives HOWLINGLY funny on the page and on the stage. I sat up late last Saturday to read this, and I feared I'd wake up the house with my whoops and guffaws. Coward cracks wise about every third line, and it's just so...so...so...black tie-wing collar-patent leather pumps-English. (I wanted to say Wildean, but that would be Irish, wouldn't it?) This is what Elizabethan comedy's superabundance of clever clever clever words words words evolves into in London's West End between the Wars. So demmed smart (as in "smart set" smart, not smart as "intelligent" - although it's that, too, in trumps). And so trippingly like what every bright Oxbridgean wants to sound like at the cocktail party.

Of course, the story is ridiculous. But with a neatly balanced three acts, which takes reader or theatergoer up a clever hill and down a similar, similarly bright, hill for a somewhat predictable conclusion, handsomely wrought, at a pace, even on the page, that's racehorse brisk.

In the theater, the play literally crackles, throws off sparks, shimmers like shook foil. There we sit - we're Victor and Sybil, wholly conventional, in our conventional little lives, supermarket-rack best-sellers on our night tables, with our comfy jobs, and comfortable incomes - watching these upper-crust Wildings toss the conventional order, between sips of bubbly, as it suits their whims, with an insouciant noblesse oblige and without a care concerning who or whom they may run over by accident.

Delightful. Delicious.

I'm now a new Noel Coward fan and look forward to exploring his plays, prose, music, and interesting life. (Mad "coincidence": I was laid up sick as a dog in the same Shanghai hotel in which, also sick as a dog, Coward wrote Private Lives in 1930. Right: no real coincidence, okay, okay, but I felt a little more grounded in his world, in a memory of my looking out the window on similar Shanghai streets and the Huangpu River: the Cathay was an elegant venue, the brightest light on the Shanghai bund, in 1930. Fifty-some years later, the carpets were threadbare, the brass tarnished, the water somewhat rusty, but it still had a perceptible, albeit faded, Art Deco elegance. And fabulous "puffs of cream" from the ancient pastry chef of the famous restaurant...perhaps descendants of the same puffs Coward might have enjoyed in 1930 after recovering from his ailment...)

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Three Plays” is an excellent collection of three works by that most sardonic of wits, Noel Coward. There are a few too many typos in this edition to suit me, but that it is a minor quibble.
I have written something about each of the 3 pieces below, separated by a quote from each play.
For those who like verbal dexterity, witty dialogue, and a play that you must pay attention to in order to appreciate, then Mr. Coward is your man. Enjoy!

“I shall always love the memory of you.”
Noel Coward was one of the drollest writers the stage has ever produced. His ability to write smart, extremely verbal and witty characters is almost as fun to read as it is to witness in performance.
“Blithe Spirit” is one of Coward’s more famous pieces, and the premise is clever and intriguing. In brief, a successful writer has a séance in his home in order to observe a Madame for research for his latest novel. The séance results in his dead wife (Elvira) returning from the grave, and only he can see her. This causes problems with the current (very much alive) wife Ruth.
This play is a comedy, and the dialogue is fast and furious. I could not help but observe as I read it, and saw it in performance in an excellent production at the Stratford Festival, that the arguments between the character of Ruth and her husband are some of the best moments in the piece. Their conversations are quick, biting, comical and sometimes so subtly mean spirited that it is a delight to read. The whole play is well paced and fun, but Coward really excels in the moments when just two characters share the stage and for whatever reason they are not happy with each other.
A personal favorite for me is the character of Ruth, who in the hands of a weak actress becomes shrill and one note. But if you pay attention she is not written that way, and some of the text’s best moments belong to her.
Noel Coward is a throwback to a time we imagine was more witty and urbane. It probably wasn’t, but it is fun to imagine it was so.

“Her sense of the theater is always fatal.”

“Hay Fever” is just a funny funny play. It has the witty banter and intelligent characters that one expects in a text from Noel Coward, but it is really a farce, with physical elements, and characters who are so self-involved that they could become parodies in the hands of a lesser writer, or in the case of bad actors.
The play follows a weekend at the country home of the Bliss family, each member of which has invited a weekend guest. And with that we are off to the races. The Bliss family are people who really can’t see past the end of their own noses and the havoc they wreck on others is either cruel, or the result of a complete lack of self-awareness. It is probably a mixture of both.
I saw a top notch professional performance of this piece at the Stratford Festival in Ontario Canada, and the audience was laughing from beginning to end. It is also fun to read, but I read it after seeing it performed, so perhaps that enhanced my reading of it?
The final line of this piece is one of the most appropriate and ironic closing lines I have ever read in a play. A perfect closing.
I have read three Noel Coward plays, and this one kept my attention the most as I was reading. Many people don’t know “Hay Fever” well. If you are one of those people you should change that.


“I think very few people are completely normal, really deep down in their private lives.”

I read “Private Lives” as the last of three plays that I read in a row by Noel Coward, and I have to say of the three it was my last favorite. Still quite good, but a little darker than the other two I had just read. A little more aged and perhaps too rooted in its original time.
I not sure why, but this piece is not as engaging as Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” and “Hay Fever”. I have never seen “Private Lives” in a professional performance, and I have seen excellent productions of the other two, so that might be a factor.
In this text, we meet Amanda and Elyot, a divorced couple who run into each other on their honeymoons for their respective second marriages. What should be a comic farcical gem, turns instead into a dark comedy where two people who really should not be together, and are cruel to each other (and always will be by every indication) get together again. It just left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“Private Lives” is a good play, seeing it in performance it could be funnier than it reads, but just reading it left me cold.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another collection so each play will be reviewed seperately.

Blithe Spirit (*****): Very funny play showing off Cowards wit on every page with a great story and intriguing characters. The theme of love is dealt with very nicely and realistically as Charles has to deal with the ghost of his previous wife, Elvira, while living with his current wife Ruth and the differences in his marriages to them.

Hay Fever(***): Personally this was the weakest play out of the three. The characters got a bit bland and the storyline slowly became predictable. However it still had some funny moments and would be interesting to see onstage.

Private Lives (*****): This is Cowards most well known play and it's easy to see why, the characters of Amanda and Eliot are great together and with their new partners, Victor and Sybil respectively and the humour is well written. There are several poignant moments which contrast with some of the more dramatic/comedic scenes nicely

[Lisa McKenzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a month of slogging through Dostoyevky's magnum opus, the Brothers Karamazov, it was refreshing to turn my attention from tragedy to comedy, from morals to manners. As Coward writes in Private Lives..."Let's be superficial and pity the poor philosophers." Amen. My son Henry introduced me to Coward by recruiting me to play two female characters in Blithe Spirit while he was practicing his lines as Charles, and it was the most fun I ever had helping out with homework. If I'd had the big bucks, I'd have jetted us off to New York to watch Rupert Everett play Charles on Broadway. Of the other two plays, Hay Fever is maybe a little too messy, but Private Lives is, for all its cynicsm, a compelling story of enduring love.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Noel Coward, an English playwright, was a wit and his plays exhibited repartee between his various antagonists. Blithe Spirit (1941) features a writer and his wife who are visited by his dead first wife after a seance session. Printed in 1925, in Hay Fever, weekend guests are introduced to the chaos of the eccentric Bliss family. Private Lives, which was published in 1930, centers on a divorced couple who encounter each other on their honeymoon with their new spouses.

[Ensiform · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume included a humorous intro by Edward Albee.

"Blithe Spirit." I hadn't read any Coward before, and had a notion his work would be laugh-out-loud funny, like Wodehouse's, but I found this play, although extremely literate and witty, wasn't as risible as that. It concerns a man whose first wife, after a seance, reappears to plague him and his second wife. Then the latter dies, too, remanifests, and his life becomes somewhat exasperating. A jolly good plot and all, but I can't help feeling that it could have been more exuberant, if, say, it had detailed the catfighting of the two dead women, or spent more time on them deciding after death that they were pals and that Charles, the hero, was the cad. And the ending was too sudden and – a glaring omission – totally unexplained. An enjoyable, witty play, and one with clever innuendo, but I don't see its "classic" reputation, as it seems so flawed.

"Hay Fever." This one was, I thought, funnier than the first, but perhaps less witty. It concerned a very bohemian, theatrical and artsy family that bordered on the dysfunctional without actually ever going beyond mere theatrics, instantly forgetting all strife moments after it begins. The family's guests for the weekend are all horrified. It was funny, but it all lead up to a reaction – such as the guests plotting a kind of revenge on the family that used them as theatrical foils – that never came. I suppose in 1925 the personas of the family were novel enough to carry the play. Also flawed, but also comic and fun.

"Private Lives." About a divorced couple who both remarry and happen to meet again on their simultaneous honeymoons, and then run off together. They fight horribly, and seem to cause their respective second spouses to quarrel just as horribly, and seem to find it amusing. Rather an unpleasant little work, but mildly amusing in parts.

[Pace Lockwood-davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Noel Coward and this is a perfect read. Three excellent pieces.

[Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rich people! Drinking!! One liners!! Ex-spouses!!! Narcissists!!! Smoking!!! Fabulous Gay Sensibility!!!!

The book group met at The LGBT Center in NYC in May to discuss these three plays. We had a very nice sized group and all the theater pros on hand to discuss Noel Coward. While a couple of people said that they still prefer to see plays in performance rather than read them, this was a hugely successful evening.

Noel Coward wrote these three very fluffy, very silly little plays that are still revived on Broadway and in London every few years, and are mainstays of college and repertory theater companies in the US and UK. (We had a very nice discussion of the different versions of the plays we'd seen and discussed several leading men and ladies in the roles.) Coward wrote the plays for himself in several cases, but not as a gay character. He's always the urbane husband with the perfect one-liners who interacts with his wife (and ex-wives) with perfect aplomb.

"Blithe Spirit" shows Coward to be a bit of a misogynist with a ditzy ex-wife ghost and a stern living wife. It's almost a criticism of heterosexual marriage. The ghost that only one person on stage can seem may see a bit tired now, but it is still completely fresh with Coward. "It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit."

"Hay Fever" is the most dated of the plays and probably the least produced. All members of the central family are all perfect narcissists (bad actress mom, bad novelist dad, bad artist son, and useless daughter) who invite inappropriate friends to the country on the same weekend. As soon as they arrive, you recognize the perfect mix-up and the re-alignment of the guests as potential partners, but instead you get hilariously complicated parlor games, the expected and unexpected misunderstandings, and then confused and angry guests. "I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me."

"Private Lives" is fast and funny and completely plausible in the Noel Coward world of rich divorcees who run into their ex-spouses in the South of France and then re-unite so that they can dash to Paris (where the ex-wife happens to have a maid and an apartment) and continue their squabbles from years before. "It's a pity you didn't have a little more brandy. It might have made you more agreeable!"

Coward invented himself and, in many ways, invented the concept of the modern celebrity. He never officially came out "because there are still three old ladies in Brighton who don't know." Later in life, he made a fortune in Las Vegas by playing himself: he played the piano, sang a few songs, and told a few jokes. Eventually, he retired to Jamaica but years after his death is still immediately recognizable. "Thousands of people have talent. I might as well congratulate you for having eyes in your head. The one and only thing that counts is: Do you have staying power?" The answer is a resounding "yes."

[Nut Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a marvelous little confection. I fell in love with Coward several years ago when I was introduced to "Private Lives," via the 1931 film, and it's a passion that has yet to fade. Coward writes delightful comedies full of wit and cosmopolitan dilettantes behaving badly, much in the spirit of Oscar Wilde but without the attempts to moralize that dogged so much of his work. Coward has no social commentary to make, other than to set a spotlight on the Typhoid Mary's of the world. All three plays focus on individuals so self-absorbed and disconnected from reality that they leave a trail of misery in their wake as they bowl over every sensible person who dares get in their way. It's gleefully wicked fun to see such terrible, charming people blithely destroying the sanity of everyone who comes in contact with them, only to walk away totally unscathed themselves. I can't recommend this collection highly enough or provide anything besides unqualified praise.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a really enjoyable collection of Coward plays. "Blithe Spirit" is five stars, brimming with Coward's signature wit and some great characters. "Hay Fever" is a breezy ensemble comedy that's probably the best encapsulation here of Coward's style. I struggled a bit with "Private Lives," which hasn't aged as well as the other two plays featured here--what humor Coward wrings from Elyot and Amanda's doomed romance feels flimsy for 21st century readers; what's left is a truly toxic relationship complete with emotional manipulation and physical abuse. It's kind of shockingly terrifying in its casual extremity and emotional disregard played for laughs, but it's also very well written, and the first act is pretty excellent.

[Susannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of three plays by Noel Coward, the prolofic writer, actor, composer, and performer. The plays chosen are among some of his best and most recognisable work. The three chosen also come from three different decades in his career: Hay Fever from the 1920s; Private Lives from the 1930s; Blithe Spirit from the 1940s. Fun fact from the Introduction by Philip Hoare: the family in Hay fever were apparently based on a real family Coward met in New York!

All three plays are enjoyable to read and show off Coward's wit at its best. This collection is a great introduction for anyone looking to getting started in exploring Coward's work.

[Heidi Tiedemann Darroch · Rating 4 out of 5]

So very many good lines! The opening pages of dialogue sparkle, as Coward introduces a terrific premise: a well-to-do couple, Charles and Ruth, is hosting a séance in order to spark his next book project, and he has secured a local psychic whom he's convinced is a fraud to lead the proceedings. When the psychic manages to manifest his first wife, Elvira--visible only to him--his life becomes infinitely more complicated. But then Charles's misogyny (product of his times, of course, but still) starts to come out forcefully, and the play's tone becomes much more bitter.

[Charlie McLarnon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The three plays in this collection shared similar themes, with the plots of each centering around the flimsy romances and general carelessness of the rich. Unlike many books intended to be humorous, these plays managed to deliver genuinely funny material. This is the result of terse, witty dialogue, which Coward does not interrupt with unnecessary description or stage direction. Of the three, I would most recommend Hay Fever, although Private Lives and Blithe Spirit are also both worth reading.

[Vic · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5*

This is a book I think I would have enjoyed far more if it weren't clear exactly what the author thought of certain situations -- the cyclical nature of Private Lives, the constant commentary about Indians from the medium in Blithe Spirit

The plays were genuinely well crafted and the dialogue was fun, but the whole thing just convinced me that the author thought very highly of his own takes and felt we should know about it.

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Outside of Blithe Spirit which is a bit of fun the rest of these plays do not hold up very well. The "flippant" male's and the bothered women's dialogue are smooth, but a bit harsh on modern sensibilities. No, I am not offended, just bored with the quasi aristocratic parlor comedies of this era. The jokes fall somewhat flat now.

[Brandi Simonis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read! The writing is filled with witty comedic one liners and situations between couples. Great scene work for pairs (no monologues really) and really fun female character development especially in Blithe Spirit. It’s quite a testament that they are still being produced all these years later.

[Amaya Diana]

Plays get actual laughs out of me more than any other format I think. I miss theater and am very excited to blow too much of my disposable income on plays when covid is over. I had only ever heard of blithe spirit from this collection, but hay fever ended up actually being my favorite

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only read PRIVATE LIVES from this.

[Dixie Laite · Rating 4 out of 5]

These plays are better watched than read, for me anyway. I need acerbic performances to best enjoy the wit.

[Marsha · Rating 5 out of 5]

pivoting to theatre so i can direct private lives thank you

[Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful! I really enjoyed the clever wit and repartee. Noel Coward certainly captured the essence of human interaction, especially husband and wife.

[Kabir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious plays. Can't believe that I wasn't exposed to them earlier since I was a theatre major.

[Heidi Hankins · Rating 5 out of 5]

It would be hard to pick a favorite of the three - Noel Coward’s writing jumps off the page and it is easy to feel the pace and the comedy that ensues in each line.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore Noel Coward. He is simply divine, don't you agree darling?

[Alice Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to these plays on audio. They are interesting documents of their time. But, I feel they very much live in that era.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 but rounding up because this was truly delightful.