DIALOGUE FROM NOTATED CUFFS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 19, 6 February 1937, Page 14

DIALOGUE FROM NOTATED CUFFS

1 could list examples of Mr Coward's much-discussed wit to prove that it was composed of aging jokes, limping epigrams, cheap sophistry and trite piatitudes . (writes Samuel Baron in "lnformation Please"). But George Jean Nathan lias beaten me to it with a catalogue of sources that is a credit to his enviably patient research, auiazlng memory, or invaluabl© collection ot notated cutfs. What is mort important, however, is to see what use Mr Coward made of ihs dialogue. it is dijlficult to lmagiue dialogue that is more hollow, more devoid of any conuection to life, more completely unburUened with awareuess of what is going on in the world, more utterly meaningiess. There Js no deiiying, for instanoe, that all is not honey when a man and woman become emotionally involved, which is a favourite subject oi the author. That this diificulty might result from social or economic comphcations does not occur to the author, however. Mr Coward's world, in iact, seems to be composed of mdividual Iittie vacuums. The diaJogue, that couid ellucidate the connection between the problem under observation and life in general, js divided instead, betw:een the exclusively ' personal immediate situation ' and absolute gibberish that strains feverislily because of the very elfort. Jokes, gags and comments that Mr Coward has thought either funny or wise are broken up and given to characters to speak without regard whether they are characteristic of the speaker's point of view, personality, experience or sex. Read any of the plays and see if the speeches can be pluced into the proper mouths without Mr Coward's instructions. There is no difference in nuance or thought between what Gilda utters to Leo in "Desigu for Liviug", or what Leo utters to Otto or Otto to Gilda. In "The Vortex" all the characters speak the not-so-wise-cracks Mr Coward has thought up, express sentiments Mr Coward has feit, exactly as Mr Coward would say them. in "Point Valaine" the dialogue, shorn as it is of even cheap jokes and forced epigrams, when it is not platitudinous or syntlfetically theatrieal in the ten, twenty, thirty manner, is inforniatory m th© naive question-anu-answer manner, each character asking the other, witnout provocation or, piivilege, damned personal question's, and each answei'ing with as little reason. Tlie second act ot "i'rivate .Lives" is the perfect example of gibbensh dressecl up in evening ciothes, and it continues on and on until Amanda voices the sentiments of the audjence when she exclaims, "Uh dear, l'm bored witb this conversation." Perhaps great performers can make this act bearable. It is also conceivabl© that a great elocutionist can make the reading of the telephone directory exciting. Dialogue can be written that is supposed to bore the characters, and yet js interesting t0 the audience. Such dialogue is pregnant with meaning for the audience that because of the peculiarity of the situation or characters, is lost to, the speakers on th© stage. That is playwrighting of a 'high order. To a meagre extent Mr Coward has done this himself in the parlor-game scene of act two of "Hay Fever," his best comedy (thougli the author must be reminded that everything, even praise, is relative). Though the game and tlie dialogue are boring to the characters, they are important for the audience because throughi them something of the real characters of the people is revealed.