TWO NEW COWARDS
(1) SWEET SORROW. (2) THIS HAPPY BREED. By Noel Coward, William Heinemann Ltd. (Reviewed by Kingsley Brady) OEL COWARD has written two new plays: both good. One is the "mixture as before," technically perfect, superficially brilliant, delightfully funny . .. and utterly impossible. The other is technically perfect, superficially mushy, delightfully melodramatic .. . and amazingly true.
Sweet Sorrow is more like a French farce than a French farce is like a French farce. During its three acts, Garry Essendine, character actor, idol of millions and the loved one of several, conducts his life more or less on the lines of a well-bred racehorse, except that he does not produce anything quite as interesting as a racehorse. At 40 he feels that his life is not his own (whose is?), but he exaggerates this feeling by constantly allowing himself to be led into temptation (which he didn’t ought).
The unholy mess he gets into provides a deliciously funny second half of the third act, and that, I believe, is the test of a successful farce. This Happy Breed is a horse of a different colour, and would make a good novel. Here Mr. Coward attempts to condense the events from 1919 to 1939, as they affected a British workingclass family, into nine scenes, It can’t be done, and it’s a very lazy way of trying to be a Dickens. A story of such length needs space, more space than may be found in the theatre. This Happy Breed is a good story, and it is told as well by Mr, Coward within the limits he has set himself as it could be told by anybody: but it is not a wellbuilt play. Consider: 1919, when demobilisation set in; 1926, when the General Strike set in; 1931; when the Great Depression had set in; 1936, when abdication set in; 1938, when peace in our time set in. No, accomplished craftsman and gallant adventurer though Mr. Coward is, even such characters as every-day British Frank dnd Ethel Gibbons, who grow old during the play (offering temptation to amateurs to show their prowess), cannot make it complete. A play’s a play, and it is impossible to make a satisfactory play with the wrong material. The fact is, Mr. Coward is no good with blue serge. He should stick to chiffon and zephyrs and silks: be sophisticated and charming, but keep out of the kitchen.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 204, 21 May 1943, Page 14
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400TWO NEW COWARDS New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 204, 21 May 1943, Page 14
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