Word: cowardly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Garry is more or less a one-dimensional character. He is forever shown as the actor clinging to artifice. Noel Coward wrote the part with little concern for full-bodied characterization. His concern was rather to facilitate virtuoso dramatic performances...
Present Laughteris designed simply to entertain. Coward spoofs the "theater of ideas" advocated by Ibsen and Chekov in the character of Roland Maule, a young cuckoo-headed would-be playwright. Maule, a caricature of the "serious" dramatist, spouts streams of cliched arguments about "commercial theater," "intellectual significance,"and of course "posterity." Ironically Maule adores and admires Garry, who personified frivolous commercial theater...
...Coward wrote not for posterity but to create transitory excitement and comedy on the stage. He gave his characters humorous and theatrical lines which are meant to be played, heard, and enjoyed, but not puzzled over...
...part of Garry is a vehicle for a captivating actor to play up to the audience. Coward himself played the part--which he claimed as his "favorite"--when the play opened in England in 1942. Alden Wentworth Watson fills the role well enough, though his characterization is somewhat lacking in variation and nuance...
Present Laughter is especially interesting as a period piece, for it represents a style of comedy that is no longer written for the stage. Noel Coward was a member of the British aristocratic leisure class and his characters were reflections of his own lifestyle. These days the stock medium for these characters is satire. Their frivolous preoccupation with style and good form seems merely ludicrous. They are difficult to identify with so it now seems more appropriate to laugh at them rather than with them. But despite these changes in attitude, Present Laughter is still an effective comedy because Coward...