Word: cowardly
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...NOEL COWARD'S WORLD is a preppy paradise, in which the black evening gowns and white dinner jackets seem to have a life of their own. The collectibles sprinkled around the room exude rechereche. The omnipresent martinis are dry, and the wit drier still. Throughout, the predominant emotion is a practiced bitchiness. "Elvira is about as trusting as a puff adder," Ruth tells Charles. The mousse at dinner "looked a bit hysterical, but it tasted delightful," Charles tells Ruth. Why any of them puts up with the others no one seems to know...
...plot of Blithe Spirit is these people chain-drinking and alternating from backhanded compliment to forehanded insult. One can only imagine the shock Coward must have experienced when he opened a playwriting book and learned that plays require forward plot movement and a climax. The plot he has devised to meet these needs has little to recommend it, neatly alternating as it does from either total predictibility to utter unbelievable with very little in between...
...famous convert to the Catholic Church. Religion was their touchstone, and at the Luce house in Ridgefield, Conn., she made him feel at home. After dinner with "Harry's power people," they would retire to his room for conversation. They talked about Robert Benchley and Noël Coward and the Catholic Church...
Personalities and hairstyles change from year to year, but the net result is nil. Danclo lives through the entire decade clinging in his Slav roots, rooting a variation of The New World symphony on his recorder. Early on, his father calls him "a coward not a fighter". Penn wants you to feel Danelo has become a fighter, yet his moment of triumph involves kicking a local dopey cup in the groin and then throwing up on him. Instead of learning from his experiences, or gaining social awareness, Danclo remains basically the dimwit we met a long, long two hours...
...rekindle his career to the glow of the '50s, and his autobiography (Harper & Row; $14.95) is poignant in its chronicle of his rise and fall. Burton, 56, plagued by a spine ailment, also seems at a standstill; the same could be said of Ferris' plodding biography (Coward, McCann & Geoghegan; $13.95). But Taylor, 49, a U.S. Senator's wife who overwhelmed Broadway and is breaking house records in Los Angeles with The Little Foxes, seems capable of keeping the tongues wagging for another 30 years...