Word: cowardly
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...Listed on the bill are a Reverend Edgar Speven, a Gwendolyn (His Daughter) and a Catchpole. There is also a noblewoman with an awesome surname and a placid given one, The Marchioness of Heronden (Serena). Since this part is played by Lynn Fontanne and since the author is Noel Coward, the playgoer can settle back with complacence. The play may be several rungs down from Wilde, but it will be on the same satirical ladder...
Near the bottom of the program comes the line "Axel Diensen. . . Alfred Lunt," the first tip-off to the pre-curtain speculator that this might not be the crisp nonsense he expects. Then the curtain goes up and it is clear that Mr. Coward and Mr. Lunt are equally dubious about this Diensen fellow. Diensen, it turns out, is a Minnesota railroad baron who, by the author's admission, doesn't fit into the life of either Boston or Belgrave Square. Diensen doesn't seem at home on the stage of the Colonial either...
...problem, perhaps, is one of co-ordination. When Diensen is supposed to be tongue-tied and vulgar, Lunt is self-conscious and primly profane. Then Coward reverses his field and Diensen must be lyrically vision ary; here Lunt is up to the task but Coward falters. With long monologues about the physical glories of prospering America, Diensen drags his heels and the pace of the vehicle is reduced still further. Coward has been much more entertaining about Brooklyn than he is now about the rest of the United States...
Regrettably the part can spoil the whole. When the play concerns itself only with marital exchanges, everyone is visibly more comfortable. Coward handles this type of misadventure with a high style which makes even the exposition glitter. Miss Fontanne is an actress of this same style and so is rewarded with the best of the play's dialogue. Or perhaps she merely makes it seem the best; she is capable of that deception...
Quadrille (Noel Coward), a play about a businessman and a marchioness, opened in London two years ago, stars Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, begins on Broadway...