Word: cowards
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...when, as in "Tonight At 8:30," she can sing, dance, mumble, and drape herself over couches and double beds while singing Noel Coward's smart talk around the stage, Miss Lawrence becomes the most entertaining performer, the most scintillating personality, on the American stage. This particular Coward opus was originally presented with Miss Lawrence some years ago, and then consisted of nine one-act plays. The current edition contains only six of the nine, but the star nonetheless has ample opportunity to display her remarkably diversified talents over the course of the two evenings required to complete the cycle...
...opening play--'Ways and Means"--is typical Coward, taking place in a luxurious bedroom on Cote D'Azur. It is slick, refined, and witty--at times too much so. The famed Coward vencer tends to get so shiny that no other values can be seen through the glitter...
...most beautiful chord. If it's a dance, it's the most exciting dance. It's dizzy-making-loaded with personality. It's rhythm, energy, humor, vitality, and sex all wangled into one." Also wangled: shades of Bea Lillie, Agnes de Mille, Noel Coward and Mime Angna Enters...
Technically, despite a weak first act-apparently rewritten in immense haste after opening night--Mr. Herbert's writing gets in the way of almost nobody and in fact keeps the evening moving right along. His drawing-room dialogue doesn't have the wicked sparkle of Noel Coward, but the audience is not embarrassed by an absence of chuckles...
...plays it to a fare-thee-well is England's durable matinee idol, 54-year-old Ivor Novello. A kind of poor woman's Noel Coward, Novello also wrote the play and composed its half dozen hit songs. As playwright, he instinctively senses the emotional desires of a woolgathering audience. As composer, he sets his public's daydreams to soft, sugary music. As actor he hams it for all it is worth...