Coward Plays: 1: Hay Fever; The Vortex; Fallen Angels; Easy Virtue
- ISBN-10
- 1408177315
- ISBN-13
- 9781408177310
- Category
- Drama
- Pages
- 320
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2013-12-02
- Publisher
- A&C Black
- Author
- Noel Coward
Description
This first volume in the Coward Collection contains four plays written within a two year period when Coward and the century were still in their 20s. The volume is introduced by Sheridan Morley, Coward's first biographer. Hay Fever, a comedy of bad manners, concerns a weekend with friends of the Bliss family, who have all been invited independently for a weekend at their country house near Maidenhead. The Vortex was a controversial drama in its time, introducing drug-addiction onto the stage at a time when alcoholism was barely mentioned. Fallen Angels, which is written for two star actresses was described as 'degenerate', 'vile', 'obscene', 'shocking' - the second half of the play is entirely taken up with an alcoholic duologue between the two women. Easy Virtue is an elegant, laconic tribute to a lost world of drawing-room dramas, no other writer went more directly to the jugular of that moralistic, tight-lipped but fundamentally hypocritical 20s society. "He is simply a phenomenon, and one that is unlikely to occur ever again in theatre history" Terence Rattigan
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2013-06-06
- 320 pages
- Ebook
- A&C Black
-
- 2009-09-04
- - pages
- Paperback
- Methuen Drama
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