'Forgotten' Noel Coward play gets premiere

NEW YORK, May 15 (UPI) -- In 1937, British playwright-composer Noel Coward went to a marvelous party on the French Riviera and wrote a popular song about it titled, "I've Been to a Wonderful Party." It's been a favorite of cabaret singers for years.

In the same year he went to a house party in the Hamptons on Long Island when he was appearing on Broadway with Gertrude Lawrence in "Tonight at 8:30." He wrote a play about that party that he never was able to get produced before his death in 1973.

And now we know why!

It wasn't a marvelous party and didn't inspire a very good or very funny play, as most Coward plays are. Coward tucked it away in his files where it was discovered in 1999 by archivist Barry Day, who had been granted access to the playwright's unpublished papers in connection with the centenary of his birth.

The play, titled "Long Island Sound," is being given its world premiere by The Actors Company Theater at the Off-Broadway ATA Theater. TACT is a company of fine actors and actresses devoted to presenting great but neglected plays, but Coward's play is the first production in its nine years history that would best have remained neglected.

Coward peopled his house party with rude, querulous, tippling characters drawn from the world of entertainment, the arts and society. It degenerates into a hair-pulling free-for-all in the second act that is quite tedious, topping scene after scene of chit-chat that lacks Coward's usual champagne wit. Laughs are few and often forced.

Originally Coward turned his weekend experience into a story called "What Mad Pursuit," which he reworked into a comedy in 1947 re-titled "Long Island Sound." His contemporaries said the characters were thinly veiled portraits of such celebrities of the day as society hostess Cobina Wright, opera star Grace Moore, actor Clifton Webb and movie star Carole Lombard.

If that is so, they are cruel caricatures of people of substance made oafish by an Englishman observing his American cousins through the wrong end of the microscope. Coward writes himself into the play as he leading man, a best-selling English novelist visiting the United States to promote his latest work, a Book-of-the-Month Club selection.

The writer is snapped up as a centerpiece for a weekend house party on Long Island's North Shore by the socially ambitious wife of a less-than-couth businessman. He has to put up with the solicitous attentions of a gay but harmless actor, the amorous assault of a predatory woman singer, the insults of a razor-tongued playwright, and the wrath of a society grande dame who detests his admiration for Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Just to complicate things, the hostess has renewed an old affair with a hunky Long Island neighbor now married to a Boston heiress, and a Hollywood cowboy star is looking for love in the wrong places. While some of the cast while away the time at backgammon and gin rummy, others drink their way into oblivion, including a Dior-clad fashion plate, a drunken Russian pianist, a polo-playing playboy, a much-married actress, and an American-born countess.

Simon Jones is excellent as the put-upon British novelist, although Coward makes him a pretty dull character. Cynthia Harris has a much juicier role as his self-absorbed hostess and makes the most of the marathon monologues provided her by the playwright. Scott Schafer gives the most consistent performance as the outrageously affected actor, and Julie Halston gives an over-the-top performance as the actress who is always on stage.

The one actor who manages to make his role truly amusing is Rob Breckenridge as the nearly illiterate cowboy star whose hilarious attempts at camaraderie with the intellectual British novelist are only a thin disguise for agonizing lust. It says something about the quality of "Long Island Sound" that its dramatic climax is an impulsive, unwanted kiss that finally sends the novelist into the night with his hastily packed suitcase.

Troy Hourie's all-purpose set fails to suggest a luxurious country mansion, though some of its garage sale furnishings may have seen better days, and David Toser, the costume designer, has come up with some stunning 1930s couture wear of the thrift shop variety. Scott Allen Evans' direction keeps the large cast from bumping into each other on the smallish stage.

The play is having a limited run that is to end May 25.