Shadow Play (play)

Short plays had been popular in the previous century, often as curtain-raisers and afterpieces to longer plays. By the 1920s they had gone out of fashion, but Coward was fond of the genre and wrote several early in his career.^[2] He wrote, "A short play, having a great advantage over a long one in that it can sustain a mood without technical creaking or over padding, deserves a better fate, and if, by careful writing, acting and producing I can do a little towards reinstating it in its rightful pride, I shall have achieved one of my more sentimental ambitions."^[3] In 1935 he conceived the idea of a set of short plays, to run in varying permutations on three consecutive nights at the theatre. His biographer Philip Hoare describes it as "a bold idea, risky and innovative".^[4]

The actress most closely associated with Coward was Gertrude Lawrence, his oldest friend, with whom he had first acted as a child in Hannele in 1913.^[5] They starred together in his revue London Calling! (1923) and his comedy Private Lives (1930–31),^[6] and he wrote the Tonight at 8.30 plays "as acting, singing and dancing vehicles for Gertrude Lawrence and myself".^[7] Coward directed the plays as well as acting in them. They were performed in various combinations of three.^{[n 2]} Shadow Play was first presented on 18 October 1935 at the Opera House, Manchester, the final play in a programme that also contained Hands Across the Sea and Fumed Oak.^[9] It is one of four plays in the cycle that "break into spontaneous song ... in the most unexpected places".^[10]

The first London performance was on 18 January 1936 at the Phoenix Theatre.^[11] The cycle played to full houses, and the limited season closed on 20 June, after 157 performances.^{[12][n 3]} The Broadway premiere was at the National Theatre on 27 November 1936, with mostly the same cast as in London. The New York run, a limited season as in London, ended prematurely because Coward was taken ill.^{[n 4]}

• Lena (maid) – Moya Nugent
• Victoria (Vicky) Gayforth – Gertrude Lawrence
• Martha Cunningham – Alison Leggatt (Joyce Carey in New York)
• Simon Gayforth – Noël Coward
• Hodge (dresser) – Kenneth Carten
• A Young Man – Anthony Pelissier
• George Cunningham – Alan Webb
• Sibyl Heston – Everley Gregg (Joan Swinstead in New York)
• Michael Doyle – Edward Underdown

The action of the play begins and ends in the Gayforth's house in Mayfair, London.

It is about midnight when Vicky Gayforth comes into her bedroom with her friend, Martha Cunningham. They have been to the theatre together, but Vicky refuses to accompany Martha to a party because Simon Gayforth, her husband, is sure to be there with Sybil Heston, to whom he is clearly attracted. Vicky intends to go to bed, and takes three strong sleeping tablets. Her admirer Michael Doyle rings up, and she tells him brusquely to call back tomorrow as she is too tired to talk now.

Simon comes to tell Martha that George, her husband, is waiting impatiently for her. Simon too has decided not to go to the party, and he asks the Cunninghams to make his excuses for him. When they have gone he begins a serious conversation with his wife: he asks her to divorce him. She agrees, noting sadly that they have been married for just five years. The sleeping tablets begin to take effect making her head swim. The action becomes shadowy, confused and dreamlike, and is evidently seen through Vicky's drugged eyes. Music is heard; it stops and then starts again. Simon dances a few steps. The music becomes more insistent. Simon and Vicky sing a duet, "Then", about transitory joy. This is followed by a second song, "Play, Orchestra, Play" ("We Must Have Music"). The lights fade to nothing. Sybil Heston appears in a pool of light, telling Simon that they must let Vicky know the truth; they are joined by Michael Doyle, who asks them to give her his love. The lights fade on a reprise of "Play, Orchestra, Play".

The scene changes to a moonlit garden. We see the first meeting of Vicky and Simon, at a country ball. Their dialogue is a mixture of what they said at the time and their current comments on it:

Vicky: What do you do?

Simon: I'm in a bank.

Vicky: High up in a bank? Or just sitting in a cage totting up things?

Simon: Oh, quite high up, really. It's a very good bank.

Vicky: I'm so glad.

Simon: How lovely you are.

Vicky: No, no, that came later – you've skipped some.

Simon: Sorry.

Vicky: You're nice and thin – your eyes are funny – you move easily – I'm afraid you're terribly attractive.

Simon: You never said that.

Vicky: No, but I thought it.

Simon: Stick to the script.

They sing a duet, "You Were There", finishing in each other's arms in a spotlight. The dreamlike mood continues. Lena, the maid, is seen spotlit, carrying sleeping tablets and a glass of water, and singing "Then". In another pool of light, Martha and George are seen in a car discussing the Gayforths' matrimonial troubles: Vicky runs on and accuses them of "spoiling it all". There follow hallucinatory images of the Gayforths' honeymoon journey to Venice and a noisy nightclub where Sybil Heston and Michael Doyle dance together in a brilliant spotlight. Another spotlight picks up Vicky and Simon, and the two couples dance on, constantly switching partners, faster and faster, as voices from the darkness rhythmically chant the names of night-clubs: "The Florida, The Cocoanut Grove, The Four Hundred, The Blue Train". The noise crescendos and then stops suddenly, with a blackout.

Lena, spotlit, is seen telephoning Martha asking her to come back to the house because Vicky is suffering from an overdose of sleeping tablets and Simon is alarmed about her. In the final scene the lighting returns to normal. Simon, Lena and Martha are at Vicky's bedside, giving her black coffee. Simon tells her, when she asks for explanations, that, under the influence of the drug, "you just went mad, that's all – raving … you began dancing about the room". Deciding that Vicky is now safe, the others leave her alone with Simon. When she asks him about the divorce, he declares that he wants nothing of the sort; everything is all right again between them. He lifts her on to the bed, covers her over with the counterpane, and lies down on the sofa at her feet.