Coward Plays: 1

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