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Coward Plays: 6: Semi-Monde; Point Valaine; South Sea Bubble; Nude With Violin: v. 6
Author(s): Noel Coward (Author), Sheridan Morley (Introduction)
- Publisher: Methuen Drama
- Publication Date: 15 April 1999
- Edition: First Edition
- Language: English
- Print length: 488 pages
- ISBN-10: 0413734102
- ISBN-13: 9780413734105
Book Description
Philip Hoare, in his biography of Coward described Semi-Monde as his most daring play to date. In a chic Parisian hotel, a series of sexual
pairings take place through rendezvous, arguments, infidelities and
reconciliations: sexual deviance is undisguised…set in the bisexual
1920s, the play could easily be populated by characters of Coward’s
society”. Point Valaine is “the
drama of a lurid episode of lust in the semi-tropics.. unmistakably the
work of a master of the stage” (New York Times); South Sea Bubble which
concerns “the Governor’s lady in the Isle of Samolo who plays with
native fire, nearly gets her wings singed, bashes her native admirer
with a bottle and at one of those Coward next-morning-at breakfast
scenes slips her way out of the scrape with feline grace.” (Manchester
Guardian) whilst Nude With Violin is a witty comedy about art fraud.”
pairings take place through rendezvous, arguments, infidelities and
reconciliations: sexual deviance is undisguised…set in the bisexual
1920s, the play could easily be populated by characters of Coward’s
society”. Point Valaine is “the
drama of a lurid episode of lust in the semi-tropics.. unmistakably the
work of a master of the stage” (New York Times); South Sea Bubble which
concerns “the Governor’s lady in the Isle of Samolo who plays with
native fire, nearly gets her wings singed, bashes her native admirer
with a bottle and at one of those Coward next-morning-at breakfast
scenes slips her way out of the scrape with feline grace.” (Manchester
Guardian) whilst Nude With Violin is a witty comedy about art fraud.”
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Noël Coward was born in 1899 in Teddington, Middlesex. He made his name as a playwright with The Vortex (1924), in which he also appeared. His numerous other successful plays included Fallen Angels (1925), Hay Fever (1925), Private Lives (1933), Design for Living (1933) and Blithe Spirit (1941). During the war he wrote screenplays such as Brief Encounter (1944) and In Which We Serve (1942). In the fifties he began a new career as a cabaret entertainer. He published volumes of verse and a novel (Pomp and Circumstance, 1960), two volumes of autobiography and four volumes of short stories: To Step Aside (1939), Star Quality (1951), Pretty Polly Barlow (1964) and Bon Voyage (1967). He was knighted in 1970 and died three years later in Jamaica.
