A Song at Twilight (part of A Suite in Three Keys: A Noël Coward triple-bill) Theatre Royal Bath until 13 July
Words by Melissa Blease
To celebrate what would have been Noël Coward’s 125th birthday and mark the 50th anniversary of his death, Theatre Royal Bath have treated us to the first complete revival of his Suite in Three Keys: a trilogy of dramas all set in one luxurious Swiss hotel suite in the 1960s incorporating two short plays designed to be presented as a double bill (Shadows of the Evening and Come Into the Garden, Maud, both on the TRB programme later in the week) and stand-alone, full-length drama A Song at Twilight.
The trilogy opens, in Bath, with A Song at Twilight – arguably the most substantial and most personally-revealing of the trilogy and Coward’s last work for the stage, written in 1965 and first produced the following year.
It’s widely acknowledged that Coward – a ‘congenital bachelor’ who firmly believed that his private business was not for public discussion, and considered “any sexual activities, when over-advertised, to be tasteless” – loosely based A Song at Twilight on the memoirs of English writer W Somerset Maugham… with, perhaps, influences and inspirations from his own life thrown into the mix.
At the time of writing, homosexual sex was still a criminal offence under English law, punishable by lengthy prison sentences and societal ostracisation. While the law, social mores and diktats of the day are thrust into the spotlight here, A Song at Twilight is as much about the long-term emotional impact of having to hide who you are as it is about who, actually, are we?
Ageing, world-famous author Sir Hugo Latymer is an overindulged, egotistical and now rather curmudgeonly old man mollycoddled by Hilde, his supremely patient wife/personal assistant of some 20+ years. In Switzerland, Sir Hugo also has handsome young waiter Felix to dance attendance on him in in his private suite at an elegant lakeside hotel; despite Hugo’s frustrations (his health, his public image… other people), he leads, all told, a pretty good life. But that good life is about to take a distinctly bad turn.
Forty years previously, Hugo had a brief affair with Carlotta Gray, an actress whose career never quite took off. Carlotta has arranged to have dinner with Hugo in his hotel suite, and Hilde has arranged for the menu to offer them both a trip down memory lane (and to make herself scarce for the evening). But Hugo isn’t quite sure what may lie at the end of that lane – and when Carlotta finally reveals their destination, he’s brought down to earth with a rather vulgar bump. Carlotta is not, as Hugo had believed, after revenge for his discourteous depiction of her in his recent autobiography, and neither is she after cash to fund her glamorous lifestyle. She is, however, writing her own memoir… and she happens to be in possession of a collection of rather interesting letters that Sir Hugo wrote to another old flame many years ago.
Coward himself made his farewell stage appearance playing what was possibly the semi-autobiographical role of Sir Hugo in the West End production of the play in 1966; in director Tom Littler’s flawless revival, highly-acclaimed British actor Stephen Boxer walks in Coward’s shoes. Boxer portrays the former consummate luvvie and quick-witted rapper of repartee as a now rather woebegone word-warrior lamenting the error of his ways in all manner of ways, equal parts engaging and irksome; a superbly astute performance from Boxer indeed.
As Carlotta, Tara Fitzgerald is sheer, charismatic joy: a sashaying, animated, flame-haired charmer living the It Girl life she never fully enjoyed when she was actually a girl. As stoic, acquiescent Hilde, Emma Fielding brings context, substance and backbone to the whole affair. And as Felix (the waiter with, as Hugo observes early on in the drama, “incredible shoulders”, a sentiment that Carlotta takes and runs with throughout the drama), Steffan Rizzi remains discreet, dignified and subtly shrewd at all times, despite all the unwanted, flirtatious attention from both Sir Hugo and Carlotta.
As the drama unfolds, the hotel room dinner scenes in particular reveal and explore the profound depths of – and intricate connection between – Sir Hugo and Carlotta, their decadent feast used as a metaphor for their attitudes to life, their personalities and their shared history. Elsewhere and throughout the entire production, the script is as crisp, fresh and laden with all the expeditious quips one would expects from a Coward drama, all impeccably delivered. While the pace in the second half doesn’t quite skip along as quickly as one would imagine Coward intended it to, the tempo allows us more time to digest not only some of Coward’s best lines but the sobering issues at the heart of the story too.
Despite the play’s lighter-hearted moments, A Song at Twilight is not a typically Coward-esque drama; in the closing scenes, no amount of nimble badinage and elegant ripostes can obscure the remorse, regret and denial that Sir Hugo has lived with behind the facade of his apparently glittering career.
“Grab it while you can – grab every scrap of happiness while you can,” Coward wrote in 1925. Leaving the theatre after seeing his final play, I felt nothing but a sense of melancholy that Coward never had the opportunity to fully take his own advice.
For more information and tickets click here.
See our review of the remaining two parts of the trilogy here: