Coward Plays

This first volume in the Coward Collection contains four plays written within a two year period when Coward<br/>and the century were still in their 20s. The volume is introduced by Sheridan Morley <br/>Coward's first biographer. <br/><br/><br/><br/><i>Hay Fever</i> a comedy of bad<br/>manners concerns a weekend with friends of the Bliss family who have<br/>all been invited independently for a weekend at their country house<br/>near Maidenhead. <i> The Vortex<br/></i>was a controversial drama in its time introducing drug-addiction onto<br/>the stage at a time when alcoholism was barely mentioned. <i>Fallen Angels</i> which is written for two star actresses<br/>was described as 'degenerate' 'vile' 'obscene' 'shocking' - the<br/>second half of the play is entirely taken up with an alcoholic duologue<br/>between the two women. <i>Easy Virtue</i> is an elegant laconic tribute to a<br/>lost world of drawing-room dramas no other writer went more directly<br/>to the jugular of that moralistic tight-lipped but fundamentally<br/>hypocritical 20s society. <br/><br/><br/><br/>He is simply a phenomenon and one that is unlikely to occur ever<br/>again in theatre history Terence Rattigan