''Family Album'', described as "a Victorian comedy with music", is a short comic play in one scene by
Noël Coward. It is one of ten short plays that make up ''
Tonight at 8.30'', a cycle written to be performed in groups of three plays across three evenings. The original production, starring Coward and
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence (4 July 1898 – 6 September 1952) was an English actress, singer, dancer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End of London and on Broadway in New York.
Early life
Lawrence was born Gertr ...
played in a pre-London tour, and then the
West End, and finally New York, in 1935–1937. ''Family Album'' has been revived periodically and has been adapted for television.
The play depicts a prosperous middle-class Victorian family gathered after the funeral of their father. It emerges that he was a man of bad character, who wanted to deprive his children of their inheritance, but they have the last laugh.
Background
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Coward wrote a succession of hits, ranging from the
operetta ''
Bitter Sweet'' (1929) and the epic ''
Cavalcade
A cavalcade is a procession or parade on horseback, or a mass trail ride by a company of riders. The focus of a cavalcade is participation rather than display. Often, the participants do not wear costumes or ride in formation. Often, a cava ...
'' (1931), requiring a large cast, gargantuan sets and a complex hydraulic stage, to the intimate comedies ''
Private Lives
''Private Lives'' is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It concerns a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetu ...
'' (1930), in which Coward starred alongside
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence (4 July 1898 – 6 September 1952) was an English actress, singer, dancer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End of London and on Broadway in New York.
Early life
Lawrence was born Gertr ...
, and ''
Design for Living
''Design for Living'' is a comedy play written by Noël Coward in 1932. It concerns a trio of artistic characters, Gilda, Otto and Leo, and their complicated three-way relationship. Originally written to star Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Cowa ...
'' (1932). Coward said that after ''Private Lives'', he felt that the public enjoyed seeing him and Lawrence together on stage, and so he wrote the play cycle ''Tonight at 8.30'' as "acting, singing, and dancing vehicles for Gertrude Lawrence and myself".
[Hoare, pp. 268–270]
In the programme for the London run Coward wrote:
All the plays in the cycle starred Coward and
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence (4 July 1898 – 6 September 1952) was an English actress, singer, dancer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End of London and on Broadway in New York.
Early life
Lawrence was born Gertr ...
. Coward directed the plays and wrote the words and music for songs in four of them. In this play, billed as "a Victorian comedy with music" there are four songs. They are "Drinking Song" ("Here's a toast to each of us"); "Princes and Princesses"; "Music Box", and "Hearts and Flowers".
First performances
Six of the ten plays in ''
Tonight at 8.30'' were first presented at the
Manchester Opera House
The Opera House in Quay Street, Manchester, England, is a 1,920-seater commercial touring theatre that plays host to touring musicals, ballet, concerts and a Christmas pantomime. It is a Grade II listed building. The Opera House is one of the mai ...
beginning in October 1935.
['']The Manchester Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', 16 October 1935, p. 11 They did not include ''Family Album'', which was added later in the pre-London tour and first performed at the
Theatre Royal, Birmingham
The Theatre Royal, until 1807 the New Street Theatre, or, colloquially, New Theatre, was a 2000-seat theatre located on New Street in Birmingham, England. It was erected in 1774 and demolished in 1956.
The theatre was damaged by fire in 1792 ...
, on 9 December 1935.
''Tonight at 8.30'' opened in London on 9 January 1936 at the
Phoenix Theatre,
["Phoenix Theatre", ''The Times'', 10 January 1936, p. 10] In the first programme of three plays, ''Family Album'' was the first item, followed by ''
The Astonished Heart'' and ''
Red Peppers
''Red Peppers'', described as "an interlude with music", is a short comic play in two scenes by Noël Coward. It is one of ten short plays that make up '' Tonight at 8.30'', a cycle written to be performed in groups of three plays across three ...
''.
[Parker, p. 21] When
King George V
George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936.
Born during the reign of his grandmother Qu ...
died eleven days after the opening of the run, a comedy about a funeral was thought inappropriate and ''Family Album'' was replaced in the triple bill by ''
We Were Dancing
''We Were Dancing'' is a short comic play in two scenes by Noël Coward. It is one of ten short plays that make up '' Tonight at 8.30'', a cycle written to be performed in groups of three plays across three evenings. The original production, ...
'' during the following four weeks.
After a try-out in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, the
Broadway opening took place on 24 November 1936 at the
National Theatre, again starring Coward and Lawrence. ''Family Album'' was the final item in the third triple bill, which it shared with ''
Ways and Means'' and ''
Still Life''.
Original cast
*Jasper Featherways –
Noël Coward
*Jane Featherways –
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence (4 July 1898 – 6 September 1952) was an English actress, singer, dancer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End of London and on Broadway in New York.
Early life
Lawrence was born Gertr ...
*Lavinia Featherways –
Everley Gregg
Everley Gregg (26 October 1903, in Bishopstoke, Hampshire – 9 June 1959, in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire) was an English actress. Early in her career, she became associated especially with plays of Noël Coward. She began making films in the ...
(
Joyce Carey
Joyce Carey, OBE (30 March 1898 – 28 February 1993) was an English actress, best known for her long professional and personal relationship with Noël Coward. Her stage career lasted from 1916 until 1987, and she was performing on television ...
in New York)
*Richard Featherways –
Edward Underdown
Charles Edward Underdown (3 December 190815 December 1989) was an English theatre, cinema and television actor. He was born in London and educated at Eton College in Berkshire.
Notable work
Early theatre credits include: Noël Coward's '' Words ...
*Charles Winter –
Anthony Pelissier
Harry Anthony Compton Pelissier (27 July 1912 – 2 April 1988) was an English actor, screenwriter, producer and director.
Biography
Pelissier was born in Barnet and came from a theatrical family. His parents were the theatre producer H. G. ...
*Harriet Winter –
Alison Leggatt (Joan Swinstead in New York)
*Edward Valance –
Kenneth Carten
Kenneth Hare Bicker-Caarten (29 August 1911 - 1980) was an English actor who worked under the name Kenneth Carten.
Biography
Kenneth Hare Bicker-Caarten was born on 29 August 1911 at Blomfield Road, Maida Vale, London, the son of middle-class pa ...
*Emily Valance –
Moya Nugent
*Burrows, the butler –
Alan Webb
Plot
The play is set in autumn 1860 in the drawing room of the Featherways family's house in
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
. The family, all dressed in mourning, have returned from the funeral of the paterfamilias. The group comprises his five children, Jasper, Lavinia, Richard, Harriet and Emily with, except for the unmarried Lavinia and RIchard, their spouses. Warmed by glasses of
madeira poured by their much-loved old butler, Burrows, they reminisce. An old toybox is produced, as is an old musical box; old songs are remembered and more glasses of wine are drunk. Suddenly Lavinia, her reticence overcome by wine, denounces the old man: "I hated Papa, so did you … He was cruel to Mama, he was unkind to us, he was profligate and pompous and worse still, he was mean". She then astonishes the others by telling them that the will read to them that morning, leaving the Featherways fortune to the family, was not the old man's final will: a week before he died he made a new one, leaving them nothing but giving large sums to his various mistresses and the rest to pay for a new church containing a grandiose memorial to himself. It was witnessed by Lavinia and Burrows. Minutes after the old man's death they burned it, leaving the old will to be acted upon. Questioned by Jasper, Burrows says his deafness is getting worse and he will never be able to hear questions about the will. They invite him to join them for a glass of madeira, and, to the tune of the musical box, they dance round him, hand in hand.
Revivals and adaptations
''Family Album'' has been revived in complete or part-complete cycles of ''Tonight at 8.30''. In a 1948 American tour, directed by the author, Lawrence appeared again as Jane, with
Graham Payn
Graham Payn (25 April 1918 – 4 November 2005) was a South African-born English actor and singer, also known for being the life partner of the playwright Noël Coward. Beginning as a boy soprano, Payn later made a career as a singer and ac ...
as Jasper. A
West End revival in 1970 featured
Millicent Martin
Millicent Mary Lillian Martin (born 8 June 1934) is an English actress, singer, and comedian. She was the lone female singer of topical songs on the weekly BBC Television satire show ''That Was the Week That Was'' known as TW3 (1962–1963), a ...
and
Gary Bond
Gary James Bond (7 February 1940 – 12 October 1995) was an English actor and singer. He is known for originating the role Joseph in Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical '' Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'', his performance ...
as Jane and Jasper. The play was included in productions of ''Tonight at 8.30'', the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2000, the
Chichester Festival in 2006, the Antaeus Company in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
in 2007, the
Shaw Festival
The Shaw Festival is a not-for-profit theatre festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada. It is the second largest repertory theatre company in North America. The Shaw Festival was founded in 1962. Originally, it only featured productio ...
in 2009, and the
Jermyn Street Theatre
Jermyn Street Theatre is a performance venue situated on Jermyn Street, in London's West End. It is an off-west end studio theatre.
History
Jermyn Street Theatre opened in August 1994. It was formerly the changing rooms for staff at a Spaghetti ...
, London in 2018.
[Brantley, Ben]
"How to Savor Fleeting Joys: Smiles Suave, Brows Arched"
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', 28 June 2000,
In May 1991 ''Family Album'' was televised by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
as Jasper.
In January 1936, Coward and Lawrence, together with Everly Gregg, Alison Leggatt, Edward Underdown and Alan Webb from the original cast, recorded "Drinking Song" and "Hearts and Flowers" and excerpts from the dialogue from the play for
, with the Phoenix Theatre Orchestra conducted by Clifford Greenwood.
'' said of the first production, "It is sometimes nearly vulgar, sometimes nearly mawkish, and sometimes modernly smart." ''
'' described the piece as "swerving, in Mr Coward's most uncomfortable manner, from sadness to fooling, from fooling to sentimentality, and from sentimentality to high jinks with the butler."