{"id":5709,"date":"2016-05-31T07:59:28","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T11:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5709"},"modified":"2016-06-15T07:50:53","modified_gmt":"2016-06-15T11:50:53","slug":"a-song-at-twilight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5709","title":{"rendered":"A Song at Twilight"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The

The F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre, Madison, NJ<\/p><\/div>\n

The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey<\/a> opened its 2016 season with\u00a0No\u00ebl Coward\u2019s A Song At Twilight<\/em>, directed by Paul Mullins. Coward wrote it in 1965, the first in a trio of plays that take place in a single suite in a Swiss hotel (you\u2019re welcome, Neil Simon), called the Suite in Three Keys<\/em>. He wanted \u201cto act once more before I fold my bedraggled wings,\u201d as he said, and he wrote himself a juicy role here.<\/p>\n

As the play opens, the hotel waiter Felix (played by Ben Houghton) is playing a grand piano and singing, a service for which extra tipping is undoubtedly required. The suite\u2019s guests are Sir Hugo Latymer (Edmond Genest), an eminent author in his early 70s, and his somewhat dowdy, one might even say serviceable, wife Hilde (Alison Weller). Hugo is noticeably slowing. He\u2019s had health problems, and Hilde has added nurse to her duties as secretary and chief organizer.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s preparing to go out; he wants her to stay. It isn\u2019t because he wants her company, as his waspishness makes clear, but because an old mistress he hasn\u2019t seen in decades is coming for dinner, and he doesn\u2019t want to be alone with her. Carlotta Gray is an actress who had a middling career. Why is she coming? What does she want? Money?<\/p>\n

When Carlotta (Laila Robins) enters, she\u2019s glamour and energy itself\u2014upswept hair, an acid yellow sheath, and sparkling stilettos. Perhaps with a wee bit of glee, Hilde leaves him to her. The two old flames\u2019 point-counterpoint dialog is full of Coward\u2019s characteristic wit and verve.<\/p>\n

Hugo\u2019s break-up with Carlotta so long ago appears still painful to her, as was the uncharitable characterization of her he wrote in his autobiography. Now Carlotta is writing her own memoir, and what she wants is much more significant than cash. Since the era in which the play was written the issues people want to keep secret may have evolved, but the capacity for guilt and shame remains with us and, along with the loss of love, has a powerful emotional impact.<\/p>\n

Robins and Weller fully inhabit the two female characters and deliver Coward\u2019s rather fussy and formal dialog (by 2016 standards) convincingly. At one point Hugo calls Carlotta \u201cfeline,\u201d and indeed Robins moves around the stage much like a cat playing with her mouse. I\u2019ve seen Robins on stage several times, and she\u2019s always great, and I hope to see Weller again.<\/p>\n

I scrambled my dates for posting this review, and tickets for this production are no longer available. Apologies, but it\u2019s one to watch for if your own regional theaters produce it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey opened its 2016 season with\u00a0No\u00ebl Coward\u2019s A Song At Twilight, directed by Paul Mullins. Coward wrote it in 1965, the first in a trio of plays that take place in a single suite in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A Song at Twilight - somewhat neglected Noel Coward play well worth watching for","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[366,104,147],"tags":[518],"class_list":["post-5709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drama","category-the-morgue","category-theater","tag-noel-coward"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1u5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5716,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5709\/revisions\/5716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}