Design For Living - History

History

Coward had known Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne since his first trip to New York in 1921, when he was penniless, and they were scarcely better off. Dreaming of future stardom, they resolved that when all three were famous, Coward would write a play for them all to star in. In the following decade, Coward became one of the world's most famous playwrights, with a succession of popular hits. These ranged from the operetta Bitter Sweet (1929) and the extravaganza Cavalcade (1931), to the intimate comedies Hay Fever (1924) and Private Lives (1930). Lunt and Fontanne too had achieved fame, and by the early 1930s the time was right for Coward to write their star vehicle.

The Lunts' marriage was devoted and long-lived, but there were triangular relationships in their private lives which Coward could draw on for his plot. Coward recorded that while he was refining his original ideas for the play, "Alfred had suggested a few stage directions which if followed faithfully, would undoubtedly have landed all three of us in gaol". Of the three principal characters, Coward later commented,

"These glib, over-articulate and amoral creatures force their lives into fantastic shapes and problems because they cannot help themselves. Impelled chiefly by the impact of their personalities each upon the other, they are like moths in a pool of light, unable to tolerate the lonely outer darkness but equally unable to share the light without colliding constantly and bruising each other's wings.... The ending of the play is equivocal. The three of them... are left together as the curtain falls, laughing.... Some saw it as the lascivious anticipation of a sort of a carnal frolic. Others with less ribald imaginations regarded it as a meaningless and slightly inept excuse to bring the curtain down. I as author, however, prefer to think that Gilda and Otto and Leo were laughing at themselves."