Star Chamber (play) - History

History

Six of the plays in the cycle were first presented at the Manchester Opera House beginning in October 1935. A seventh was added on the subsequent provincial tour, and the final three, including Star Chamber, were added during the London run. Coward directed all ten pieces, and each starred Coward and Gertrude Lawrence. Coward said that he wrote them as "acting, singing, and dancing vehicles for Gertrude Lawrence and myself".

The story in Star Chamber draws on Coward's own experiences as President of the Actors' Orphanage, a post he held from 1934 to 1956. Coward makes fun of egocentric actors and the pedantry of committees. In the play, the president's lapdog is "the most sympathetic character" in the piece.

The play's only London performance in the original run was on 21 March 1936 at the Phoenix Theatre. After this maiden performance, Coward withdrew it from the cycle. The Broadway production in 1936 omitted Star Chamber as did the Canadian productions in 1938, the Broadway revivals in 1948 and 1967 and the 1981 Lyric Theatre production in London. However, the 2000, the Williamstown Theatre Festival revived six of the plays, including Star Chamber. The sheer expense involved in mounting what are effectively ten different productions has usually deterred revivals of the entire Tonight at 8:30 cycle. However, the Antaeus Classical Theater Ensemble in Los Angeles revived all ten plays in October 2007, and the Shaw Festival did so in 2009.

The BBC broadcast the play on the Home Service in May 1940 starring Margaretta Scott, and again in June 1941. In 1991, BBC television mounted productions of the Tonight at 8:30 plays with Joan Collins taking the Lawrence roles, but Star Chamber was omitted. The play was not included in the Heinemann edition of the Tonight at 8:30 plays published in 1936, and was first published in 1939 in Rose Window, a tribute to St Bartholomew's Hospital by twenty-five authors, including Vera Brittain, J.B. Priestley, Hugh Walpole, Emlyn Williams and Radclyffe Hall as well as Coward. The book was illustrated by Anna Zinkeisen, who contributed a drawing of Xenia James (Lawrence's role) to accompany Star Chamber. In connection with Coward's centenary in 1999, the play was printed in the 7th volume of the Methuen series of Coward's Collected Plays.