It’s difficult for

me to talk about Private Lives because I almost know it by heart. I first read it as a teenager because Ayn Rand listed it as one of the few plays she liked, because the characters in it had ‘values.’ What she meant really was that Amanda and Elyot are smart and witty, and Victor and Sybil are not (Rand viewed the world as populated by ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’). I fell in love with the play and grew to love it more and more — I  saw Tammy Grimes and Brian Bedford as Amanda and Elyot once which was heaven. Alec MacCowen and Penelope Keith are not perfect for it; Keith shines in act three, but she is frankly not pretty enough and a bit too old. But for me, it’s kind of like the Bible, one keeps going back. The BBC version does have one great moment though. When Victor and Sybil start arguing at the end, we see Elyot and Amanda watching them, and falling in love with love all over again. Yes, they love to argue, Elyot and Amanda. And please forget about Elyot’s unfortunate line --  "certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs." Coward was the least misogynist playwright that ever lived, and Amanda is a feminist character, so put it all in context and shut up. 'But,' you say -- 'those words are hate!' Well at least you’re not an old homosexual like me — I used to get turned on by Eminem’s sketch about a gay man masturbating in a public toilet; it was totally homophobic, but I was (and still am) desperate for any morsel of representation God offers. Amanda is still modern, and a lot more independent than a lot of women today — because she is a desiring woman, something that many women are not willing to be. I don’t know why, as it would solve feminism. Yes the whole man/woman thing would be solved if straight men would just acknowledge that women desire. If men became the sex objects and women Diana the Huntress everything would be alright. But then, what do I know? I ran screaming out of the closet 40 years ago. So what makes Private Lives so perfect is that it perfectly describes the imperfectness of love. Elyot and Amanda love/hate each other, and that, Coward is clearly saying, is what love is. But the play is not didactic — because this is an intolerable problem; how can we endure hating the one we love? The error is that people treat Private Lives as a comedy. The BBC production does not. Like Shakespeare’s romances it’s funny and serious; whenever Elyot and Amanda feel truly alone and intimate they talk about death. What else do you talk about with the one you love? My lover and I talk about death all the time — but that’s partially because he’s in love with death, violence — and bloodshed and gore. I often have to say -- ‘Enough is enough! ’ and he will say: ‘But that’s reality — are you scared of reality?” And I’ll say "Yes frankly I am and I will have no more of it." When I first met my partner he put me through two tests. He worked at 7/24 Video at the corner of Church and Wellesley. I saw him there, and he was inescapably beautiful, and I kind of knew him (and I’d just quit Buddies), so I thought what have I got to lose? Here we are 22 years later. Anyway, he wouldn’t go on a date with me until I rented a porn movie about midget ladies having sex with men. For him, it was important that I pass this test; he had read my first novel apparently (Guilty is about scat; you can’t get any more vulgar than that) but he still didn’t believe that I wasn’t on some level a poseur; hence the midget movie. I watched it. My favourite moment was when all the little midget porn ladies woke up in the morning and the soundtrack was from Peer Gynt —'Hall of the Mountain King.' And they all rubbed their little eyes with their tiny hands, and struggled into their morning midget lingerie. It was cataclysmic. Then -- after we started dating -- the second test was that I had to watch Faces of Death. I don’t know if you are familiar with that movie, but it’s basically a series of real life executions, documentary footage of mass murders. Real stuff. At one point there is a scene where a lovely couple dines on monkey brains, and apparently the only way to eat monkey brains -- properly -- is to chain up a living monkey, cut the top of his head off -- and while he screams -- munch away! I'm not kidding. Anyway, I stopped watching after the monkey-brain-eating sequence, and said "I can’t watch this." I don’t know if he’s ever quite forgiven me — but apparently the fact that I even tried, I guess, put me in his good books. Now I am old and -- and he is older than he was before — and so death comes up, and he wants to talk about it endlessly, and all I can say is:  'I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather talk about death with  — than you.' Yes, we have had screaming matches that could rival anything Elyot and Amanda could come up with. When you have told somebody that you hate them more than anyone on earth and that they are vile sea creature with suction cups instead of a mouth, then and only then, can you properly claim to love them forever. I don’t recommend love; I have friends who say I'm lucky to be in love, but I’m not so sure. One can’t imagine — you see — the other one — the beloved — gone —and that’s what Elyot and Amanda talk about,  endlessly. Coward composed the play about -- and for -- Jeffrey Amherst. He was an Earl, and Coward wrote it on a boat just outside Hong Kong when he was 29, it probably took him a day or too. It was also a love letter to Gertie—  as he knew she was the only one to play it, and still to this day that’s true. I’ve heard the recording of her doing it, and no one could match her, ever. Coward sounds so stuffy and arch on the recording (he worked so hard to cover his homosexuality). However, one can imagine him, on a ship outside Hong Kong, waiting, breathlessly for the lovely Earl of Amherst to step out of the bath, adorned in only a flimsy towel. Did they fight like Amanda and Eiyot? I doubt it; Coward may never even have kissed Jeffrey, he probably just imagined what he might do to him -- in his mind. And when it comes down to it --  since we all die -- it's only the imagination that counts.