is a lousy play. There, I said it. Coward wrote many lousy plays, (and yes, Donizetti regurgitated tunes for a number of lousy operas). It happens with prolific artists — so what? Design for Living is so bad it is often used as an example of bad playwrighting in schools; and well it should be. My 1979 BBC version stopped two-thirds of the way through; I re-read the ending for the thousandth time. It’s still lousy. It featured Rula Lelnska — apparently famous for her 'Alberto VO5' hair commercials — and two very young British actors who I had never heard of — John Steiner and the ravishing Clive Arrindell. There was nothing to complain about here — that’s why my views are now confirmed — they gave it the best reading it might get. But, like Texas, there is simply no there, there. Coward wrote it right after Private Lives; I would say it is clearly an attempt to rewrite Private Lives as a vehicle for himself and the Lunts. I have tried many times to write sequels. It rarely works, the magic won’t return. The enchantment of Private Lives is considerable, but Coward could not re-conjure it, so he decided to write a very didactic play devoid of inspiration. The ideas are mainly around morality, specifically sexual conduct, inside and outside marriage. Gilda is probably Coward’s most feminist heroine — she is not only smart and talented, but sleeps with whoever she wishes, and betrays her two lovers, again and again, with each other. She plays Otto and Leo like a game of cards -- but Coward never judges her, he simply adores her. Finally the two men end up alone together — in a scene fascinating only because of its repressed sexuality. They roll around together on a couch and hug, vowing to get along without her. Then they go off ‘to sea’ (a pirate fantasy, but — who, one might ask— is the cabin boy?) and finally return to Gilda to save her from her loveless marriage to an art dealer. You might ask — 'Why?' And also, 'How long oh Lord, how long?' (As it is a very long play.) I think all this has partially to do with the Lunts themselves: I know what it’s like to love actors so much that you are compelled to write for them, but also what it’s like when you just can’t come up with the goods. Alfred Lunt was gorgeous and gay, and Lynne Fontaine was his lesbian equivalent; they were both brilliant actors, and posed as a married heterosexual theatrical couple. Of course Coward loved them, and probably wanted to (or did) get into Lunt’s pants. At any rate, they were living La Vida Loca in 1933, and in Design For Living Coward attempts to describe their situation. There is a lot of false joy and false anguish, but though the play has a calculated structural integrity it lacks emotional resonance. Part of the problem is that Elyot and Amanda in Private Lives desert a pair of spouses who are earnestly in love with them -- whereas Gilda, Otto and Leo just keep hopping in and out of bed together. The play was scandalous then, and is scandalous now, because it is a definitely a peon to promiscuity, never mind polyamorousness (Design for Living is probably the only play that accurately describes and promotes the polyamorous lifestyle). I would love to love it, but I simply can’t. Especially when Coward is capable of so much more. And I am probably capable of more than this blog. But it is another ugly grey lock-up day. I am convince now that we have been lied to by the powers-that-be. Or it may not be that, you know? Maybe they're just stupid, like most people. I’m not knocking science (God help me!). Scientists keep plugging away — like artists — some for the fame and fortune, others just for the joy. No, I am talking about the medical profession. Particularly nurses. They are not all saints — neither are policeman (or priests) and as we all know deifying a particular profession just whitewashes the guilty, and encourages perfidy. My friend’s elderly father lives in a seniors home and the 'Nurse Ratched' in charge literally had to be persuaded to let the residents out after they were all vaccinated. She had them all in a prison, even though they were all utterly safe from disease. I know another nurse (the partner of a friend of mine) and apparently she has been sent do deal with vaccine roll-out in Vancouver and is consequently doing absolutely nothing; they can’t figure out what there is for her to do; she presently lolls about on her computer. Another friend of mine is connected with the nursing profession in Ontario; she says they are not busy, but idle. And now we have the Canadian government getting into an argument with themselves, because some public health nurse has decided that maybe we shouldn’t be taking the Astra Zeneca vaccine (which I got) or Johnson and Johnson. This will completely halt any and all attempts to get this country vaccinated, by dutifully sowing the seeds of fear that have already been planted. It will keep us all home for another three months. Great work. I am not a conspiracy theorist. I put all this down to incompetence. (It’s rampant, especially now.) It’s like I always said about Tennessee Williams: I happen to know two boys who were propositioned by him during his stay in a Vancouver hotel in 1980 (three years before he choked on a pill bottle cap and died). If I — that is, li'l ol’ me — happen to know two boys who were propositioned by Williams, then how many boys did Tennesee proposition? Similarly, the fact that I have piles of anecdotal evidence concerning the massive incompetence of the medical profession as we reach the so-called ‘end’ of this pandemic means that there is definitely incompetence of the highest order. I put it down, not to malice, but human error. But because of that error we all sit in the dark watching our lives drain away in coffee spoons. I was going to cry again, but I think I’ll save that for tomorrow. To quote the wife of another famous homosexual actor ( who worked with Noel Coward) — from the only actually good movie she ever made (which has been unjustly banned by the ‘woke’ crowd and ergo will not be mentioned here) — "After all, tomorrow is another day."
