Evening star., 1933-01-15
Young Fame Ranks Coward
Among the Venerable Great
"Something Quite New" Is This playwright
Whose Bid to Glory at 80 Is Based on Long
List of Noteworthy Accomplishments.
By E. de S. Melcher.

tannes.
Mr.. Coward is something quite
new. Up until now Bernard
Shaw always seemed the "enfant
terrible" of literature. Because
he is the Peter Pan of old age he
has held most of the English stage
in the palm of his hand and been
treated as both the father and
the mother of the stages most
brilliant witticisms. But-at 80
Mr.. Shaw was a comparatively
unknown young man, who had
written five fair to middling
novels and was busying himself
with writing things about music.
And at that age he had not con-
vulSed theatric audiences, had not
written brilliant comedies, and
brilliant dramas, and made so
much money that his pockets
bulged with it.
All this at the unusually tender
age of 80 Mr.. Coward has ac-
compliShed. He comes to WASH
ington tomorrow, with his acting
co-partners, two of the finest act
orS in the theater, with reputa-
ton that is unmatched. He comes
as an actor and as a playwright.
He comes as the author of 'tPri-
vate Lives" and the author of
''Cava1cade. He comes as the
first man who has successfully
bridged the Atlantic ocean by
having play which was sue
ces fou" in London become the
"succes fou" of the cinema.
"Cavalcade," which is now playing
on Broadway in cinema form, is
said to be the years best film.
Mr. Coward has also proved
the fact that they who write mu-
Sical comedy reviews-something
which used to be considered
rather a silly sport-are not such
a dull lot. While he may offend
Brother and Sister SitWell (called
by some one or other "the best
brains in England") in one of
these silly sketches, when he
wants to he can be quite as
"brainy" and quite as profound
as the Messrs. and Misses Sitwell.
The progression from one mood
to another with him is as simple
a matter as passing from break
fast to lunch.
The rewards which Mr.. Coward
has won are not, however, the
rewards of the meek and the
mild. While we do not mean that
he is clustering hero, full of
red-hot knowledge which he lets
off in giant sparks, Mr.. Coward
has not sneaked up on fame. He
has WreStled with it and taken
1t by the hornS-by working. He
made up his mind at an early
age that he would become a play
wright-and he became a play
wrigh5-but not until after he
had passed through the customary
sorroWing period of lean months,
lean pockets and a lean stomach.
He has also passed Through the
Rudy Vallee stage of having had
to spend a night on park bench,
and he is said even to have had
to borrow coin from the glamor-
GUS Miss Fontanne-'way back in
the dog days.
So that he knows the sting of
adversity, and while he may
have snapped his fingers at fate.
still, fate has sat pretty hard on
him once or twice.
Tomorrow Washingtonians will
see the most recent of his works,
Design for Living" which is a
play and also a tribute of affec-
ton to two of his fellow players,
since he wrote it so that he and
Mr.. and Mrs. Lunt could be all
at once together on the stage or,
as Mr.. Clifton Webb might have
it, "together-alone" on the stage.
1t will be interesting to note in
this Mr.. Coward's progress from
his recent Private Lives" It will
be interesting, too, to see how far
he has outdistanced the above
"jingleS." For, whether he thinks
so or not, theSe-aS spoken for
merly by Miss Lillie-Were one of
the high spots on the modern
stage-just as Private Lives" was
when the pillows became more
important than the actors.
Mr.. Coward is the foremost
craftsman of pleasant English of
the day. No matter what his plots,
they are always worth listening to.