When will noel coward wings get Houston premiere?”
The appeal of Noël Coward’s Waiting in the Wings becomes immediately apparent as one reads the playwright’s description of its setting: The Wings is “a small retirement home for actresses who have been stars or leading ladies, and who, through age, lack of providence, misfortune, etc., have been reduced to poverty.” A stageful of gallant troupers soldiering on in their twilight years seems a made-to-order recipe for an audience-pleasing blend of sentiment, gentle humor and a few sparks of melodrama. That’s what Coward achieved with Wings, the best of this famed playwright’s later works. Yet, arriving at a time when Coward had been written off as passé, the play was savaged by critics at its 1960 London premiere and was pretty much laid to rest until its belated 1999 Broadway premiere starring Lauren Bacall and Rosemary Harris. The reception then, albeit mixed, was more appreciative. “Wise and compassionate,” wrote critic John Simon, while Sheridan Morley praised its “moments of near-Ch
