Gertrude Lawarence was born in her grandmother’s home in the poor area of London known as Clapham on 4 July 1898. As newlyweds, her mother and father, a drunkard named Arthur Lawrence, moved to Kennington Oval, considered a step up. Both were touring performers. The marriage didn’t last. New mother and two-year-old Gertrude moved back to Granny’s Clapham nest.
Her “new” (next) father, Frank Howley, a gambler, was an erratic provider. During a flush period, he took the family to the seaside where six-year-old Gertrude, pushed by her stage-mother, had her first opportunity to perform—successfully.
At ten, she was firmly on the road to success in the chorus of the Brixton Theatre where she was taken into the tutelage of well-known Miss Italia Conti. There she met a “a thin, unusually shy boy with a lisp”, Noël Coward.
Luck would bring her back into the life of her father, a successful Arthur Lawrence. At 12, she moved in with him and his girlfriend, Rose, and toured with them. At 16, she was wooed to the London stage and fired for “playing too many pranks”. She'd be back.
Her next stint was understudying Bea Lillie (Lady Peel), where she met the first of her husbands, director Frank Howley, and delivered her only child, Pamela.
London Calling, written and starring Noël Coward, was next. (Gertrude Lawrence was the one performer most associated with Noël Coward.) She was moving up in the theatre world and society. Following were starring roles in major productions in London and eventually New York.
By this time, Frank was out and a new man, Bert, was next. Also, some very successful productions by Noël Coward, not the least of which was Private Lives, written for her, with the unknown supporting actor Laurence Olivier.
Many successes and failures followed, as well as a tussle over unpaid taxes on both sides of the pond.
Next up was a great success of The King and I. Lawrence bought the rights to the novel Anna and the King of Siam and hired Rodgers and Hammerstein to develop the project for her. (See Jerome Robbins and Yul Brynner.) During this time, she married Richard Aldrich, husband until her death at 54 in 1952.
Gertrude Lawrence is, sadly, unknown to many Americans today. She was the first Brit on Broadway. She won a “Best Actress in a Musical” Tony for her performance in The King and I. She had a light, fragile soprano voice very similar to Marni Nixon’s (who sang for Deborah Kerr in the movie). She was a veteran of the British and US theatre; many of her successes were collaborations with Noël Coward. There were film roles; the most memorable was of Amanda Wingfield in the 1950 film of The Glass Menagerie.
Playwright Lucy Stevens has lovingly taken on the mammoth task of trying to winnow down this extravagant, if short, life into 80 minutes. Amazingly, she has managed to construct a fairly complete biography and incorporated 22 songs of Lawrence’s era to illuminate the different stages of Lawrence’s life.
Performer Lucy Stevens takes over the very small stage, which contains only a barstool and an acting block. The evening is tightly choreographed; she moves from story to song and back. Some of the songs are easily recognised: “Bye, Bye, Blackbird”, “The Saga of Jenny”, “Shall We Dance”. Music director Elizabeth Marcus on piano makes a flawless, if unseen, co-star.
The problem I did have with the production was that it felt overly constructed. Director Sarah-Louise Young has so tightly choreographed the evening that it feels stiff and heavy. The scripted portions feel 'acted'; they lack the warmth that Stevens must surely have brought to the project. And Stevens, an obviously talented, trained if arch mezzo (maybe 'dramatic contralto') cannot make the needed adjustments from scene to scene. Each song feels antiseptically the same as every other. We are missing the shy but trying child or the giddy starlet or the wounded wife.
There is so much work that was put into the project; we want to love Gertrude Lawrence, A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening.