Fumed Oak
Fumed Oak is a short play in two scenes by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8.30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings.
The play concerns a downtrodden, middle-aged salesman who, having saved up enough money to cut all ties, walks out on his wife, mother-in-law and "horrible adenoidal daughter", having first told all three what he thinks of them.
In the introduction to a published edition of the plays, Coward wrote, "A short play, having a great advantage over a long one in that it can sustain a mood without technical creaking or over padding, deserves a better fate, and if, by careful writing, acting and producing I can do a little towards reinstating it in its rightful pride, I shall have achieved one of my more sentimental ambitions.
Fumed Oak, like his later play This Happy Breed, is one of his rare stage depictions of suburban life.
[9] The Observer commented in its review, "Mr Coward, as a pale and hairy specimen of suburban revolt throws his supper to the floor and behaves more like Petruchio and looks more like an advertisement for liver pills ... than one could possibly imagine ... he is considerably assisted by Miss Gertrude Lawrence and Miss Alison Leggatt as dowdy shrew and shrew's mama.
Miss Moya Nugent, as the dreadful daughter, bravely mutilates her appearance in order to look every inch the adenoid.
[13] However, the Antaeus Company in Los Angeles revived all ten plays in October 2007, and the Shaw Festival did so in 2009.
[14] For a 1952 film Meet Me Tonight, directed by Anthony Pelissier, Coward adapted Ways and Means, Red Peppers and Fumed Oak (called Tonight at 8:30 in the US)[15] In 1991, BBC television mounted productions of the individual plays with Joan Collins taking the Lawrence roles.
[16] The sheer expense involved in mounting what are effectively ten different productions has usually deterred revivals of the entire Tonight at 8.30 cycle, but the constituent plays can often be seen individually or in sets of three.
He has transferred the freehold of the house to Doris and recommends that she make money by taking in lodgers ("though God help the poor bastards if you do").
