The play was written specifically for Dame Maggie Smith, who originated the title role of Lettice Douffet in both the English and American runs of the production.
[4] After a year in the West End play, Smith and Tyzack were replaced by Geraldine McEwan and Sara Kestelman.
The first American production opened on March 13, 1990, with a preview performance of the revised play at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City.
In the original... the two ladies were left at the end preparing to blow up a select list of modern architectural monstrosities with a petard - a medieval explosive device.
Finally the present one was born, and seemed to me both correct and pleasing... with this rewrite, Lettice prospers, and Lotte prospers with her, and their progenitor is happy.In the introduction to his 1990 version of the play, Shaffer goes on to suppose that American audiences might not appreciate the comedic device of mocking English architecture, opining that America outranks England in their contemporary architecture and therefore would not find the issue as funny or relevant.
The New York Times review on 26 March 1990 proclaimed, "Miss Smith's personality so saturates everything around her that, like the character she plays, she instantly floods a world of gray with color".
The Times also calls into question Shaffer's re-write, stating, "the third act... is a set-up for a last-minute upbeat switch, a solution for coping with the present that is inane and fake."
The action takes place in three primary locations: the Grand Hall of Fustian House, Wiltshire, England; Miss Schoen's office at the Preservation Trust, Architrave Place, London; and Miss Douffet's basement apartment, Earls Court, London.
Lettice Douffet is showing a group of tourists around Fustian House, an old, dreary, and (as the name suggests) fusty sixteenth-century hall.
Lettice is again reciting her boring monologue, but suddenly she is filled with inspiration and begins improvising a wildly untrue (yet entertaining) story about the staircase in the hall.
The next scene reveals Lettice telling an even larger version of the now completely ridiculous yet salacious story to salivating tourists.
She is this time interrupted by Lotte Schoen, who dismisses the rest of the crowd, insisting she must speak to Lettice alone.
Lotte then produces a letter of reference she has written for Lettice to obtain a new position giving tours on boats on the Thames.
They spend a long scene drinking and talking, where they begin to find similarities in their very different personalities—notably, a disgust with modern English architecture and all things "mere".
Inebriated, Lotte begins telling of a man with whom she was once in love, who aspired to be a terrorist by blowing up modern buildings in London to oppose the destruction of historical architecture.
It becomes clear that, during one of these theatrical displays, Lotte was inadvertently injured and that the lawyer is at Lettice's home to inform her of an indictment against her.
They plan to give tours at the "fifty ugliest new buildings in London", using Lotte's architectural knowledge and Lettice's flair for the dramatic (and propensity for lying).