About the Play:

Still Life is a one-act comedy by Noel Coward. Famously expanded to become David Lean's 1945 classic film Brief Encounter, Still Life is a delicate and painful examination of illicit romance and an illuminating portrait of pre-war Britain presented within the confines of a railway station café.

Still Life is an exploration of forbidden passion set inside a train station café. In a suburban rail station, Dr. Harvey removes a cinder from Laura's eye and they fall in love. Subsequent weekly meetings over tea, scenes debating respectability or love, and some sentimental moments transpire before they decide they must part forever. He is accepting a faraway post and she must return to a circumspect life. At their last meeting, a chattering friend swoops down and there is no chance for a final goodbye.

Still Life is one of the Tonight At 8:30 series of short plays first presented in 1935 in Manchester and then on tour in six other British cities, before opening at the Phoenix Theatre in London and at the National Theatre on Broadway in New York the following year.

Cast: 5 women, 6 men

About the Playwright:

Sir Noël Coward (1899-1973) was one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th Century. Also a composer, director, actor and singer, he first made his name as a playwright with The Vortex, in which he also appeared. His numerous other successful plays included Fallen Angels, Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, and Blithe Spirit. He was knighted in 1970.