One of several unsuccessful attempts from Coward to find a follow up vehicle for The Lunts after Design for Living worked so well. This was his go at Somesert Maugham style sex in the tropics with whites behaving badly - the play is dedicated to Maugham.
There's a bit of padding and the device of the Maugham/Coward like writer who visits and commentates on the action was surely tired then - although when he talks of his philosophy towards the end of love you go "oh is this Noel Coward talking", about not getting too involved in people.
It's not a great Lunt vehicle as it's not a two hander - there's four roles, the Maugham guy, an ageing woman, her Russian lover, and a young man who falls for the older woman. So there's a lot of gay writer tropes at the time - ageing horny woman, beautiful young man who adores her, rough trade who is mean to her. Alfred Lunt played the rough trade - I was surprised until I read the confrontation.
The drama's not bad, it's a solid love triangle, with people making out in the rain, and gossiping whites in the background. I'm surprised this was never filmed by Hollywood. It's a play I could imagine good pulp screenwriters actually improving, giving the lead to a Joan Crawford type. Or you could flip the sexes around and have it about a guy loved by a younger woman and older mysterious woman. Maybe it lacks the big pay off too - the rough trade kills himself, the young man goes his own way... Really rough trade should have killed the woman. It would've been more satisfying dramatically.
Louis Hayward played the young man on Broadway - makes sense.
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