It's hard to think of a better guide to discussing all aspects of the theater than Noel Coward (1899-1973). During his 50-year career, Coward wrote nearly 70 plays, musicals, operettas and revues. He worked with or knew virtually everyone connected to the London stage and saw every production. And he had supremely witty and astute observations and opinions on everything. Editor Barry Day (The Letters of Noel Coward) culls Coward's sage observations from his diaries, essays, interviews, stories, plays, lyrics and the reminiscences of his contemporaries.

Coward weighs in on Method acting, on plays with squalor and explicit language, writing for the theater versus novels or the cinema, directing plays and movies, troubled productions, fellow playwrights, other actors, critics and reviews. This 480-page volume is jam-packed with hilarious comments. On star quality: "I don't know what it is--but I've got it." Critics: "I think it is so frightfully clever of them to go night after night to the theatre and know so little about it." Eugene O'Neill: "Long Day's Journey into Night turned into Day's short journey to the Exit at the first intermission."

But this is not just a collection of witty comments. There are also his extensive profiles of contemporaries like Beatrice Lillie, John Gielgud and Gertrude Lawrence and thoughtful, behind-the-scenes tales of the mechanics of writing and launching theater productions. Coward promised to write a book on the theater but didn't. Day's "Noel Coward On (and In) Theatre" fulfills Coward's promise with a magnificent, expansive and extravagantly entertaining guide to all aspects of the theater.

Noel Coward's majestic, impressive and supremely droll take on all aspects of theater perfectly balances hilarious witticisms with astute observations no theater buff will want to miss.