Ennui: An English Comedy With A French Title For an American Audience

Etta Steventon wrote Ennui: An English Comedy With A French Title For an American Audience to tackle everything from theater politics to the career of an actor and the challenge of separating work from personal life. It is a play within a play set in rehearsals for a newly discovered Noël Coward play. The actors are thrown together and must define new personae in the context of those around them. We see the work that goes into putting on a show and how personal motivations drive each actor’s contribution to the form of the final product. The boundaries that separate theater and real life blur and the play they are putting on becomes an arena through which to express truer desires.

Many of the lines are replete with hidden meanings and audiences find themselves pulled into a world of wordplay, deception and murder. The various storylines come to a head with a funny and dramatic ending, playfully assuming a whodunit form that allows each character to realize their goals.