The Astonished Heart, described by the author as "a tragedy in six scenes", is a short play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8.30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings. One-act plays were unfashionable in the 1920s and 30s, but Coward was fond of the genre and conceived the idea of a set of short pieces to be played across several evenings. The actress most closely associated with him was Gertrude Lawrence, and he wrote the plays as vehicles for them both.
The Astonished Heart depicts a leading psychiatrist falling passionately in love with an old friend of his wife. She has wilfully led him on but is unprepared for the disastrous effect on him. Increasingly desperate, he watches his own mind lose control of itself, and he finally kills himself. The title is taken from Deuteronomy: "the Lord shall smite thee with madness and blindness and astonishment of heart".
The cycle was first produced in 1935 in Manchester and then toured for nine weeks before opening in London (1936) and New York (1936–37).[n 1] It has been revived occasionally and has been adapted for film, television and radio.
- ^ Morley (1999), p. xii
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