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Rating: 
Summary: two extraordinary actors
Review: DESIGN FOR LIVING is a biography of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, extremely popular husband and wife stage actors in the first half of the 20th century. Author Margot Peters provides, in exhaustive detail, the histories of the Lunts many successful stage productions, mostly by now underremembered writers like Noel Coward and Robert Sherwood. Throughout their careers, the Lunts enjoyed good reviews from New York critics but were often chastised for choosing inferior plays. Even though I enjoyed learning about the Lunts, I didn't really understand what would have led them to make these choices after reading the book.
Peters also comes up a bit short when discussing the Lunts acting technique... (she shouldn't be faulted too much or this though, working from secondary sources). Repeated references are made to how they made everything seem "fresh" and "spontaneous", but we don't know how they really got their teeth in a character.
Peters notes that other biographers of the Lunts have claimed that both Alfred and Lynn engaged in gay relationships without providing any evidence. Peters also provides no evidence, but also provides no evidence that the Lunts had any intimate life with each other. After reading DESIGN FOR LIVING, I came away feeling that I knew the Lunts well as actors but very little as people. Probably how they would have wanted it.
Rating: 
Summary: Query
Review: I reviewed this book 2-3 weeks ago when it first came out. Why hasn't my review been posted?
Rating:
Summary: Where is the magic ?
Review: Never having seen Alfred Lunt & Lynn Fontanne onstage, I, like the author, Margot Peters, cannot explain what made them exceptional. Ms. Peters, whose previous book, "The House of Barrymore", is a fascinating and definitive biography of the great theatrical siblings, Ethel, Lionel and John Barrymore, disappointed this reader with her dual portrait of the Lunts.
The author thoroughly documents their triumphs, tours, friendships and quirks, yet their theatrical charm and power eludes her pen and is never found on the page.Unlike in the previously mentioned bio, here she simply cannot capture the vitality of the times, places and people she is writing about throughout this volume. The author might have checked with Shakespeare for more insight into the truth about actors on the stage: "These our actors,/ As I foretold you, were all spirits, and/ Are melted into air, into thin air...". I guess you had to be there during Broadway's great years to understand their alchemy.
Rating:
Summary: Where is the magic ?
Review: Never having seen Alfred Lunt & Lynn Fontanne onstage, I, like the author, Margot Peters, cannot explain what made them exceptional. Ms. Peters, whose previous book, "The House of Barrymore", is a fascinating and definitive biography of the great theatrical siblings, Ethel, Lionel and John Barrymore, disappointed this reader with her dual portrait of the Lunts.
The author thoroughly documents their triumphs, tours, friendships and quirks, yet their theatrical charm and power eludes her pen and is never found on the page. Unlike in the previously mentioned bio, here she simply cannot capture the vitality of the times, places and people she is writing about throughout this volume. The author might have checked with Shakespeare for more insight into the truth about actors on the stage: "These our actors,/ As I foretold you, were all spirits, and/ Are melted into air, into thin air...". I guess you had to be there during Broadway's great years to understand their alchemy.
Rating:
Summary: Left wanting more
Review: The biography was not about this famous couple as real people; rather it was a recitation of their newspaper reviews for each production. I have been to their home and taking the tour brought me firmly into their world. Reading this book did not.
Rating: 
Summary: A good but not great biography
Review: This book probably deserves three-and-a-half stars, but I'll round it up to four.
Margot Peters clearly did a lot of research for this book, and it shows. If you're interested in learning about the Lunts, this book is more than adequate. But if Jared Brown's "The Fabulous Lunts" were in print, that would be my first recommendation for a biography of the couple.
That having been said, this book is arguably superior in some respects. If you want to learn about the Lunts' private lives, Peters provides far more information than does Brown (even if some of her surmises about the couple's sex life, or lack thereof, are a bit of a stretch). In comparison with "The Fabulous Lunts," here we learn a great deal more about Lunt's family; Ten Chimneys, their estate in Wisconsin; and many of their friendships. (The downside is that some of this is not very interesting.) On the other hand, Brown is generally more thorough in discussing their professional lives, though Peters is more thorough on a few productions (including "The Taming of the Shrew" and Coward's "Design for Living").
To Peters's credit, there are relatively few factual errors (as far as I can tell), and there are extensive endnotes. Unfortunately, even with all the endnotes, there are still some things that didn't get them but should have, and some of the endnotes that are included are more confusing than informative.
Indeed, one of the problems with this book is that Peters's writing is sometimes maddeningly convoluted, occasionally descending into incoherence. This is where Brown scores over Peters most of all: His writing is simple, straightforward, and clear, making "The Fabulous Lunts" a better read than "Design for Living."
Still, for the most part this is a good book, and I can recommend it to those who want to learn about the Lunts.
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