The Habit of Art centres on Fitz, Henry, Tim and Donald, who are actors rehearsing a play called Caliban's Day. The director has been called away, so they have a run-through/workshop directed by the stage manager, Kay, in the presence of the playwright, Neil. Caliban's Day is about a fictitious meeting in 1972 in Auden's rooms at Oxford, between Auden in his latter years and Britten. Auden has hired a rent boy, Stuart and when Humphrey Carpenter - who will write biographies of both Auden and Britten after their deaths - arrives to interview him, Auden mistakes him for Stuart. Britten has been auditioning boys for Death in Venice nearby, and arrives unexpectedly. He wants to discuss his misgivings about the paedophilic theme of Death in Venice and the light that may cast on his own life, but Auden assumes Britten wants him to write the libretto. The characters intermittently break out of the rehearsal to discuss the play, how accurately/harshly it should treat Auden's failings, the actor's craft and many other issues raised by Auden, Britten and the play. In doing so, they reveal something of their own backgrounds.
Critical reaction to the original production of the play was generally positive. Michael Billington said it was a ‘superbly fluid production... and is beautifully acted’; and Charles Spenser '' says ‘The Habit of Art is another absolute cracker, often wonderfully and sometimes filthily funny’. However, Benedict Nightingale was more critical and suggested that ‘the play lacks dramatic tension’, and Andrew Billen said that the ‘humour obscures the character of play’. Critics identified and examined the themes of the play: ‘a multi-levelled work that deals with sex, death, creativity, biography and much else besides’, and one in which ‘the knack of making ordinary people seem greater than they are, and revealing important people as being ordinarily human like the rest of us’. Billington suggests that the play ‘is at its strongest when it deals with the theme implicit in its title: the idea that, for the artist, creativity is a constant, if troubling imperative’. Spenser also notes of the author that ‘there is a confidence here, a sense of a writer pushing himself to the limits... that is hugely invigorating’. Brown says that ‘whether you’re an ardent Bennett fan or not, it’s pretty much unmissable’.
