PRIVATE LIVES by Noel Coward, Albery Theatre
London
PRIVATE LIVES
by Noel Coward
Albery Theatre To 3 March 2002
Runs 2hr 25min One interval
TICKETS 020 7369 1740
Review Timothy Ramsden 7 October 2001
Magnificent revival of Coward's star-piece, with sets notably more ornate than the acting.In 1999, Coward's centennial, the National gave Private Lives a very good production. Two years on and Howard Davies, with a track record embracing the Royal theatre companies - Shakespeare and National - enters the commercial West End with a contrasting, surprising revival that's at least as good.
This is Coward, Year Zero: all the encrusted traditions, the stereotypes, the 'period touches' that usually overlay productions are cleared away. Alan Rickman and Lindsey Duncan claim Elyot and Amanda, the divorced couple re-meeting on hotel balconies during their new honeymoons, for their own. These are real people, talking themselves through a developing relationship. Rickman prowls stiff-necked, the movement mainly in the voice; Duncan's Amanda attracts attention merely by a smile.
For these characters are stars. They know it, and the actors are up to the job of showing it, without effort or strain. It's a production that works by restraint, implying the force of smashing, clashing personalities far more effectively than by flinging 'star turns' at the audience. And this is right: who bothers to shout when a whisper achieves the desired result?
So, when the rupture and fighting eventually come, it's forceful and it's funny. But that's also due to remarkable performances from the briefly espoused other couple.
Emma Fielding's Sybil is hausfrau incarnate: everything Noel would have detested and mocked. Her legs waddle, her hips waddle; even her neck waddles, while the voice exposes her tedious suburban mind, paddling through its shallow duckpond of understanding.
Adam Godley makes Victor a square-jawed, brown-worsted dullard, whose slowness on the uptake causes hilarious moments.
It's a tribute to them all that Tim Hatley's vertiginous hotel balconies and Paris atelier don't overwhelm the action. As Rickman and Duncan's latter-day Petruchio and Kate storm through their new life together, Coward's comedy springs fresh to life.
2001-10-09 11:32:41