PRIVATE LIVES. To 1 April.

Ipswich

PRIVATE LIVES
by Noel Coward

New Wolsey Theatre To 1 April 2006
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat 1 April 2.30pm
Runs 2hr 10min Two intervals

TICKETS: 01473 295900
www.wolseytheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 29 March

Flippancy covers embarrassment in Coward’s load of Sollocks.
Early in Noel Coward’s famous comedy, strongly revived at Ipswich by director Douglas Rintoul and an accomplished cast, Amanda, having re-met her first husband Elyot on the hotel balcony during her honeymoon to Victor, suggests it’s very difficult to know what anyone’s like “deep down in their private lives.” Very true, Noel. And extraordinary how potent cheap philosophy is in the theatre.

For, whenever Coward comes close to examining the private lives of his characters he comes a cropper. One line about women has the sharpness of something similar in Ayckbourn’s early-1970s Norman Conquests, but otherwise any philosophy, psychology or speculation is swept aside as if it barely existed (which it barely does) in favour of displays of temperament.

Which is where Rintoul’s production scores from the start. Tom Beard’s Elyot is patently bored with his new wife Sybil before they’ve had dinner, let alone slipped between the sheets. Saskia Butler’s Sybil, with her nagging sympathy, ever-smiling, ever-talking under the pretty-girl hair-curl hanging artfully over her brow, would send anyone scampering for cover. Similarly, John Dougall’s Victor, conventional in appearance and conversation, already lags behind frank-speaking, high-tension Amanda.

But other currents cross this basic layout. In the final act the production finds a quiet point of understanding between the men as they talk about women. It pleasantly contrasts Coward’s stiffness in such comments as Elyot’s suggestion his flippancy is a cover for embarrassment (Embarrassed? Elyot or Amanda? We wait to see it).

And temperament expresses itself different ways: Elyot and Amanda’s pendulum relationship (with ‘Sollocks’ their call for a mid-row truce) contrasts the absolute decline of Sybil and Victor once surface politeness has worn away. Pascale Burgess’s Parisian maid Louise, who has Elyot clearing the table for her to deposit a tray, adds her own forceful fury. Rightly so: she’s come in with a cold to find the place a mess.

It’s all played on Adam Wiltshire’s elegant set, corner hotel balconies in the moonlight-blue first act, followed by the black-and-white chic of Amanda’s huge Paris apartment, dominated by a vast window. Despite which, these people rarely see beyond themselves.

Sybil: Saskia Butler
Elyot: Tom Beard
Victor: John Dougall
Amanda: Hattie Ladbury
Louise: Pascale Burgess

Director: Douglas Rintoul
Designer: Adam Wiltshire
Lighting: Peter Hunter
Sound: Simon Deacon
Fight director: Jonathan Jaynes
Assistant director: Vik Sivalingam

2006-03-30 09:37:18