PRIVATE LIVES. To 11 September.
St Andrews
PRIVATE LIVES
by Noel Coward
Byre Theatre To 11 September 2004
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Sat 2.30pm
Audio-described/BSL Signed 9 September, 11 September 2.30pm
After show Talkabout 6 September
Runs 2hr 10min One interval
TICKETS: -1334 475000
Review: Timothy Ramsden 21 August
A production that skates clumsily over the play's surface.New Byre director Stephen Wrentmore apparently created a good impression with his debut show, the first post-National Theatre production of Nicholas Wright's Vincent in Brixton. Following The BFG as summer show, he now really takes on the big league with Coward's comedy.
One of the most produced plays in Britain, recent years have seen it at the National and in the West End, as well as Birmingham, Bolton, Colchester, Exeter, Hornchurch, Derby - and Glasgow, last autumn. Many of those productions had fine or outstanding features. By their side this revival somehow combines the clumsy and the bland.
Tom McGovern looks the image of Coward (who originally acted Elyot), but does not have the ease necessary for the role. In a voice mixing Scottish and RP English tones he often grasps at phrases. Facially he shows a worry that's unexplained and certainly has no place in any orthodox portrayal of the character.
While Fletcher Mathers sometimes suggests the high-wire confidence and temperament in Amanda, she can approach the indecipherable in some lines, with syllables swallowed into inaudibility. She lacks the confident line needed to weld the pair's tempestuously variable love and fighting into a relationship which, however volatile, is believable.
The other pair of characters can survive on simpler characterisation. Sarah Manton looks suitably ridiculous in her flowing, bright-coloured evening wear. With her squeally voice she's believable as the little woman Elyot thinks he can control, and is annoying enough to make you glad he runs back to Wife No 1 - by the end of the evening, this Sybil would otherwise have been in severe danger of being toppled off the hotel balcony by her new husband.
Christopher Stevenson, ridiculous in clashing jacket and waistcoat, catches Victor's unimaginative stupidity. But a Private Lives where Elyot and Amanda are neither believable nor dramatically interesting, is a lost cause.
It's difficult, though, to blame the actors much. For even the slightest role of the French Maid is played by Jo Freer with a galumphing bad-temper that's all too typical of Wrentmore's approach - to exploit individual moments at the expense of consistency, the instant laugh undermining the developing comedy.
Deep down in their private lives, these people are not unordinary. For they are given no private lives; just a series of routines. Elyot's exaggerated singing (there are several extended musical moments) is one - it also includes some of the worst mimed piano-playing I've ever seen.
Alison de Burgh provides some good fight routines, but at present thy still seem choreographed moves rather than becoming real outbursts of temper. And the positive impression made by the black-and-white elegance of Yoon Jung Bae's hotel is dissipated by the bright colour rectangles of her Paris flat, which show utter lack of taste, especially when mystically mixed with blanked-out books and paintings. And, why does this flat seem open to anyone - the abandoned spouses walk right in without a door to stop them?
Sybil Chase: Sarah Manton
Elyot Chase: Tom McGovern
Victor Prynne: Christopher Stevenson
Amanda Prynne: Fletcher Mathers
Louise: Jo Freer
Director: Stephen Wrentmore
Designer: Yoon Jung Bae
Lighting: Ace McCarron
Sound: Neil Fenwick
Choreographer: Rita Henderson
Fight director: Alison de Burgh
2004-08-22 14:46:22