PRIVATE LIVES. To 5 April.
Bolton
PRIVATE LIVES
by Noel Coward
Octagon Theatre To 5 April 2003
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat 19,22,26 March 2pm
Runs 2hr 25min Two intervals
TICKETS: 01204 520661
Review: Timothy Ramsden 8 March
There have been Private Lives with more style and laughter, but this firm-footed production seeks a grounding in reality.For such a light concoction you need only the finest ingredients whipped into perfectly-judged action. Finest theatrical ingredients tend to be scarce, of course. But pungent new sauces risk spoiling the texture – as Mark Babych's alert, skilled yet uneasy production shows.
He takes his cue from the title line, the assertion that 'deep down in their private lives' few people are normal. The point's almost as vapid as the brief, indulgent 'theology' that comes later; the joke is, it's said in dialogue between two self-obsessedly exhibitionist people.
We know nothing of Elyot and Amanda except they can neither live together nor find fulfilment with anyone else. Nancy Surman's design for the first act French hotel balconies where they re-meet as each is beginning a second marriage, looks more like the rear French-windows of suburban semi-detacheds, potted plants and garden furniture spreading across the patios. The lines of the land suggests shared rather than compartmentalised space.
Retreated to their Paris hideaway, the pair give a decent run-through of temperamental need and disharmony – signalled in the record Amanda breaks over Elyot's head. So by the time the new other halves turn up to find out what's happened to their marriages, it's not surprising these outsize temperaments trip them into their own quarrelling. In his surprise add-on end Babych has Sibyl and Victor fall – literally – for one another. The cost of this surprise is that it completes the reduction of the two leads to folks next door. Its strength is it makes the play about more than a couple of rare dream-creatures.
Susie Trayling's American Amanda introduces a confusing cross-cultural element – though her knowledge of Norfolk geography's the more impressive. Stephen Beckett almost reaches Elyot's monstrous ego. Only an ultimate lack of spontaneity in tone strikes a discordant sense of effort.
Rina Mahoney unfortunately strikes self-conscious poses, matched by over-emphasis of words; the performance reads like a series of early Hollywood reaction shots with the vocals of an incipient Margaret Dumont. But Christopher Wright's Victor is understatedly comic, facial puzzlement preceding him momentarily before his mid catches up with the inevitably conventional reaction.
Sibyl: Rina Mahoney
Elyot: Stephen Beckett
Victor: Christopher Wright
Amanda: Susie Trayling
Louise: Cassandre Atkinson
Director: Mark Babych
Designer: Nancy Surman
Lighting: Thomas Weir
Sound: Andy Smith
Fight director: Ian Stapleton
2003-03-09 21:07:20