Private Lives @ Stolen Shakespeare Guild
Photo Credit: Bart Stewart
—Jan Farrington
Elyot and Amanda used to be married. They fought, and made up, and fought, and made up…and then got a divorce.
Now, they’re both on their second honeymoons, with two nice people they’ve (suckered?) into marrying them. And their rooms, at a posh seaside resort in France, share a nice, big balcony overlooking the Mediterranean. Side by side…
Oops.
Stolen Shakespeare Guild’s smartly directed production of Noel Coward’s Private Lives is genuinely funny from start to finish—a good trick, frankly, for a comedy sneaking up on its 100th birthday. In 1930, the British officials thought Elyot and Amanda’s floor-rolling fight was so sexy they tried to have it cut. Today, it reads more like a cable-TV sitcom (Married…with Posh Accents), or an episode of Downton Abbey where everyone’s had too many gin fizzes.
But it works. The cast of five (four speaking English and the fifth some naughty French invective) is excellent, hanging onto those upper-crust tones for dear life, but never letting them get in the way of fun. Director Staci Ingram-Cook (and a lot of good actorly instinct) edges them toward comic excess, but always leaves room for moments of genuine feeling: regret, loss, embarrassment, and the joy of having a second chance. We may think Elyot and Amanda are half-mad, but they fall back in love every time they see each other. And that’s not nothing.
The question is: Can they live with each other? Love is one thing, but these two have hair-trigger buttons, and both know when and where to push them.
Travis Cook is Elyot, and looks the part, nicely togged out in a black tux or silk pajamas and dressing gown. He has a wonderfully expressive face, capable of flying from rage to banter to tenderness in an instant. We wonder if Elyot was always as detached from his own life as he appears with new wife Sybil (Sara Rashelle is delightful), a nice young woman he nearly pats on the head like a puppy. She, we guess, is the not-Amanda, a safer second love.
Lauren Morgan is the passionate Amanda, starting a new “smooth” life (smoother than with Elyot) in the cozy embrace of her husband Victor’s protectiveness. (Carter Frost is very “what-what?” and amusing as the super-nice-guy of the bunch, a bluff Englishman in tweeds who jumps at any chance to defend his dear Amanda.) Morgan watches him with quiet love, but we don’t see any fire in her eyes. Maybe she’s over all that.
Or maybe not. It only takes one chance encounter on the hotel balcony, and Elyot and Amanda are off to the races (or rather, her apartment in Paris). Morgan’s shift from sensible second wife to runaway bride is hilarious, and oddly believable. Barefoot in silk pajamas, she oozes happiness with Elyot on the sofa beside her.
It’s too bad they have to talk.
Director Ingram-Cook paces their series of tiffs, then fights, then barroom brawls beautifully, each one a bit longer, noisier, and more physical than the one before. They even resort to a safety phrase, “Solomon Isaacs,” that means they have to break off conversation and contact for two minutes. To no one’s surprise, Sybil and Victor are pulled into their messy orbit—and the put-upon maid (Lindsey Nelson is a hoot) has nothing good to say (in French) about any of them.
The staging makes the best possible use of SSG’s smaller space, keeping the actors up close to the audience for most of the action. (It really does feel like a wacky sitcom at times.) Morgan’s costumes (she wears many hats at SSG) are very well done, especially Sybil’s lovely ‘30s couture, and set designer D. Aidan Wright’s build of the hotel balcony is very evocative of time and place.
Coward has a somewhat deserved reputation for writing fluff and nonsense. But Private Lives hasn’t lasted this long without having some thoughts to share about life, love, marriage—and how sometimes, what we want (who we want) makes life harder than we’d ever dream.
Good thing Elyot and Amanda are so much fun to meet—onstage, that is.
WHEN: Through August 28
WHERE: SSG @ The Fort Worth Community Arts Center
