Private
Lives
Reviewed by Lee Bemrose
This debut
production by Balloon Head Theatre of Noel Coward's classic romantic
comedy was also my first experience of the play, and although I know
that it is produced regularly to mostly glowing reviews, and although
I am a sucker for a good romcom, I can't say I'm a fan of the play. I
honestly don't know what all the fuss is about.
For the
uninitiated, Elyot and Amanda used to be married. Then they divorced.
Elyot recently married Sybil and Amanda recently married Victor. By
coincidence, Elyot and Sybil have booked their honeymoon hotel room
right next door to Amanda and Victor's honeymoon hotel room. You're
either the kind of person who reacts with “Ha! How funny is that?”,
or the kind of person who thinks, “You've got to be kidding
me.”
Elyot and Amanda discover that they are neighbours and
decide, due to their acrimonious past, that they all must leave. They
do not tell their new partners who is staying next door, just rather
insist that they must leave. The newly-weds quarrel over this, with
Sybil and Victor refusing to leave, and storming out for the evening.
Elyot and Amanda reluctantly share drinks and conversation on Eliot's
balcony. They reminisce and in the blink of an eye decide they are in
love again, so much so that they have to elope at once without
telling their new spouses what is going on. (Again... seriously?).
Back in Amanda's Paris apartment, Elyot and Amanda hole up, booze up
and talk incessantly about how much they love each other. Soon,
however, they suddenly hate each other again. Sybil and Victor turn
up, more shouting and bickering and insults and the play ends.
I
once read that using coincidence as a device in story-telling was a
pretty bad idea, so I admit that I was off to a bad start here with
the coincidence of these former spouses ending up in neighbouring
hotel rooms. I also questioned Sybil and Victor's obsessions with
their new spouse's former spouses on their honeymoon – wouldn't
this kind of talk have happened in the early stages of their
relationships? Would they really happen on the first night of their
honeymoon?
Thing is, the dialogue is pretty good and I found
myself lightening up. WTF. Just a romcom. Lots of witty banter in
this act and some pretty decent acting too, particularly from the
driving forces of the play; Oscar Shaw as Elyot did Aloof
Upper-Class-Twat really well, and Seren Oroszvary did Volatile
Upper-Class I-Love-You-I-Hate-You-Psycho really well. The characters
of Sybil (Rachel Shrives) and Victor (Ben Symon) appeared to be
written as lighter characters and the roles were played accordingly,
perhaps self-consciously going for the comic relief angle. This was
most obvious in the second act when the mood was less fluffy than in
the first act.
The second act seemed a little long and not as
pacey as the first. This was because this was the serious part of the
story, where shit was going to go down. The spirit of Elyot and
Amanda being cocooned from the world in a drunken delirium of love
was beautifully done, then a little over-done. The comedy to drama
ratio was kept up even though a tapering of the humour to let the
serious stuff bubble through might have worked better (if I had been
Noel Coward's dramaturg... oops... back to reviewing).
By the
time Sybil and Victor arrived at the apartment, I had long stopped
wondering how this was all going to pan out, because I didn't care
for any of these characters. I really didn't care how it ended. If we
liked at least one of the characters and wanted things to go their
way there would have been some tension. But as it was, meh, I don't
care if she ends up with him or he ends up with him or if they all
kill each other with rusty spoons.
In saying how much I'm not
a fan of the text (did you pick up on that at all?), I did think this
was a pretty good debut production. Lots of friends and family in the
audience on opening night and so naturally some of the laughs came
from said family and friends seeing, erm, a family member or friend
doing funny things on stage. But not all; many of the laughs were a
result of some very good comic acting.
Set design was
minimally evocative, which is all you need. Sound was a slight
problem in the second act when the hotel walls were pushed back on
the stage and the balconies became the apartments walls and music was
played loud.
The French housemaid Louise (Camilla Eustance)
was funny without doing much, as was the Kate Bush piece, which I
suspect probably
wasn't in the original text. Both these segments were absolutely
enjoyable but didn't seem to move the story forward in any way.
If
you're a fan of this Noel Coward guy, I suspect you'll probably enjoy
Balloon Head Theatre's production of Private Lives. Looking forward to seeing to
what Balloon Head does next.
