One of Noël Coward’s more indestructible plays. On B’way alone, a success for Coward, Clifton Webb, George C. Scott, Frank Langella (perfectly cast), Victor Garber and most recently Kevin Kline. Here, Andrew Scott is stage star Garry Essendine, just turned forty and about to leave on a long tour when he finds himself, along with his theatrical circle of friends, stuck in his swanky apartment playing out a French Sex farce of his own making for real. Secretary, housekeeper, valet, overnight ‘guest’, ex-wife, manager & wife, everybody wants Essendine, his attention or a roll in the hay. Smartly structured for first act clarity, second act conflict and third act hide-and-seek chases, this Live National Theatre production dives straight in with broad playing to its live audience (farce, don’cha you know) that takes a bit of adjusting to, a well as sexual updating in character & motivation (one sex change and three now bi-sexual). that needs even more. It still makes sense this way (it may even make more sense), but playing what had been SUBTEXT as TEXT, thins the texture. Even in a farce, not something that helps Coward. And it lends a self-congratulatory knowingness to what was meant to be closeted naughtiness. Still, Scott gets his laughs and revels in his big speech on amateur playwrights while secretary Sophie Thompson makes like Maggie Smith (a nonpareil Cowardian) while Enzo Cilenti’s infatuated male (formerly female) lover grabs attention with a spot on Anton Walbrook accent. But the play’s end now just an exhausted question mark.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Considering the changes in tone & text, shouldn’t there be a credit for adaptation?
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