Love and Other Disasters

“Private Lives” wreaks comedic social havoc
Published in the Ventura County Reporter, 2/26/09

Groucho Marx once famously quipped, “I was married by a judge, but I should have asked for a jury.” The comedian knew too well that life’s fiery passions, which carry us to our highest heights, likewise bring us to the lowest of our lows – often even in the course of a single evening.

Such is the case with the hapless protagonists in Noel Coward’s Private Lives – which bows this month at the Ojai Art Center Theater – in which a chance meeting wreaks havoc in the headlong pursuit of heart’s desire. Coward’s 1930 comedy of manners offers a textbook case of ‘be careful what you wish for,’ when a divorced couple discover that they are honeymooning with their new spouses in the same hotel, discovering in the same course that the flame that first brought them together still burns – in this case, merrily burning their hopes and new lives to the ground.

While the work is a study in the English etiquette and social reserve of an age long gone, Private Lives offers themes that have resonated with audiences ever since its jazz-age debut; the play has been raised in countless revivals, no less than six turns on Broadway, and in a 1931 film adaptation, demonstrating that we remain well acquainted with the transformative power of love, for better or – all too often – for worse.

Private Lives could easily read like a tragedy, but Coward’s deft pacing and rapier comic timing never let us descend from mirth, even as the lovers’ passions careen like a wrecking ball, skipping tragedy altogether in favor of full-blown farce before the third act has had its way. By the same token, Frank James Malle’s deft staging and lush production effectively carries us back through the mists of time, to what might seem a more innocent age, if not for the foibles of his characters’ hearts, which are anything but innocent.

Those hearts are well realized in Malle’s small ensemble: from Tracey Williams, whose Amanda readily admits the fallibility of her character, even as such is redeemed in her savior-faire and winning smile; to Cecil Sutton’s Elyot, who descends from mere rake to veritable snake, yet does so with charming aplomb, not a little sympathy and more than a little charm; to Phil Nemy’s “Dear” Victor, whose upper-crust bearing, melodious accent and unrelenting chivalry all but beg to be taken down a peg, a task ultimately accomplished by the most unlikely of foes in Betsy McIntyre’s increasingly aggrieved Sibyl.

Like its distant cousin burlesque, comedies of manners derive their momentum from poking fun at, if not upending entirely, the strict conventions and propriety of upper-class society; Coward himself, possessed of an oeuvre Time Magazine called “a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise,” and very much an insider to that elite clique, spared no opportunity to skewer it for a broad audience, altogether more interested in entertainment than edification.

There are nevertheless profound truths in Private Lives, as it contrasts the conventions and social rituals of public life with the private and often destructive passions that lie just beneath the veneer of etiquette and respectability; yet if Coward would have his way, we would not take them too seriously. Of the thespian, Coward once famously quipped, “You ask my advice about acting? Speak clearly, don't bump into the furniture and if you must have motivation, think of your pay packet on Friday.” In times when altogether too much is too often taken altogether too seriously, the late Sir Noel’s outlook provides a winning effort in the Ojai Art Center’s splendid, roomy venue – offering a welcome respite to life’s vagaries in a weekend theatrical jaunt that, no matter one’s station in life, offers the optimistic notion that things could always be worse.