Private Lives Go Public

There’s generally an underlying hum of frustration from a certain group of theater-goers (usually of the writerly ilk) who wonder why a self-entitled revival is staking claim on the Great White Way when an unseen play of perhaps equal attraction, glamour, drama and quotable dialogue collects dust on an agent's desk.  

Private Lives, however, is no such revival. Five minutes into the Noel Coward comedy currently in previews at the Music Box Theater, the lyrical Anglophilian banter and nonchalant humor afforded only by brilliant writing will have you enraptured—and all that even before Kim Cattrall sumptuously enters the stage in a terrycloth towel.

Private Lives is the story of Amanda (Cattrall) and Elyot (Paul Gross) who, once upon a divorce five years ago, endured a passionate and tumultuous marriage. The play opens at a luxury hotel in Deauville, France, where Elyot has just brought his new wife, Sybil (Anna Medeley), to honeymoon. Despite Sybil’s constant references to queries about Elyot’s first wife, all is seemingly going well. That is, until it turns out that the suite to which their balcony adjoins belongs to Amanda and her new husband, Victor (Simon Paisley Day) who, like Sybil, perpetually refers to Amanda’s previous spouse.

Unbeknownst to their current other halves, Amanda and Elyot soon discover each other's precarious proximity, and when the flame of their former passion is reignited, they flee Deauville in hopes of starting anew. But, they soon discover once a tumultuous couple, always a tumultuous couple. It’s your worst relationship nightmare, your optimistically fantasized happy ending, and endless, raucous laughter all shaken, stirred and delivered in the most entrancing martini glass you’ve ever laid eyes on. And you won’t want to sip this theatrical cocktail, you’ll want to gluttonously gulp it down and ask for more, more, more.

Cattrall delivers every bit of devil-may-care spice and verve that Amanda commands, fully embodying the entitled, independent flair of the British upper-crust of yesteryear while also seamlessly delivering moments of clarified tenderness (she might very well bring a tear to your eye when she sweetly sings a sentimental song reminiscent of the good times she and Elyot once shared).  

Gross rises to the challenge of playing opposite such a revered iconic actress, successfully making erratic verbal abuse seem comedic and drunken arrogance seem downright sexy.  

Madeley and Paisley Day respectfully give the stage to Cattrall and Gross, though not submissively—they’re as present as their characters require. Yet, when they’re at the helm of the stage in the third act, they’re every bit as captivating as their counterparts.

The stage design may be just a smidgen unspectacular (except for a remarkable, functioning fish tank that is essentially three enormous fishbowls teetering on top of one another, ensconced by a swirling, metal Art Deco ribbon), but who needs lavish stage design when the dialogue and hearty acting chops are already so rich?

Coward once said of Sophia Loren:

She should have been sculpted
in chocolate truffles so that the
world could devour her.

Well, were this production of Private Lives a tray of truffles, I’d gleefully, gladly devour them, bellyaches be damned.  

Private Lives is currently in previews at the Music Box Theater and opens on 17 November, 2011.