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| (Belvoir St Theatre) |
Noel Coward's play 'Private Lives' about a formerly married couple meeting unexpectedly whilst on honeymoon with their new partners dates from 1930 and in this production is brought up to a date never mentioned but evidently is the present. I write 'evidently' because that is not a given with this staging. The music used in the production is a spread between World War 2 and the 1960s. Some confused thinking if you ask me.
Similar confusion is evident in the set design which is, as usual for Belvoir Street, minimalist. The opening balcony or terrace scenes take place in front of hotel doors with the room numbers on them, each door separated by an elevator which opens onto the terraces. It is an odd design. The same setting then is applied to the apartment in Paris to which the four characters later adjourn. It just doesn't seem right.
The production has been very popular with many performances sold out and the audience at the performance we attended mostly gave it a rousing ovation when it concluded. Neither Cs nor I felt as warmly about it. I thought it was unfunny for long stretches in the middle but I concede the final scene worked beautifully.
Times have changed since the play was written. Domestic violence, an element in the plot, may have been the acceptable butt of humour in the 1930s but nowadays the thinking is different.
★★
Saw your tweet last night and I starting thinking. I have seen the play, yet I can't remember it, even though I remember it as being a very good play.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, it is still a good play and it was very well received by most of the audience we were amongst but we (Cs and I) both thought parts of that performance were unfunny which we attribute to cast members being off their game for a period.
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned the final scene was especially well done showing what the performers were capable of when returned to their best. This production played around with some elements of the original play and it is a pity that the domestic violence elements weren't toned down or better still deleted. This could easily have been achieved without detracting from the play.