Review: PRIVATE LIVES, Reading Rep Theatre
Photo credit: Pamela Raith
Reading Rep, in this new season of plays, feels like it is maturing into a theatrical force to be reckoned with in Berkshire; and is just what the town needs. After the wonderful production of Educating Rita last month, they now stage an amazing production of the classic 1930’s play Private Lives and set new standards for the company in staging, direction and performance. Besties, it is only playing until 9 May so you will need to book quickly to get a ticket!
Noel Coward’s music and plays defined a theatrical era with his unique personal style, wit and flamboyance and he innovated with the theatrical form, created female characters at least as assertive as the men, and set out some engaging battle of the sexes. Private Lives may be nearly one hundred years old but the script still fizzes with brilliant lines and presents opportunities for delightful comic encounters.
Kevin Jenkins’ set design immediately impresses as you take your seat, transporting us to the balcony of a luxury hotel in the South of France and fully utilising the intimacy of the venue as the protagonists peer over the balustrade at the yacht in the harbour. What’s more, if you get a ticket, don’t rush to the bar but stay and watch the transformation by stage management from the exterior setting to the internal setting of Amanda’s Paris apartment, complete with Noel Coward’s producer Binkie Beaumont’s own original piano lent to the production, and a host of Hollywood golden era props. It is a delightful directorial touch by Matthew Forbes, as you spot a clapperboard from David Lloyd’s 1933 film Cavalcade, an Oscar (first introduced in 1929), film reels, and a megaphone, all of which get charmingly used in the director’s blocking.
It sets up the action with a lovely comic touch that the outstanding cast use perfectly to deliver Coward’s bickering, back biting, witticisms with perfect timing and delightful reactions. Coward’s stilted received pronunciation style is ramped up into brilliant melodramatic comic business that gives the classic play, while still set in the 1930s, a fresh exciting feel. Amanda, beautifully played by Amy Di Bartolomeo, presents herself as if she is a silent film actress, using her physicality to enhance the comedy with ridiculous dramatic postures. She is matched by Orla O’Sullivan as the naïve Sybil, the second wife of Elyot, an unreliable charmer (played by Christopher Bonwell), as they both start their second honeymoons in the South of France on adjoining balconies. The scenes between them are perfectly pitched, conveying their emotional confusion of love, suspicion and jealousy. Emile John, as Amanda’s second husband Victor, provides the stable, likeable, sensible man caught up in the middle of the arguments and tantrums. He is the straight man in the comedy double acts. There is also lovely debut cameo from Rose-Anna Richardson, a member of the Reading Rep Theatre Youth Ensemble, as the French speaking maid, Louise. The Act Three coffee scene between the five of them is an absolute joy.
It is so exciting to see a classic play freshened up by the direction so delightfully and despite the setting and costumes, it does not feel dated. Its messages about our perceptions of people and relationships with friends and family still feels relevant. When Amanda says “few people completely normal really, deep down in their private lives”, she pinpoints what we all know today, that people’s public faces (especially those of celebrities and politicians) may be very different to their true selves and then later follows it up with the response to Elyot: “it does not suit men for women to be promiscuous”, highlighting gender double standards. But most of all, this is what live theatre should always do first, entertain and amuse its audience and Reading Rep’s latest production certainly does that.
***** Five stars
Reviewed by: Nick Wayne
Private Lives plays at Reading Rep until 9 May, with further info here.