Roll up for this ride on the marry go-round

DAILY MAIL
October 5, 2001

Michael Coveney

Private Lives by Noel Coward: Albery Threatre
TWO violent acids in a matrimonial bottle.

That's Elyot and Amanda for you, celebrating five years of divorce by honeymooning on adjacent balconies with new partners in Deauville. Coward's 1930 comedy is one of the great plays of the last century. Last night, we went to a marvellous party, as Sir Noel would have most certainly approved. For Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan as Elyot and Amanda have redefined their roles in the most brilliant fashion, sculpted them to their own special talent while honouring the Master. Not since Robert Stephens and Maggie Smith kicked the stuffing out of each other nearly 30 years ago there been such a glorious tribute this fantastic, melancholic revival old animosities.

Too much in love to like each other very much, Elyot and Amanda are epitome of a modern, messy marriage, relaunched on the bitter sea of experience. They have too much history in common not to win through. So it seems in Howard Davies's coruscating production, which Tim Hatley has designed first as a towering wedding cake of balconies and then a red bohemian den in Paris. Rickman is sometimes too slackjawed for his own good. But his impeccable timing and magnificent wounded egomania have never been seen to better advantage: he releases Coward in an entirely new idiom. He plays Elyot's vanity like some heroic venture, squinting at everyone through a veil of delightful disdain. And Miss Duncan bats it all away like a trouper,moving silkily into pole position as an ice-queen of blonde bravura. Their second act fight is a logical conclusion of deep-seated affection, the sort that breeds real hate over trivialities. Rickman will impress his fans, and fashion pundits, with those black silk pyjamas.

I now see this war of attrition as an education for the second, outlawed couple, who end up bickering with the sort of passion that can only end in marriage. Adam Godley is a wonderful Victor, while Emma Fielding is sheer delight as Sybil, despite a dank wig making her look like an upturned mop.

 

 

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