Noel Coward’s Private Lives

Reviewed by Melanie Jennings
at the Lamb’s Players Theatre of Coronado

Pictured (L-R): Robert Smyth and Cynthia Gerber

If this summer’s box office bombs have got you down, Coronado’s Lamb’s Players Theatre’s staging of Noel Coward’s Private Lives offers just the antidote. Witty and sharp, Coward’s careful script matches the deft delivery of the Lamb’s Players ensemble.

The premise of Private Lives is the capricious nature of love. A kind of drawing room comedy, the play opens with a campy set of honeymooners sharing adjacent balconies in a French Riviera hotel. If this sounds fun, we’re soon surprised to learn that two of them, Amanda and Elyot, were previously married to each other. Horrified to see one another, each connives to spirit their newly betrothed away from the hotel, hoping to salvage their honeymoon and indeed, their new marriages. Sybil, Elyot’s new wife, becomes hysterical at Elyot’s demand that they leave the hotel at once and finish their honeymoon elsewhere. Elyot, played by Robert Smyth, delivers some classic and crowd-pleasing lines in this exchange with the hysterical Sybil, such as: "If you don’t stop screaming, I’ll murder you." After failed attempts to leave the hotel, Amanda and Elyot find themselves once again together on the balcony while their mates nurse wounds in the hotel casino. A couple of cocktails later and all hell breaks loose.

The first act highlights the wonderful timing and delivery of the two female leads, Deborah Gilmour Smyth as Amanda and Cynthia Gerber as Sybil. Gerber’s priceless onstage laughs make the audience both laugh with and at her. Private Lives is a great opportunity to see real-life couple Robert Smyth (Elyot) and Deborah Gilmour Smyth (Amanda) play the two leading and romantically entangled roles. Nick Cordileone (Victor) and Cynthia Gerber (Sibyl) are also engaging and comical as half-wits not quite following the psychological twists and turns of their more sophisticated partners.

Always impressive is the attention the Theatre routinely pays to cleverly changing sets, thus providing fidgeting audience members with something to watch. This suggests the care with which director Kerry Meads approached the presentation of Private Lives as a whole, not just the script. Performed by Rik Ogden (flute/sax/guitar), Marke Foxworthy (guitar/dobro), Dan Sankey (guitar/violin/mandolin), and Oliver Shirley (bass), Deborah Gilmour Smyth arranged the music of Noel Coward to accentuate specific scenes and on occasion provide a comical counterpoint to them. Mike Buckley’s set design literally spun from a ritzy hotel balcony to a swank Paris apartment decorated with plenty of small projectiles–ammunition for characters prone to volatile mood swings. Costume designer Jeanne Reith emphasized each character’s personality traits with a carefully considered outfit.

Private Lives is a well executed and thoroughly compelling comedy of manners. To see it is to enjoy the caustic wit of Noel Coward, the punchy delivery of the seasoned and talented Lamb’s Players, and your own big guffaws at this delightful production.

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