Private Lives: Slack pacing plagues production of Noel Coward classic
David Whiteley and Alix Sideris . Photo: Andrew Alexander
Noel Coward had no qualms about knifing his audience emotionally, but he did it with sparkle, his language a kind of pirouette that, lunging suddenly, could disembowel.
This production of Coward’s most popular play, which we saw in a preview before opening night, thrusts the knife a lot but dances rarely and winds up saying little for all the talk that occurs.
The plot is simple and deliciously silly. Elyot (David Whiteley) and Amanda (Alix Sideris) have divorced each other and remarried. They accidentally meet while honeymooning at the same hotel with their new spouses: in Elyot’s case, Sybil (Bronwyn Steinberg) and in Amanda’s, Victor (Steve Martin).