Here’s what we’re in for – a British comedy of manners by the late Noel Coward, which premiered in 1930. It descends into farce and like the plays of Ray Cooney will make one laugh or make one look for the nearest exit.
Elyot (Patrick Vest) has taken his new bride, Sibyl (Barbara Jean Urich), on a honeymoon to the south of France. Staying at the same resort, staying in fact in an adjacent room with an adjoining terrace, is Victor (Cylan Brown) and his new wife, Amanda (Suzanne Dean).
Elyot and Amanda are former spouses, married for three years, divorced now for five. We meet each couple individually. In both cases, the past marriage comes up, with Elyot (to Sibyl) and Amanda (to Victor) reassuring their new life partner of how much they still deplore their prior mates. Ah, there’s the setup!
All of this is heavily stylized and contrived, of course, and a few minutes later, alone on their respective balconies, Elyot and Amanda spy one another. Each one then proceeds to tell his/her astonished and uncomprehending spouse that this hotel will no longer do.
Bickering becomes them. Coward even hints that it’s the glue that binds and unbinds all relationships. As Elyot and Amanda begin sniping at one another accusingly they begin to realize that their old love hasn’t died. And so they do the Cowardly thing – they run off together.
There follows the inevitable encounter between Victor and Sibyl, each realizing that they have something in common – vanishing spouses – as a sort of mutual attraction takes hold.
The reconfigured couples duke it out in the second and third acts, which take place in a Paris apartment.
There is a great deal of witty wordplay here, reminiscent of Oscar Wilde. But this is a play that requires, that insists upon, stunning and elegant actors. The four leads in this play – along with Kimberly Patterson as a disgruntled French maid – are fine on a small budget, community theater level. However, “Private Lives” needs to sparkle like some rare jewel; otherwise, why do it?
Coward’s comedy moves along at a good clip, which is one of director Stephanie Coltrin’s many talents, but the actors aren’t especially convincing this time around. Brown and Vest have great rapport with one another, but it’s almost the sort of slapstick, vaudevillian humor we’ve seen them enact, repeatedly, in “Moonlight and Magnolias,” “Barefoot in the Park,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” and “Art.” Dean may be the most convincing actor of this troupe, but while she was well suited for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” it’s questionable as to whether she’s well suited here. And as for Urich, her expressions are too loud and clownish, as if she’s rehearsing for Barnum and Bailey.
Well, that was easy – your reviewer not buying into any of the actors. Maybe the characters are supposed to strike us as incredibly fickle, in which case the actors succeeded too well. However one slices it, though, the show may amuse, but it’s not memorable.
Private Lives is onstage tonight through Saturday at 8 p.m. and then closes on Sunday with the 2 p.m. matinee. Where? The Hermosa Beach Playhouse, 710 Pier Ave, Hermosa Beach. Tickets, $40. Call (310) 372-4477 or go to hermosabeachplayhouse.com. ER
