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Design For Living |
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Author: Noel Coward
Reviewer: Carolyn Albert for Theatre Reviews Limited |
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Can one woman and two men live together happily? When playwright NOEL COWARD wrote this brittle and witty comedy in the early 1930's, the morality of his suggestion might have been shocking. Now, seventy years later, it could still have the power to tease and invite - had it been allowed to.
In "Design for Living" director JOE MANTELLO demonstrates some of the ways that a director can make a play that is still under copyright conform to his own personal vision.
  
Theater has traditionally been a writer's medium while film increasingly became a director's product. Much of the credit for keeping a stage play intact has been the Dramatists' Guild contract, which stipulates that no textual changes can be made without the author's permission. Plays no longer under the control of their authors or estates have been subject to both dreadful and occasionally wonderfully effective reinterpretations.
You would think that the work of playwright NOEL COWARD would be safe from extreme adaptation. Coward has been proclaimed a genius both during his lifetime and most recently during his 1999 centennial when revivals of his multi-faceted creativity popped up just about everywhere. Actor, director, author & playwright, composer & lyricist, he wrote and appeared in his own plays and films.
The motivation for Mr. Mantello's skewed reinterpretation might lie in the political climate of the current Gay Pride movement. Mr. Coward was a homosexual and, while this was well-known, it was never flaunted. Then, during most of Coward's lifetime, not only was one's private life a bit more private, there were also more legal constrictions against homosexual practices than today. Coward masked his sexuality in clever double-entendre. Those who knew, knew; those who chose not to know could continue.
Times have changed and Mantello brings his bold, uncloseted sweep to material that had always been handled deftly and delicately. In "Design for Living" the two males in this love-triangle proclaim their love for each other early and emphatically - but that was not emphatic enough for Mr. Mantello, who uses one of the devices of a director to make his point - the stage action. He has the men kiss each other full and lingeringly on the lips - more than once. If you don't getthe idea the first time, you will by the time it is repeated.
Kissing wasn't sufficient for the director who has his male leads cuddle erotically. I could've sworn I heard the author/composer of "I'll Follow My Secret Heart" shouting from the wings or from some Heavenly space above the theater. This heavy-handedness was uncharacteristic of Mantello who directed Terrence McNally's "Love! Valour! Compassion!" a show that dealt directly with homosexual relationships, but with far more grace.
Casting is excellent and performances strong in both major and minor roles. As the leading males, ALAN CUMMING and DOMINIC WEST, are both handsome and charming, gallant and gracious. Anyone would love them. At the apex of the triangle is JENNIFER EHLE, voluptuous of form and lovely of face. Her voice is warm and rapturous - yet she has been directed to rattle off most of her lines with the clackety chill of an icemaker. Furthermore, and most inscrutably, neither of the men exhibit as much physical attraction to her as they do to each other.
The play that results from this directorial interpretation is less credible than it might have been if given a more subtle interpretation. In the basic story, Gilda (Ehle) is first living in Paris with Otto (Cumming) but when playwright Leo (West) appears after an absence of several years, she beds him immediately, hiding it from their prim middle-aged friend, art dealer Ernest (JOHN CUNNINGHAM). We learn that Otto and Leo "knew" each other before they met Gilda. She loved (and still loves) them both, but preferred Otto, prompting Leo to disappear for a while.
Now Leo is back and Otto exits. Gilda lives with Leo who becomes a successful playwright in London. Although a year and a half have gone by, when Leo proposes marriage to her, she brings up their still-strong feelings for Otto; both still love him. Leo goes away for the weekend and when Otto shows up, Gilda promptly beds him. Again Ernest is shocked when he conveniently appears, only this time Gilda exits, leaving Leo and Otto.
Gilda has not only fled with Ernest, we find her two years later, married to him and living in New York. They share a sleekly modern penthouse apartment but not, the script suggests, their beds. One might be confused by this sexless marriage when it seemed obvious that Ernest was the only one deeply and single-mindedly in love with Gilda. Mantello has Cunningham portray him as one of those prissy males who were movie and TV stereotypes as repressed gays.
Otto and Leo show up to reclaim Gilda. They've spent the last two years together, traveling the world on tramp steamers. They claim to miss her and need her; however, given the steamy homo-eroticism of the previous scenes,it's difficult to believe that she is really a missing third of their group soul.
Thus, with the story becoming so incredible, one might focus on the large and lovely sets designed by ROBERT BRILL. The Paris studio was an extreme clutter of junk; the London hotel suite was superfluous with baskets of roses; the New York apartment was soaring and modern beyond reality. Brill's vision for "Design" implies what Mantello's does not - that these people are extremes, witty fictions, and not to be mistaken for real characters.
Written and produced in the early 1930's, the three exist in a world quite apart from political reality. When Gilda yearns to return to Berlin because it is so delightful there, she is not thinking of between-the-world-wars Germany suffering from inflation and political turmoil. Poverty, suffering, prejudice - all these don't affect our trio. They do more than skate on thin ice above the raging currents of the world, they float above, happily ignorant of anything beyond their own emotions.
Nicely portrayed minor characters never rattle the basic premise - that three can live as happily as two. A servant (JENNY STERLIN) at the London hotel suite adapts to the musical beds. An inane reporter (SAXON PALMER) fires off cliché questions without listening to any of the answers, a witty spoof of inane celebrity interviews. Three wealthy New York socialites (MARISA BERENSON, T. SCOTT CUNNINGHAM, JESSICA STONE) discuss Gilda or adroitly handle awkward social situations.
Costume designer BRUCE PASK has built seductive garments for Ms. Ehle that enhance her body. Alas, he also made Ms. Berenson look like an aging wire clothes hanger. Lighting by JAMES VERMEULEN renders the sets exciting. The smart casting was by JIM CARNAHAN & AMY CHRISTOPHER.
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Produced by Roundabout Theatre Company: Todd Haimes, Artistic Director; Ellen Richard, Managing Director; Julia C Levy, Executive Director.
CAST: Alan Cumming, Jennifer Ehle, Dominic West, Marisa Berenson, John Cunningham, T. Scott Cunningham, Saxon Palmer, Jenny sterlin, and Jessica Stone.
Theater: American Airlines Theatre, 227 West 42nd Street (7th-8th Aves.)
Schedule: Tuesday - Saturday at 8; Wednesday, Saturday & Sunday at 2. Tickets: $40-65 at box office or by phone at Roundabout Ticket Services: 212/719-1300.
MORE information about this and future productions at website: www.roundabouttheatre.org.
The theater is new and comfortable.
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