Broadway Blog - PRESENT LAUGHTER Review Roundup

Victor Garber stars in this new production (and the first Broadway opening of 2010!). Garry is a vainglorious actor who is about to celebrate his birthday with a trip to Africa. But when Garry's posh London flat is invaded by a love-struck ingénue, his estranged wife, an adulterous producer and a crazed young playwright, so begins the kind of midlife crisis that could only come from the brilliant mind of comic genius - and master of the mix-up - Noël Coward.

Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press: "director Nicholas Martin manages to keep the bubbles from bursting in the Roundabout Theatre Company's effervescent revival that opened Thursday at Broadway's American Airlines Theatre. Much of the credit goes to his debonair leading man, Victor Garber, who looks totally at home in a spiffy dressing-gown and silk pajamas. But then the man has the requisite matinee-idol profile to play Garry Essendine, a charming, self-absorbed actor who bears an uncanny resemblance to the playwright himself."

Charles Isherwood, The New York Times: "Should Bergdorf Goodman experience a sudden run on velvet smoking jackets and silk pajamas, blame Victor Garber, the debonair star of the Roundabout Theater Company revival of "Present Laughter," Noël Coward's valentine to the maddening, marvelous world of the theater and to his own maddening, marvelous self."

Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News: "Coward didn't traffic in over-the-top, but when Ashmanskas is on stage, it's omnipresent laughter. Works for the show, works for me."

Elisabeth Vincentelli, NY Post: "The performances are fun to watch -- and Garber does have a smooth charm -- except that they belong to different shows."

Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal: "If you've never seen "Present Laughter," go and enjoy yourself: It's a comic gem, and this production is much better than none at all. The set alone, an Art Deco orgy designed by Alexander Dodge, is almost worth the price of admission. If you know the play at all well, though, you won't need to be told what Messrs. Martin, Garber and Ashmanskas are getting wrong, and why it matters."

Scott Brown, NY Magazine: "Victor Garber, God bless him, can wear the daylights out of a dressing gown. He can even make an old one look...well, not new, exactly, but damned comfortable. And "comfortable" is the word that pops immediately into mind after experiencing the gentle, genial charms of the Roundabout's Present Laughter, a comedy about aging ungracefully, the silken pleasures of decompensation, and the people we choose to grow old with, to the extent that we have any choice in the matter."

Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter: "Unless a comedy by Noel Coward is played with perfect precision, it tends to have the taste of champagne that has lost its fizz. Such is the case with the Roundabout's Broadway revival of "Present Laughter." In this production, the name of the lead character of aging matinee idol Garry Essendine, modeled on the playwright himself, has been reduced to Gary. Like that wayward letter, something has been lost along the way."

John Simon, Bloomberg News: "The text has undergone cuts, rephrasings, and some peculiar additions, including a redundant, musical-comedy second ending. Still, no one can quite kill Coward."

Brendan Lemon, Financial Times: "A climactic physical gag between the playwright, played by Brooks Ashmanskas, and a dowager, played by Alice Duffy, remains priceless, but Ashmanskas's wide-eyed leaping about tended to grate the second time around. And the line readings of the lovely Pamela Jane Gray, as Garry's seducer Joanna, slow down the evening's pace too much. Otherwise, Present Laughter is delightful."

Michael Sommers, NJNewsRoom.com: "Roundabout Theatre Company's revival, which opened Thursday, showcases Victor Garber, an excellent actor who's all right here but doesn't possess that indefinable but indispensable life force that Coward termed "star quality." Without a powerfully charming hero blazing at its core, the comedy drifts along rather than whirls away."

Erik Haagensen, Backstage: "it's with bewildered disappointment that I have to report that Roundabout's current production amounts to almost a total misfire."

David Rooney, Variety: "The silk dressing gowns and suave airs of aging matinee idol Garry Essendine are a fine fit for Victor Garber in "Present Laughter," as are the quietly melancholy undertones of a charming but vain peacock, too self-absorbed and infantile to appreciate the pleasures life affords him. He's housed in the swankiest of London apartments in Nicholas Martin's elegant production, with its gorgeous, honey-toned deco wall treatments and cascading chandeliers, dominated by a portrait of Garry as Hamlet that leaves no doubt as to who's the center of attention. But those assets can't keep a certain windy fatigue from creeping into Noel Coward's comedy."