BWW Reviews: Coward's Intimate PRIVATE LIVES Inspires Audiences at Third Avenue Playhouse

In the "intimate" comedy at Sturgeon Bay's "intimate" Third Avenue Playhouse, Stage Door Theatre Company presents Noel Coward's cheeky comedy from the 1930's Private Lives. In one of Coward's most successful plays, two previously married spouses meet on their respective honeymoons with their now younger partners at a French resort after remarrying.

Coward's portrayal of how Elyot Chase and his former wife Amanda Prynne deal with this uncomfortable situation--married for three years, divorced for five--invites a risque solution to the problem when Elyot and Amanda run away with each other to her Paris apartment, supposedly .to "live in sin." In the aftermath, leaving their newly married spouses, Sibyl and Victor, alone with each other at the resort.

This "moderne" version played out in the Art Deco Era, a period in time when Europe had been devastated by the disillusionment and carnage created after World War I. Frivolity ruled, women's rights were becoming an issue along with shorter hair, skirts and wearing pants,, while perhaps the upper social classes could afford travel to exotic countries and cosmopolitan apartments, then actually divorce and remarry.

In the lead roles, Robert Boles sensitively directs Lee Becker and Claire Morkin, who impart a sophisticated, worldly edge to Elyot and Amanda with their priceless facial expressions and gestures adding additional wit to Coward's lyrical albeit saucy language--His rather pessimistic beliefs on life, love, marriage and the afterlife. While Elyot and Amanda have spent several nights together in Paris, having discovered their love sparks for each other once again, they ask each other: Do you believe in anything? They both answer no and recoup their optimism by Becker playing a few songs on the piano, highly entertaining with these talented singers.

Then the previously married couple's bickering begins again, the fights and indelicacies that ended their marriage. When the two jilted spouses arrive at in Paris, to determine what is be done with this indecency, Katherine Duffy's innocent Sibyl and Ryan Patrick Shaw's debonair Victor create have a row of their own while trying to determine what the outcome to this dilemmas might be. Playing Louise the French maid, the young actor Madeline Bunke finds a great cameo role in the third act, trying to assess the damage and return civility to the apartment.

Perhaps Coward's play resonates more in today's culture because divorce has become very common--along with the demise of manners, politeness, common courtesy and social structures, which even in Coward's script allow a degree of human civility to these difficult and embarrassing situations, where coffee and croissants in the morning ease the pain or strain to love.. Elyot attempts to employ these manners, along with a smile, instead of a fist fight with Victor over Amanda's alleged impropriety, more severe for her than Elyot, hence a nod to the sexual "double standard's" discussed in other conversations during the play.

While phonograph records crack over head, and sarcasm returns to Elyot and Amanda's new love, for better or worse, the action transcends to how audience members then view love and marriage in own lives...what does marriage mean? Every couple will disagree, and does a touch of passionate physicality need to enter in? Becker and Morkin radiate the dichotomy in these relationships and the connection once married spouses can still spark in each other at times with emotive, polished performances.

An evening at TAP spent with Coward allows the audience plenty to contemplate after the theatre, while Private Lives injects unquestionably contemporary humor (listen closely) into Stage Door's three act play, comtemplate the demise of courtesy, diplomacy, and manners to manage a situation. Yet, the play leaves the audience on a high note when Elyot sings to Amanda one of Coward's popular songs "Someday I'll Find You;" I'll lever leave you/Love you forever/All our past sorrow redeeming."

Think on those lyrics after this refreshing and sparkling as a dirty martini production of Private Lives...to Coward's unequivocal words to live by after the dust settles in any argument or disagreement.." Love you forever....All past sorrow redeeming."

Stage Door Theatre Company presents Noel Coward's Private Lives at Third Avenue Playhouse 239 North Third Avenue through September 25. For information or tickets, please call: 920.743.1760 or www.thirdavenueplayhouse.com

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