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The Broadway Beat

Coward & Williams Revived

By Steve Wells
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

NEW YORK - In a season as
chock full of comedy revivals as
this one is, it only seems proper
that Noel Coward not be forgotten.
And so, with the public's interest
and, of course, money in mind,
producer David Merrick snatched
the APA production of "Private
Lives" from its tour and planted it
on Broadway, where it has deservedly
become a fertile hit.

This is comedy at its highest.
Mr. Coward, a master of the English
language, carefully introduces, explores,
and resolves an intrinsically
humorous situation in three well-structured
acts, with the result
being an unabashedly light-hearted,
amusing play. It's a game of love
and marriage in which the likeable
contestants follow their emotions
and, in so doing, toss the rule book
aside.

Elyot and Sibyl are spending
their honeymoon in a hotel in
France when he discovers that his
ex-wife, Amanda, is doing exactly
the same thing in the suite next
door with a stuffed shirt named
Victor. The divorced couple immediately
realizes that their love is not
for their present mates, but for one
another, and by the end of the first
act, they have scampered back to
Amanda's flat in Paris. In the
second round the two make both
love and war, and by the time the
final gong sounds, their connubial
tag-team partners have arrived on
the scene to make it a foursome.

Stephen Porter's staging of this
sophisticated foolishness shows
much respect both to Mr. Coward's
play and to the era to which it
belongs. Wisely, there has been no
attempt to update the pace in any
way. The pace is lively, at least in
the last two acts, and Mr. Porter's
directorial touches - which range
from unusually smart character
emphasis to some nifty by-play on
the sofa always serve to heighten
the author's razor sharp dialogue.
Also, Mr. Porter and his fine cast
have a uncanny sense of comic
timing.

Brian Bedford plays Elyot with
a cool arrogance, speaks his words
with all the propriety of a young,
upper class Englishman, and is, in
short, outstanding. Tammy Grimes
portrays his determined and explosive
ex-and-future wife with an
undefinable charm, even though it
takes a while to get used to her
rapid rate of speech. David Glover
plays, quite appropriately and
splendidly, the original "horse's
ass" as the pompous, befuddled
Victor, and Suzanne Grossman
affectionately worries and weeps
her way through the part of Sibyl.

"Private Lives" is forty-one
years old and, given the professional
efforts of Mr. Porter and
friends, remains frenzied and funny,
witty and wonderful.

While the APA is making
audiences smile, the Repertory
Theater of Lincoln Center is
making them think with their
second production of the season,
Tennessee Williams' 1953 play,
"Camino Real." There is much
symbolism and meaning in this
lyrical, dream-like drama, which is
one of Mr. Williams' most fascinating
works.

What Mr. Williams has done is to
gather great lovers and dreamers
together in a single place at an
undefined time, and to throw into
their midst a seeming realist named
Kilroy. It isn't long before we
realize that the author has pulled a
switch and not only is Kilroy not a
realist but he is the supreme
romantic. He arrives at Camino
Real (a place which is nowhere and
everywhere) and sees only the vivid
and harsh facts of life. The lovers
are unfulfilled and the dreamers
have accepted their fate of one day
being swept up and thrown away
by the symbolic street cleaners.

Mr. Williams' writing is poignant
and, although the final scene seems
to go against the grain of the play's
flow, his ultimate statement is one
of hope and inspiration. The
proceedings do stagnate once in a
while, but this is inherent to the
drama and certainly no fault of
director Milton Katselas.

Mr. Katselas has a physical reach
which extends beyond the Beaumont
Theatre's thrust stage; indeed,
he has characters running up and
down every aisle in the house. His
staging is remarkably fluid and
there is much in the way of fanfare
to be found in this production. At
times it's like a circus, only the
clowns must be taken seriously.

Of the cast, well, it's difficult to
discriminate, but Jessica Tandy's
Camille, Sylvia Sims' gypsy lady,
Jean-Pierre Aumont's Casanova,
and Clifford Davis' Lord Byron are
especially good. And finally - and
best of all - is Al Pacino's Kilroy.
Mr. Pacino gives his character more
than a hint of desperation in his
search for all that life should be but
isn't. He's ready to fight for what
he believes in, ready to change the
course of fate. They can take his
accomplishments and his woman
and even his life away from him,
but they can't steal his heart; that's
one thing that's supernaturally
bound to the character. With Mr.
Pacino there isn't a moment of
doubt, and when the evening is over
we know that Kilroy really WAS
here.