Stopping off at Richmond as part of its tour, Noel Coward‘s Present Laughter gets a gender-flip in Lindsay Posner‘s new production, placed in Manhattan.
Geri Essendine (Tracy-Ann Oberman) is a successful and self-absorbed socialite and actress. As she prepares for a tour in Australia, she has to deal with romantic overtures, farcical situations, and the realisation she is on the wrong side of forty.
Coward originally wrote the role of Gerry as an exaggerated version of himself back in 1939. This new touring version is set in the 1970s, with a curtain full of newspaper articles and a couple of arch references to pop culture (a big Andy Warhol-ish poster dominates the room).
Making Geri a woman is something of a masterstroke: Oberman more than rises to the challenge of the uber-vain star. What is around her is less sure.
James Dreyfus is second-billed and cast as Geri’s secretary, Monty. With practiced ease and protracted double-takes, he creates a comic tour de force in the house.
There are a few swaps that don’t work. Joanna becomes Johannes (Kit Young), but the scene where he contrives to seduce Geri falls flat. Making Morris (Jonathan Tafler) now a rival for Johannes’ affections feels a little forced.
It’s not that the performances are poor. It is just a question of why and how the play has been changed and adapted. I have no issue with this kind of exploration – it has worked in Shakespeare with Malvolia, Polonia, and even in a completely gender-swapped Taming of the Shrew. I would be very interested to see the couples in Private Lives being given an ‘Eleanor and Adam’ treatment, for example.
Adrian Lukis is very good as Geri’s estranged husband, revelling in the chaos. But Henrietta (Charlotte Randle) and Stillington (Seb Carrington) are unconvincing in their flipped roles, offering a missed opportunity for the adaptation to comment on unwise attachments with younger partners and sexual coercion.
Eva Feiler‘s Rosina Maule, though, is delightfully grotesque, with her unflattering hat and earnest devotion. She’s the kind of superfan celebrities must dread. The sight of her sniffing a cushion and marching off with it like some kind of trophy is both repellent and hilarious.
The set and costumes by Peter McKintosh are delightful, with a faded grandeur and a sense of practicality. There’s an open spiral staircase, a sofa, and the two doors into the rooms that are pivotal to the growing comedy. Buzzers, telephones, and more add to the atmosphere.
What I did long for was more of a sense of why Geri is a star, with perhaps more references to her peers and a bit more to place us firmly in the 70s. Making the Shelley poem from the original play into a pop song is a start, as is the poster for ‘Geri With A G‘, but it needs a little more.
Present Laughter is a comedy of manners, seduction and inflated ego in its original form. Gerry is constantly pursued by women driven by his charisma and position. When Gerry becomes Geri, there is something that jars about this approach.
Richenda Carey (Stillington’s aunt), Perry Williams (minder Fred) and Gabriella Foley (hemmafru Miss Erikson) round out the cast nicely, and all have their moments.
This is a Coward experiment that falls short of having a pertinent point for its changes. Even the location of Geri’s tour is changed – originally Africa – but for no good reason.
This is a lively and enjoyable play, but it has too many scenes that dragged and didn’t quite capture the wit of Coward enough. See for Oberman, though.
3 stars.
Present Laughter continues at Richmond Theatre until 26 Sep, then continues on tour.
Photo credit: Simon Annand