Royal Lyceum Theatre,
Edinburgh
Four stars
If love is a bourgeois
concept, as was suggested in the song of the same name by Pet Shop
Boys last year, there are few plays that articulate it better than
Noel Coward's dissection of unhappy honeymooners which he knocked out
over a long weekend in 1930. Martin Duncan's production places a
noticeably younger and sexier Amanda and Elyot on the adjoining
balconies of designer Francis O'Connor's art deco erection of a white
and pink hotel. Here each treats their new spouses Victor and Sybil
with a mix of desperation and disdain, even as they cling to such
classic mismatches for comfort before unfinished business of an
altogether less ordinary kind comes calling.
All this may be archly
played by John Hopkins as a narcissistic Elyot and Kirsty Besterman
as a restlessly coquettish Amanda, but there's a brutal ennui at play
too as the pair thrive on their own indulgent self-destruction. This
mainly fires into life in the second act after the thrill-seeking
couple have reignited their passion in Amanda's Paris flat when,
beyond their post-coital tristesse, the only way to keep the flame
alive is to rip each other to shreds. So, for all the play's
superficial froth, there's a vulnerability at it's heart, and when
Elyot hits Amanda, it's a genuinely shocking act.
Of course, in Coward's
world, the morning after is as fresh a start as any, and the brittle
politesse of the breakfast-time banter as the quartet scrunch up on a
sofa barely disguises a rage that's picked up on by Emily Woodward's
Sybil and Ben Deery's Victor as they embark on a tempestuous
adventure of their own.
The Herald, February 20th 2014
ends
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