At the risk of joining the critics crew who toss out the adjective ”magnificent” far too frequently, I’m going to say that in Moritz von Stuelpnagel’s revival of Noel Coward’s very autobiographical Present Laughter, Kevin Kline is magnificent. Is there an encomium that tops “magnificent”? If so, Kline is that, too. And more
What is he doing at the St. James that demands this type of praise? In a series of suits, dressing gowns and a to-die-for smoking jacket (that only begins to give some idea of the luxe in costume designer Susan Hilferty’s wardrobe) he’s doing nothing less than presenting the final knee-slapping apotheosis of the stage ham.
Coward was always quick to acknowledge--even boast with a sly smile—that matinee idol Gary Essendine, whom Kline impersonates this time around, was the 1939 version of his hyper-sophisticated self. A man who may claim he’s never acting when off-stage, Essendine is nonetheless always acting and often at the height of his thespian fervor when denying he’s being anything more than thoroughly natural.
Perhaps what’s most enchanting about Kline’s interpretation is the way it contrasts with Coward’s well-honed talent to amuse. Whereas Coward on stage—limiting each exposure to three months in London, three months in New York (once or twice in Paris)—was a cultivated stiff-upper-lip understatement, with or without cigarette holder in hand, Kline bases many of his comic outings on his unbridled physicality.
He certainly does this time around. He’s gesturing constantly, arms arching up or down in poses representing performance magnanimity. He never simply sits or stands. Instead, he makes an event of sitting or standing or exaggerating the many stages passed through while either sitting down, standing up or sitting down on the way to lying down completely. He even finds new and hilarious ways to ascend and descend the multi-directional staircase David Zinn includes on his superb example of a flamboyant actor’s homestead. In sum, Kline’s is a caricature of the calculatedly suave gentleman. He cools it only when going to the grand piano and indulging in some Beethoven.
The preceding isn’t to ignore Kline’s voice, which plumbs the depths of plummy-iness as he romps over every inch of that commodious set, rarely missing Essendine’s opportunities to check how he looks in the closest mirror. The winner of the Tony Award in 1978 (On the Twentieth Century) and 1981 (The Pirates of Penzance), Kline is going to offer stiff competition again this year.
Astonishing as Kline is, he’s not the sole occupant of a one-man show. The self-possessed, self-obsessed Essendine—observed during the several days before he’s due to leave for a South Africa tour—is surrounded by, among whirligigging others, the four people most responsible for his West End leading-man success.
Dropping by with comic regularity to make unwanted demands (as Essendine sees it) on his time are his 17-year-secretarial assistant Monica Reed (Kristine Nielsen), his estranged but not yet ex-wife Liz Essendine (Kate Burton), producer Henry Lyppiatt (Peter Francis James) and director Morris Dixon (Reg Rogers).
Also gushing and fawning non-stop are young Daphne Stillington (Tedra Mullan), who thinks after a one-night-stand that she Essendine’s next bride, and would be avant-garde playwright Roland Maule (Bhavesh Patel). Less intimidated by the mighty man are matter-of-fact cleaning lady Miss Erikson (Ellen Harvey) and agreeable butler Fred (Matt Bittner).
Then there’s Joanna Lyppiatt (Cobie Smulders), whom Garry and pals hope won’t make herself a regular guest. She’s now married to producer Henry for going on two years, and no one’s happy about it, including womanizing Henry. Yes, she’s been having her own extra-marital hoo-ha with Louis, but, as both Liz and Monica suss it out, she’s really got her talons sharpened for Garry.
Over the two acts with one pause each act, Coward ties the crowd—with late-comer Lady Saltburn (Sandra Shipley), who’s Daphne’s well-heeled aunt—into any number of Gordian knot variations. That’s before the master undoes them and ends things with one of his favorite closings: the two focal figures skipping out on the tongue-lashing others. (For instance, Coward had already used this ploy at his Private Lives curtain.) . Stuelpnagel does clear the stage before this pair departs.
While the sleek actors are doing their lively, intimate Coward fox trot, they’re contributing to a production nipping at the clicking heels of perfection so closely that it hardly makes any matter. And just to think the comedy was written as England was on the brink of World War II, and yet its concerns couldn’t have been more removed from the peril. (Coward and his producers were aware, though, and held the opening off until 1942 when something this wacky and distracting was needed.)
As for the first-rate team of supporting players, Burton brings off-hand authority to Liz Essendine, a woman who understands that anyone believing love is all romance without a sense of reality and lacking wisdom is on the wrong track. Nielsen, recently accused of resorting to a bag of scene-stealing mannerisms, plucks them out sparingly this time around. Once again, she’s hilariously effective. Just wait for one particular entrance when she spots an unexpected guest.
Also wait for Smulders’s arrival. Joanna has been discussed and dissed plenty before she’s seen, which means Coward has burdened her with much to live up to. In comes Smulders wearing a black silk ensemble so stunning that time seems to stop. What follows is a Broadway bow of such accomplished hauteur that the local theater cognoscenti won’t forget it any time soon.
Who in this ensemble doesn’t require his or her own personal huzzah? As the lovelorn Morris, Rogers is unstoppable. (Has he ever let an audience down?) James embodies what it is to be soigné. Patel’s Maule is a jumping-bean of humor. Harvey wanders through with a cigarette precariously dangling from her lips and thereby makes her character indelible. Mullen’s clinging Daphne has its foolish charms. Mittner’s Fred is welcome whenever he races through carting trays balancing the obligatory cocktails.
It has been said of Noel Coward that he was “industry in cap and bells.” With this Present Laughter, those bells are ringing with the gleeful persistence of Big Ben’s.