So raise a glass of champers: Coward's sass and NCT's brass merge for a kick-ass kickoff at UNLV.
Under Michael Lugering's crisp direction and respect for rapid repartee, this production of Coward's 1930 classic stars Equity actors and real-life spouses Martin Kildare and Mary Dolson Kildare as sophisticate ex-spouses Elyot and Amanda, who are inadvertently reunited when they honeymoon with their new mates, stiff-backed Victor (Stephen Crandall) and dewy, innocent Sibyl (Allison Gifford). Over three acts (and two intermissions), witty warriors Elyot and Amanda reassess their relationship in Act I, resume their union, jump into each other's arms and at each other's throats in Act II and sort out the interpersonal mess they've made with Victor and Sibyl in Act III.
Private Lives is a round-robin of wicked, wonderful wordplay that snaps and snipes—cherish any play that trusts audiences to digest "shibboleth" in a throwaway line—to craft comedy demanding the engagement of the brain, garnished by slapstick as Coward skewers how love turns the highly civilized into lowly clowns. (Though some of the physicality and lines like "Some women should be struck regularly, like gongs" trip the domestic-abuse alarm now.) Even their smoking is suave in a way political correctness discourages us from acknowledging. But between these manicured fingers ... it was.
The play made comedic icons of Elyot and Amanda, locked in the poison-tipped passion and pithy verbal warfare that traces its progeny all the way to the blue-blooded blood sport of Frasier and Lilith Crane. (If you don't call your lover "beastly" in a fit of pique—choosing some crass profanity instead—it's time to bring back Coward's more stylish savagery.) Over six Broadway revivals, the characters have been tackled by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Joan Collins, Alan Rickman, Tallulah Bankhead, Maggie Smith and, in the original production, Coward and Gertrude Lawrence.
Martin Kildare is this version's majordomo as dapper, witheringly funny Elyot, his performance insisting you hang on every hilarious word. A Broadway/TV vet, Kildare is to this English manner born, a walking glass of the bubbly. Portraying a character who would be considered flamingly gay today—especially the occasional walk-leap to punctuate a punch line—but charmingly European and continental then, he plucks a British accent like an instrument, words trilling and popping with flair, voice painting a perfect arched eyebrow or mock exclamation point. Coward's bon mots are little strokes of snark out of his mouth, exploding like mini-firecrackers. Even a rote joke like "Don't quibble, Sibyl!" is timed like a tiny slice of comic poetry. You never want him offstage.
As Amanda, Mary Dolson Kildare is a savvy sparring partner. She feels every bit Elyot's equal, but steps back just enough to not challenge her husband for stage dominance. It's a delicate high-wire act and her balance is remarkable, creating a quick, quippy marital combatant, suffused with femininity that never loses grace, even at her grittiest. Together, they're currents swirling in perfect synchronicity.
Crandall's huffy, stuffy Victor seems like a stagy, adopted persona in Act I but grows more organic and proportionately funnier by the climactic Act III. Regrettably, Gifford's Sibyl offers little more than whining and pouting, her performance too wan to register with any depth. Mary Catania, however, contributes some saucy shtick as a flummoxed French maid. Jeff Fiala's Act I honeymoon set of a terrace stretching across double-door villas sparkles with a simple grandeur, lent dimension by a pit separating the stage from the audience to create a sense of distance as the couples gaze over nature's unseen beauty. For Acts II and III, Fiala creates a lush suite with sunken-living room furniture swathed in warm pastels of red and orange, the upper level divided by a sleek piano (on which Elyot noodles) beneath a tasteful chandelier. And Vance McKenzie's lighting bathes even the cigarette smoke in a cool blue hue.
For weekend theatergoers, Private Lives is the most fun you can have in public.