PRESENT LAUGHTER Reviews

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 1/21/10 at 7:37am

Today is Thursday, January 21st, marking the official opening night performance of the new Broadway production of Noel Coward's 1942 comedy Present Laughter. Preview performances began on January 2. Please, post reviews here!

This latest Broadway incarnation playing the American Airlines Theatre is under the direction of Nicholas Martin, as inspired by the Huntington Theatre Company production from a few years earlier, which also starred Mr. Garber as the lead of aging matinee idol Garry Essendine.

"In Noel Coward's classic comedy, matinee idol Garry Essendine (Garber) sits at the center of his own universe," begin press notes. "While Garry struggles to plan his upcoming trip to Africa, his elegant London flat is invaded by a love-struck ing�nue, an adulterous producer and a married seductress, not to mention Garry's estranged wife and a crazed young playwright. Just before Garry escapes, the full extent of his misdemeanors is discovered and all hell breaks loose."

This limited engagement is slated through March 21.

Best to all involved.


Updated On: 1/21/10 at 07:37 AM

[scripps]

Posted: 1/21/10 at 12:15pm

Kisses to my Brooks tonight!

[James2]

Posted: 1/21/10 at 8:55pm

Variety is mixed-to-positive.

"It's all very classy and urbane, as it should be, and there's an ample stash of still-sparkling gems among the dialogue. But the production is too unevenly cast and paced to be more than mildly amusing."

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117941927.html?categoryid=33&cs=1

[James2]

Posted: 1/21/10 at 9:04pm

The Wall Street Journal is negative.

"If you've never seen "Present Laughter," go and enjoy yourself: It's a comic gem, and this production is much better than none at all. The set alone, an Art Deco orgy designed by Alexander Dodge, is almost worth the price of admission. If you know the play at all well, though, you won't need to be told what Messrs. Martin, Garber and Ashmanskas are getting wrong, and why it matters."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704541004575011552015297166.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTTopCarousel

Financial Times is positive.

"When Nicholas Martin’s accomplished, enjoyable production of Noël Coward’s Present Laughter premiered in Boston in 2007, I compared its mood of shammed madness to that of Hamlet. Seeing this 1939 comedy again, on Broadway, in the Roundabout’s handsome 42nd Street space, I flashed more often to Twelfth Night, whence Coward plucks the play’s name (“present mirth hath present laughter”).

Since the previous outing, Martin has discarded most traces of shamming or even introspection and taken us to a realm of purer, more Feste-like jesting. Garry Essendine, Coward’s alter ego and the main character in Present Laughter, is comically undone each time the front doorbell rings at his London flat."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d31a7390-06b8-11df-b426-00144feabdc0.html

The Associated Press is very positive.

"It's not easy maintaining the fizz in the frenzy known as "Present Laughter," Noel Coward's delightfully frantic comedy about a narcissistic actor and the chaos that inevitably erupts in his posh London household.

But director Nicholas Martin manages to keep the bubbles from bursting in the Roundabout Theatre Company's effervescent revival that opened Thursday at Broadway's American Airlines Theatre. Much of the credit goes to his debonair leading man, Victor Garber, who looks totally at home in a spiffy dressing-gown and silk pajamas. But then the man has the requisite matinee-idol profile to play Garry Essendine, a charming, self-absorbed actor who bears an uncanny resemblance to the playwright himself."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/01/21/entertainment/e134826S93.DTL

Backstage is negative.

"It's been far too long—more than a decade—since Victor Garber last trod the Broadway boards. Though he's been off making money and increasing his TVQ, it was clear just last year from his terrific Fredrik in Roundabout Theatre Company's one-night-only concert of "A Little Night Music" that his stage chops remained intact. The role of the grandly theatrical Gary Essendine in Noël Coward's comic warhorse "Present Laughter" sounded like a good fit. Even better, the show was a hit for the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston, where Garber and much of this cast did it in 2007. So it's with bewildered disappointment that I have to report that Roundabout's current production amounts to almost a total misfire."

http://www.backstage.com/bso/reviews-ny-theatre-broadway/ny-review-present-laughter-1004061080.story

[bschneid76]

Posted: 1/21/10 at 9:21pm

I wouldn't say the Washington Post review is negative, more mixed.

[BwayBaby18]

Posted: 1/21/10 at 10:03pm

The set doesn't even hold a candle to the FABULOUS production at the national 2 years ago.

[James2]

Posted: 1/21/10 at 10:45pm

The Hollywood Reporter is negative.

"Unless a comedy by Noel Coward is played with perfect precision, it tends to have the taste of champagne that has lost its fizz. Such is the case with the Roundabout's Broadway revival of "Present Laughter." In this production, the name of the lead character of aging matinee idol Garry Essendine, modeled on the playwright himself, has been reduced to Gary. Like that wayward letter, something has been lost along the way.

Garber seems to be resisting the larger-than-life elements of the role, attempting to convey the psychological truth of Essendine's midlife crisis rather than the vainglorious aspects of his personality. The results are a "Present Laughter" without much laughter, indeed."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film-reviews/present-laughter-theater-review-1004061089.story

[RyToast1]

Posted: 1/22/10 at 1:18am

NY Times

http://theater.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/theater/reviews/22present.html?ref=theater

I skimmed through...it seems positive. Thoughts?

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 1/22/10 at 1:32am

This might be the first time ever that Brantley has written the only rave for a show that has otherwise received mixed reviews.

[RyToast1]

Posted: 1/22/10 at 1:35am

It's Isherwood...that's why, haha.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 1/22/10 at 2:15am

Even though it was Isherwood, Brantley raved about THE AMERICAN PLAN last year which got mixed reviews.

[RyToast1]

Posted: 1/22/10 at 2:33am

Would that times review be considered a rave? I'm not sure how one judges these things.

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 1/22/10 at 10:01am

Oh, you're right--Isherwood wrote it. I thought it seemed very unlike Brantley!

Yes, I would consider it a rave review. He had a couple minor reservations, but I don't think I've ever read a review from a major critic who didn't.

[morosco]

Posted: 1/22/10 at 11:00am

Is the set on Broadway the same as it was when it played the Huntington Theatre (pictured here)?
Updated On: 2/1/10 at 11:00 AM

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 1/22/10 at 11:01am

Yes, and it's gorgeous.

[morosco]

Posted: 1/22/10 at 11:03am

Outrageously gorgeous! I wanna live in that set.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 1/22/10 at 11:39am

Yah, this set is beautiful. I won't be surprised if it has a Tony nomination heading its way. Probably my favorite set of a play so far this season (with the exception of the bits of set used in A Steady Rain for the few background settings).

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 1/22/10 at 4:51pm

The New York Post didn't particularly like it, although it gave the set a rave review. Duhhhhh -- when was the set for a Noel Coward play the determining factor as to whether the production was good or not? Style, timing, pitch, line delivery -- those are what count when doing a Coward play. It's fine to have a good set, but the joy of Coward is in the writing and the delivery, NOT the scenic design.

[Patash]

Posted: 1/23/10 at 9:45am

Yea, Ed. I think that was kind of the point of the Post review -- that the rest of the production didn't live up to the set.

[wonkit]

Posted: 1/28/10 at 5:13pm

I saw the matinee yesterday. Perhaps I went in with low expectations but (with some reservations) I enjoyed it more than I anticipated. I am not a Coward fan, and I had read the play recently to see what it might be like. Coward is so very dated that I could not imagine how this would be played.

This production has several strong points. You will definitely remember the set: it is both lavish and yet livable - the furniture seems lived on, the movement of people through the set seems like an interior decorators' dream of traffic patterns in a real place. The same feeling applies to the costumes which are both stylish and slightly outlandish, like something off a very expensive runway that I would love to find in my closet. Everything fit the actors so perfectly - wonderful, careful tailoring work.

The strong parts of the cast for me were the not-to-be-missed Victor Garber who has just the right sense of world-weary petulance that Coward personified. I also liked Harriet Harris, although her English accent occasionally caused her to swallow the ends of her lines. She still related to Garber's character appropriately, in a nanny/older sister kind of way. The rest of the actors (with two exceptions) carried their rather stock characters forward competently and Nancy Carrooll as Miss Erickson was very droll.

My two objections were Pamela Jane Gray as Joanna who was neither overtly sexual nor cunningly predatory enough. I could not see her engaging Essendine so easily as he would have no more trouble with her than with the scores of debutantes who lost their latch-keys over him. My strongest objection, almost to the point of resentment, was Brooks Ashmanskas' Roland Maule. Instead of a young, impressionable, slightly lost young man fantasizing an attachment to greatness, we had a neurotic, mincing, annoying bundle of energy who overplayed every line, double take and innuendo. This is a farce, but he made it seem more like a high school parody of a farce, and pulled me out of the situation every time he was on stage. A shame, as a toned-down version might have made him a little sympathetically funny rather than a pain in the a**.

I was delighted that there are two songs worked into the production, very nicely done, and adding a note of poignancy to the ending. I am very glad that I made the effort to see this, especially for Garber's performance and the high quality of the set and costumes.