Photo: Heidrun Lohr
“Don’t quibble, Sibyl,” quips Toby Schmitz as Elyot in Private Lives. Sibyl, Elyot’s new bride, has good reason to complain. Her husband is a rakish cad, with his eyes on another woman: his ex-wife Amanda in fact.
Ralph Myers brings Private Lives to the stage in his directorial debut at Belvoir St Theatre. The production is a bitingly sharp war of words and a cracking 90 minutes of entertainment.
The night begins in a swanky French hotel. Elyot is honeymooning with his new blonde plaything, Sibyl (Eloise Mignon). Unbeknownst to Elyot, his ex-wife Amanda (Zahra Newman) is staying in the same hotel, just across the hall. She too is enjoying a sun-soaked honeymoon with husband number two, Victor (Toby Truslove).
Amanda and Elyot, honeymooning at precisely the same time, in the same county, at the same hotel. What could possibly go wrong? (Or right?)
While written by Noël Coward in 1930s London, Myers anchors the production in the present. He replaces stiff suits and grand piano tunes with bathrobes and Phil Collins drum solos.
Photo: Heidrun Lohr
The performances are comfortable and convincing. Toby Schmitz is a devil in a dressing gown – handsome, cunning and charming. Zahra Newman is an evenly matched sparring partner and a voracious lover. Toby Truslove brings empathy and warmth to the uptight role of Victor. With Eloise Mignon amongst the cast, Private Lives feels like a Strange Interlude reunion.
Myers is a man of many talents, doubling up as set designer. His sharp, sleek design pits the couples’ head-to-head by splitting the back wall into two hotel rooms, divided by an elevator. The doors of the hotel rooms suffer a beating – always being hurled open and slammed shut in the heat of an argument. But the open space of the Belvoir stage is the real battleground, where the couples flirt, fight and claw at each other’s throats.
Private Lives is a tremendously fun play, and the final breakfast table scene is a perfectly measured morsel of comedy.
22 September-11 November, Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir
