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| Just who's seducing whom? Russell Vincent plays Garry Essendine and Claire Millins is Joanna Lyppiatt in Noel Coward's society satire Present Laughter |
SEDUCTION is not something you'd usually associate with the Abbey Theatre but then the Company of Ten have consistently managed to surprise us with the breadth and depth of their productions. Their latest show, Noel Coward's Present Laughter, should prove no exception.
Marking the first play in the 40th season at the Abbey Theatre, Present Laughter, directed by Angela Stone, is a sleek and glamorous romantic comedy.
Widely considered to be semi-autobiographical, Coward's play follows the preparations of self-obsessed matinee idol Garry Essendine as he prepares to go off on tour.
Angela says she has deliberately set the play in the mid-1930s despite the fact it was not originally staged until 1939.
She says: "I made a decision to set the play in the Jazz Age very early on. I homed in on 1934 because it was really the cusp of the age. There was doubt and the threat of war washing around but it had not yet clicked in.
"The picture Coward paints is of a very particular age. He wrote this when he was approaching 40, in about 1939 but in his head it was still in the middle of the 30s. There are clues in the text. The obsession with high society and the poor
little rich girl and her aunt. They are the only two society people in the play. They don't stop and think what the results of their actions are on other people. They are what we would now call celebs and their behaviour is not so much immoral as amoral. They are seductive, beautiful, glamorous and unstoppable.
"I think the nature of Coward is that he isn't what you think he is. He seduced a whole generation with his biting wit and cruel satire. He cut society to pieces and satirised them and yet was very happy to take money thrown at him."
These traits are Coward's trademarks, which along with his music cut a swathe of criticism through the behaviour of the age. I ask Angela what soundtrack she felt was right for the play.
"The feel and tone of the music needs to be as seductive as the design in its own way. It sets the scene wonderfully.
Coward put a piano on the stage and wrote the play to show himself off. Whereas we've gone for gramophone. The records that are played are all contemporary. Sugar Foot Stomp by King Oliver, Ambrose by 1930s dance band Ambrose, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey and Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra." Presumably Angela was too young to remember the hits firsthand?
"The 1930 and 1940s were my parents' heyday but my father was a classical music fan so it was all opera in our house. What I brought in was rock and roll but I listened to swing bands on the radio all the time during the war. Then when my father got back from the war it was on with the Wagner and Verdi."
The role of leading man Garry Essendine, played by Russell Vincent, is a taxing one in that is a very verbal play but having appeared in the play twice as an actress, Angela is well equipped to advise her cast.
She joined the Company of Ten in 1979 and has played a wide variety of parts including Mrs Warren in Shaw's Mrs Warren's Profession, the Duchess of Malfi in Webster's powerful lurid drama and Irene in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads.
"I came to directing late," Angela explains. I used to commute to work in what was Dillons in Gower Street. "I decided I wouldn't go on the professional stage as I didn't think I'd got the grit and you have to be totally ruthless, so I went with my other love, which is books. Back then it was a university bookstore and all the world came there. I managed the art floor which covered fine and performing arts and literature.
"The whole of the showbiz world came in. Artists, poets, designers, musicians, undergraduates and graduates with their work. There were two lovely moments, one when a member of staff said: "there is a dreadful old bag woman in the shop would you mind telling her not to touch the books," and thank goodness it was me who went to talk to her because I recognised it was Joan Littlewood straight away. For a moment I was speechless and then I told her I thought she was the most amazing actress ever."
Present Laughter runs from Friday 14 to Saturday 22 September. Tickets: from the Abbey Theatre 01727 857861