This attractive, nicely appointed revival of Noel Coward's 1933 gemstone seems designed not for living, but for loathing of critics who will sneer at its embellishments. Director Joe Mantello (The Vagina Monologues) heightens the homosexual current that was already run through it (including a more-than-friendly smooch between leads Alan Cumming and Dominic West) and Robert Brill's seductive, massive sets suggest a tour of Europe via Larger-Than-Life Land.
In a way, this Roundabout revival misses the mark: some of the innate humor has dissipated, the play is very slow to involve, and some of these aforementioned additions take the human element out of it. But at the same time, the production has an energy all its own. It is pleasing without being unctuous and slows it down at just the right intervals. The story seems set up for farcical mayhem, but this tasteful recreation finds new rhythms to carry itself along on.
When the play opens, we meet Gilda (the dazzling Jennifer Ehle, of last year's smashing The Real Thing), lounging in a Paris flat smoking a cigarette. Gilda looks like your standard ingenue, a vampish creature of the night with a taste for pills and liquor, as the old song goes. But there is something beneath the surface here, as she relays her unsteady bravado to Ernest (John Cunningham), an old friend who has dropped by at a most inopportune time. She has just bedded pal Leo (West), also best pal to her current beau Otto (Cumming). The three have been cohorts in cavorting for years, and all love one another, but all have a certain narcissism which prevents them from committing to actual romantic feelings (what some would say about Coward as well).
These are people who live by impulse, and after Otto discovers their affair, we flash forward to Gilda and Leo enjoying the fruits of the latter's newfound success as a playwright in London, where Otto, also discovering new successes, makes an impromptu visit. The play then finds Gilda, in a time of quiet panic, retreating to New York to live the good life with the older, wizened Ernest, leaving her two devoted boytoys to drink and pine for her back in London. They devise a plan to "rescue" her from her money drenched slumber, and to see if she is as true to them as they are to her.
One reason the play retains its dignity is its performers. Exceedingly well-cast, Design features three of the more interesting British thespians on stage lately. West has just the right mix of sexiness and playfulness and delivers Coward's bon mots with aplomb. Cumming, while relying on his much-perfected crooked tics and reaction shots a little too often, displays some sweetness and understatement we haven't really seen from him before. When Gilda first tells Otto of her affair with Leo, Cumming's reactions to her are especially touching and remove any trace of his typical persona. You won't see the leering Emcee of Cabaret here, and I think the performance is actually all the better for it. Ehle, who brought so much to David Leveaux's restaging of The Real Thing last season, continues to mesmerize. She seems at first to be miscast, her rattled delivery and creaky manner suggest a different play altogether. But as Design progresses, one would be hard-pressed to find a more spontaneous and alive actress to embody Gilda. Ehle is a real force onstage; you almost never know what she'll do next, and you surrender to her every gesture.
The bit players all add color as well, especially Jessica Stone, very funny as a New York socialite visiting the newly regal Gilda. Director Joe Mantello still hasn't been able to fully surrender to his work (the play could have used a little more goosing on his end), but his approach is at least respectful and consistent. This production, I should add, seems the most appropriate so far to the American Airlines Theater, with Brill's sets aptly consuming the space in a way previous productions haven't. In any space, though, Coward's choice words zing, and any opportunity to hear them is a pretty good one.
