Synopsis Design for Living follows the fortunes of Gilda, Otto and Leo, a trio of decadent 30-something artists who travel from Paris to London to New York as their fame increases. The complex and revolving relationships between the three conclude themselves in a highly provocative manner, flying in the face of convention and their public profile. The notion of a ménage a trois, shocking in 1932 when the play was written is still provocative today and Coward's play has much to tell us about celebrity status, sexual mores and the nature of fidelity.
Andrew Scott, Lisa Dillon & Tom Burke in Design for Living
Date: 16 September 2010
The Old Vic's production of Noël Coward's provocative romantic comedy Design for Living opened last night (15 September 2010, previews from 3 September), marking the play's first appearance on a London stage in over 15 years.
From 1930s bohemian Paris to the dizzying heights of Manhattan society, the play charts a tempestuous love triangle that unravels between a vivacious interior designer, Gilda, playwright Leo and artist Otto - three people unashamedly and passionately in love with each other.
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (four stars) - "[Noël Coward]’s 1933 ménage à trois, or 'disgusting three-sided erotic hotchpotch,' is as good as any of his better known plays and comes up fresh as paint in Anthony Page’s Old Vic revival ... Andrew Scott as Leo and Tom Burke as Otto make a winning double act, the first rising to temperamental falsetto hysteria, the second implacably charming and suave, both hilarious in the funniest, and best controlled drunk scene imaginable, their faces disintegrating in a rubbery mush; a sudden face slap, accidentally discharged, only compounds the reverie .. The boys flicker like moths round the flame of Lisa Dillon’s Gilda, a strong-headed woman in thrall to bohemianism, rather than the wild animal itself, but she plays with kittenish vivacity throughout."
Michael Billington in the Guardian (four stars) - "What one notices first about the play is its perfect symmetry. It starts in a Paris studio and clearly lays out the main lines of engagement: Gilda, an interior decorator, is living with the artist Otto, but is equally drawn to the playwright Leo ... It is perfectly possible to see the play as Coward's vindication of the privileged amorality of the artist and an attack on bourgeois stuffiness. But Page's production shows something more complex ... The real revelation lies in Angus Wright's portrait of Ernest. Normally he is played as the stuffed shirt and the spokesman for the moral majority. But, from the start, when he complains that Gilda's life is 'so dreadfully untidy', Wright proves the importance of being Ernest .. In short, this is a production that unearths Coward's moral ambivalence."
Henry Hitchings in the Evening Standard (four stars) - "There's a Noel Coward lyric, “Let’s live turbulently”, which could be a motto for this daring Thirties comedy. The success of Anthony Page’s revival of one of Coward’s most provocative plays has everything to do with its three central performances — especially the remarkable and, yes, turbulent chemistry between Tom Burke and Andrew Scott. The first act starts sluggishly... But there is much to savour ... In the Thirties the play was banned in Britain because its content was too outrageous ... It now seems less sensational but its fusion of passion and mischief remains striking ... Coward’s chosen title means the play sounds like a manifesto. It isn’t ... Dillon conveys Gilda’s brittle glamour, an appearance of steeliness beneath which flicker half-understood uncertainties ... the stellar acting makes Coward’s comic lines seem piercingly precise."
Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail - "You may not make the last train home after the Old Vic’s revival of Design For Living. It runs at well over three hours, with two intervals ... Like so many shows at the Old Vic, this production applies a varnish of chic modernity. This makes it memorable in some respects but unfaithful (rum word) in others ... This Otto certainly cuts a good contrast to Leo – but would he ever kiss him? Then there is the central part of Gilda, played here by Lisa Dillon. Not wildly interesting, or at least not until the strong finale, in which Angus Wright as the wronged Ernest has a tremendous moment ... The first act is chewy and the second is interminable. The end is worth seeing, train timetables permitting."
Libby Purves in The Times (five stars) - "To get this one right, you need three irresistible leads. The director, Anthony Page, has them, although the dazzle of Lisa Dillon as Gilda initially outshines her indispensable and inseparable lovers Otto and Leo. In the first interval a lugubrious male voice said, 'It’s her clothes I want to tear off, and I’m gay' ... The story of friends and lovers inextricably bound together in what the outsider husband dubs a 'disgusting three-sided erotic hotchpotch' still startles: their battle cry 'our lives are a different shape to yours' startles even now, in an age approving mainly a prim, serial monogamy gay and straight ... Not that one need philosophise. It’s just a terrific evening, studded with clever moments (glimpse which Matisse the art dealer Ernest holds in the opening scene: good joke) ... Perfect, all the way to Angus Wright’s Ernest indulging a final unmissable fury as the audience joins the terrible three in hysterics."
Noel Coward’s 1933 ménage à trois, or “disgusting three-sided erotic hotchpotch,” is as good as any of his better-known plays and comes up fresh as paint in Anthony Page’s Old Vic revival.
Gilda is an interior decorator, Leo a playwright and Otto a painter. They shuttle between Paris, London and New York like three naughty children, three intertwined (dis)graces, relishing their own bohemian debauchery, and professional success, until Gilda’s dependence on a successful art dealer (his dullness and moral righteousness brilliantly conveyed by Angus Wright) prompts a showdown.
Not seen in London for 15 years, and first “re-discovered” for the modern theatre when Michael Blakemore directed Vanessa Redgrave as Gilda, Page finds revelatory new rhythms in Design for Living, especially in the last act when Leo and Otto return like avenging angels using their smart veneer, and Coward’s devastating, sarcastic lines, as a shield in battle.
Andrew Scott as Leo and Tom Burke as Otto make a winning double act, the first rising to temperamental falsetto hysteria, the second implacably charming and suave, both hilarious in the funniest, and best controlled drunk scene imaginable, their faces disintegrating in a rubbery mush; a sudden face slap, accidentally discharged, only compounds the reverie.
That scene is played quite slowly, and the shape of the play is properly preserved with two intervals, so the evening runs over three hours. But you won’t want a refund. The boys flicker like moths round the flame of Lisa Dillon’s Gilda, a strong-headed woman in thrall to bohemianism, rather than the wild animal itself, but she plays with kittenish vivacity throughout.
Three settings are cleverly designed by Lez Brotherston around the same white sofas, and beautifully lit by David Hersey. There is no insistence on any one period, but it does all look slightly historic without stuffiness, especially in the second act telephone exchanges. Maggie McCarthy’s four-square housekeeper Miss Hodge comes into her own here, revealing that she is indeed married, but took back her maiden name - in disgust.
And there is good back-up from John Hollingworth doubling as a dishevelled reporter form the Evening Standard and a society bore; the pin-sharp, precise Nancy Crane as a New York socialite; and Edward Dede as a pop-eyed manservant. Well, the comedy does take the rise out of sex and marriage, but in the funniest and most boisterous fashion.
I think I can see where the director, Anthony Page, is coming from - well I think I do? You see I would never have thought of casting Andrew Scott as Leo - he's too much of today, but if I wanted to make the characters more accessible to today's audience, that is to say more "believable", then that would be one of the ways to do it. I've seen my fair share of Coward's plays over the years and they are period pieces, but to simply perform them as they were done originally would be to lose much of the impact they first had. Sure it would be stylish and fun and everyone would have had a good time, but what of the underlying subtext? The sets were great but when set take precedence over performance mmhhh?! Better luck next time perhaps, but isn't that the reason we keep coming back time after time after.......X - rds
25 Nov 10
Fun, with spirited and amusing performances but so, so long! - addicted to theatre
12 Oct 10
With all due respect may I suggest that the cast study the body language that is so endemic to a Coward play. Gilda needs nail polish; the play needs editing! - Stradbroke
18 Sep 10
As Earthquakes in London has proved (twice) a three hour play can fly past but, conversely, as in the case for Design for Living, it can drag on interminably towards a long-overdue end. Noel Coward's relentless but frequently condescending witticisms cannot hide the fact that there is simply not enough story to sustain such a long running time. The permutations of Gilda, Otto, Leo and Ernest have long since been exhausted and the smug, patronising shallowness of the menage wore out its welcome sometime in Act 2. Tom Burke and Andrew Scott can't seem to work out which is the Coward character so both slp in and out of that style, although their drunk scene is very well played. Lisa Dillon was much better cast in Private Lives - Kim Cattrall would have been a fabulous Gilda. Angus Wright is impressive as Ernest and I felt like cheering his final Fawltyesque explosion against the self-satisfied "erotic hotchpotch". Lez Brotherston's sets are amazing, espcially the third act New York apartment but Anthony Page's production is hard work - unforgiveable for a Coward comedy. - David Baxter
18 Sep 10
Amazed to see Hersey's name as LD! I thought he had retired to sail on his yacht! Welcome back David! - Seb Petit
17 Sep 10
I will always go to see a Noel Coward play because I enjoy the wit and sparkle of his texts but there is a fear that one day I will find it old fashioned and irrelevant. Oh good grief no! Design for Living is for everyone who refuses to be bound by middle class conventions and strikes a chord today much as it did back in the thirties. The cast are superb (and I am not going to single anyone out; it is truly an ensemble piece) and the applause winning sets are stunning - being an art deco fan makes me biased I suppose!
What an utter utter treat and especially relevant to see it on the eve of the Pope's visit! - Tom Hough
17 Sep 10
If I could time-travel, one of the things I might choose would be to attend the first night of this play in 1933 to hear the tut’s and watch the open mouths. It feels completely modern today, so it must have been positively ground-breaking then, even though I’m sure some of it went right over their heads! It’s a menage a trois between a female interior designer, a male artist and a male playwright that starts in an artist’s attic garret in Paris, moves to the elegant London flat of the playwright and ends up on the 30th floor of an art deco apartment in a New York skyscraper where the designer is living with her unloved husband. It has a beautifully crafted rounded structure and the dialogue absolutely sparkles. It puts sex and sexuality centre-stage and is so much more than Coward’s trademark social comedies.
The three central performances – Lisa Dillon, Tom Burke and Andrew Scott – are wonderful and the sexual chemistry between them is electric. There is a superb supporting performance from Angus Wright (who has wasted so much time in Katie Mitchell deconstructions of late) as the used man who in the final act explodes a la Basil Fawlty. Amongst the rest of the cast, Maggie McCarthy makes an exquisite contribution as the second act housekeeper. I’ve only seen the play once before, but director Anthony Page makes so much more of it here. It looks gorgeous too, with three brilliant designs from Lez Brotherston, culminating in the NYC apartment that I actually wanted to move into after the show! Another wonderful night at the Old Vic. - Gareth James
The Old Vic is one of the oldest theatres in London and famous throughout the English speaking world. Long known as 'the actors theatre', many of the greatest performers of the last century have played on its stage. In September 2004, The Old Vic Theatre Company was launched, under the artistic leadership of Kevin Spacey, to present a wide range of work, from the classic to the new, to appeal to both traditional theatre-goers and new audiences.
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