Review By Ron Fassler . . .
When Noël Coward’s Fallen Angels premiered in London’s West End in 1925, the actor/playwright was twenty-five-years-old. A year prior, The Vortex, in which he both wrote and starred, took London (and eventually New York) by storm. In the cynical atmosphere of post-World War I England, Coward’s was a new voice and a welcome one. He had his way with a quip and a strong sense of dramatic structure, a talent that’s held up remarkably well for a hundred years with plays such as Blithe Spirit, Design for Living, Hay Fever, Present Laugher, and Private Lives seemingly in continual rotations the world over. So, on paper, it must have looked a strong idea for the Roundabout Theatre to close their season with Fallen Angels, which opened Monday night at the spiffed-up Todd Haimes Theatre after a handsome nine-month renovation. Unlike those other Coward titles, the only Broadway revival of this piece was 70 years ago, which tells you from the get-go that it is not in the class of the master’s best work. With two heaven-sent actresses, it is unfortunately left to the gifted Rose Byrne and Kelli O’Hara to grapple with a play that has always been a bit of a soufflé and is now downgraded to a trifle.
That 1956 version, updated to New York instead of London, starred the hilarious comedienne Nancy Walker and the dramatic actress Margaret Phillips, the original Alma Winemiller in Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke. On a plush Art Deco living room set, Kelli O’Hara and Rose Byrne appear to be having the time of their lives in a production that director Scott Ellis has transformed from its three-act, two intermission structure to a speedily paced one act—so fast, in fact, that the curtain is brought down in under ninety minutes. There is also the program credit of “additional material” from playwright and actress Claudia Shear (Blown Sideways Through Life, Dirty Blonde) which, besides the obvious trimming, begs the question of whether the best (or worst) bon mots are Coward’s or Shear’s.
To extend the use of a culinary metaphor, Act One of the play is the appetizer, accompanied by sparkling champagne. In Act Two, we are served the meat of a sandwich resulting in a prolonged food fight. Act Three is all about the clearing and returning of the plates, some broken and some not, to find some degree of decorum. The rather contrived plot is that high society best friends Julia (Kelli O’Hara) and Jane (Rose Byrne) once had an affair in Italy with the same Frenchman before they married others; Julia to Fred (Aasif Mandvi) and Jane to Willy (Christopher Fitzgerald), both rather dim and silly gentlemen. By hearing from Maurice Duclos (Mark Consuelos) via dual postcards that he is coming to London—and with neither woman totally satisfied in their marriages—Maurice’s return to their lives after seven years turns into a fight for who’ll get to him first, tearing the women’s friendship to pieces.
It’s in the play’s middle section, by far the best act and the one that would appear to be the basis for thinking the play worthy of revival, both actresses have the time of their lives. And while sending up their propriety by getting drunker than sailors on shore leave, including pratfalls and other bits of business that, clever and well performed as they are, none of it propels the play towards anything resembling real life. The best of Coward parodies the classes and this merely debases them. It’s fun to knock creatures as beautiful as O’Hara and Byrne off their pedestals, and O’Hara’s physical comedy is as surprising as it is hysterical. But if Fallen Angeles is to shine, the entire ensemble needs bright lights. Mandvi and Fitzgerald, ordinarily boons to any play or musical, feel somewhat underwater here. Consuelos can’t be blamed for not being able to do much with the last-minute appearance of Maurice, but the luscious role of Saunders (Tracee Chimo), a maid with a seemingly endless series of talents, needs to better served with a more whimsical approach than by such a broad performance from an otherwise reliable actress.
Such faults lie at the feet of Scott Ellis, who directs with his pedal to the metal for the entire show and never lets up. When Coward is done right, there must be the proper room to breathe in order that the characters can take in the effect of their words and deeds. Otherwise, it’s all a jumble. And though costumed beautifully by Jeff Mahshie, and lit with grace and subtlety by Kenneth Posner, all on a detailed and loving homage to Art Deco by David Rockell, the play’s the thing. And whether Fallen Angels is worthy of revival or not, may have to wait until some brave soul chooses to do it as written.
At the Todd Haimes Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St., New York; www.roundabouttheatre.org.
Photos by Joan Marcus.
Headline photo: Rose Byrne and Kelli O’Hara in Fallen Angels.
