Private Lives
Opening Night: November 17, 2011
Closing: December 31, 2011
Theater: Music Box Theatre
Considered one of the greatest comedies ever written, Noël Coward’s Private Lives premiered in London in 1930 and has been produced around the world ever since; it premiered on Broadway in 1931. Glamorous, rich and reckless, Amanda (Kim Cattrall) and Elyot (Paul Gross) have been divorced from each other for five years. Now both are honeymooning with their new spouses in the South of France. When, by chance, they meet again across adjoining hotel balconies, their insatiable feelings for each other are immediately rekindled. They hurl themselves headlong into love and lust without a care for scandal, new partners or memories of what drove them apart in the first place…for a little while, anyway.
BUY TICKETSREAD THE REVIEWS:
November 17, 2011
I once saw a "Blithe Spirit" directed by Harold Pinter for London’s National Theatre in which virtually every laugh was killed by Pinter’s apparent desire to explore the dark underbelly of Noël Coward’s frothy comedy. Director Richard Eyre hasn’t gone quite that far with "Private Lives." Nevertheless, his tiresome insistence on naturalistic acting rooted in emotional truth pretty much does the current Broadway production in, despite a talented cast that quite likely could deliver the comedy under happier circumstances.
READ THE REVIEW
November 17, 2011
For most of his life, Noël Coward was widely regarded as a theatrical lightweight, albeit a brilliant one. Not until the 1960s did the critics start to figure out that "Private Lives," his masterpiece, was something more than (in his own ironically self-deprecating words) "a reasonably well-constructed duologue for two experienced performers, with a couple of extra puppets thrown in to assist the plot and to provide contrast."
READ THE REVIEW
November 17, 2011
Come on, everybody: Like it or not, it’s time to sit through "Private Lives" again. That, at least, is the feeling produced by this uninspired revival starring "Sex and the City’s" Kim Cattrall and Paul Gross, who is best known for the Canadian TV series "Slings and Arrows" and "Due South."
READ THE REVIEW
November 17, 2011
”Trivial and superficial” is an entirely appropriate description of both Noël Coward’s now octogenarian Private Lives and director Richard Eyre’s new Broadway production. And while it isn’t the kind of quote theater producers like to slap on advertising posters, it is meant as a compliment — and might well have been taken as one by Coward himself.
READ THE REVIEW
November 17, 2011
There’s more than one way to wear a bath towel. That’s the sum total of Kim Cattrall’s entrance costume in Richard Eyre’s larky revival of Noël Coward’s “Private Lives,” which opened on Thursday night at the Music Box Theater.
READ THE REVIEW