Tracy-Ann Oberman has form when it comes to bold theatrical reboots, said Dominic Cavendish in The Telegraph. In 2023, the actress “memorably reclaimed” “The Merchant of Venice”, turning Shylock into an East End matriarch in the 1930s. Now, she takes on “Present Laughter”, Noël Coward’s arch self-portrait of a vain, ageing, star actor Garry Essendine (anagram: neediness).
Directed by Lindsay Posner, the production turns Garry into Geri, and shifts the action from 1930s London to 1970s New York, though the characters remain mostly British. It is an evening of “mild mirth” rather than “wild guffaws”, but the transpositions work well, and Oberman, playing Geri, has the “glittery presence to hold the flimsy, at points farcical, affair together”.
“What initially sounds like a gimmick proves surprisingly effective,” said Kris Hallett on WhatsOnStage. Oberman is “tremendous”, switching effortlessly between diva-ish theatricality and genuine loneliness. “Present Laughter” is not prime Coward: “It is expertly constructed and often very funny, but beyond its central character, there is precious little flesh and blood.”
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And Posner’s production moves, if anything, too swiftly; “what starts as pace eventually feels like rushing”. But it is a visual treat, with a design that evokes an impossibly stylish Manhattan existence, with Warhol-esque portraits of Geri, and a “parade of immaculate dressing gowns”, and “shimmering gowns”.
It is not only the central role that has been gender swapped, said Mark Lawson in The Guardian. Coward’s ghastly avant-garde playwright Roland Maule here becomes Rosina, an “intense cross-genre experimentalist for whose work no theatre is far enough off-Broadway”.
The standout performance, though, is from James Dreyfus as Geri’s long-suffering assistant Monty, said Ben Kulvichit in The Stage. Dreyfus made his name in 1990s sitcoms such as “The Thin Blue Line”, and his “funny bone is as strong as ever”: he communicates “decades of devotion and exasperation with the bristle of his moustache, and his line readings are drier than gin”.
Festival Theatre, Malvern, from 15-19 September, then touring until 28 November.
