Review: (Ottawa) Private Lives

                                                                                      (photo by Andrew Alexander)
Cowardy Custard
by Valerie Cardinal

Written in 1930, Noel Coward’s Private Lives is considered to be among the great drawing room plays along with Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest. Despite being set between two world wars, its themes and text still resonate with a modern audience.

Divorced couple Elyot and Amanda find their respective honeymoons with new spouses ruined when they happen to be staying in neighbouring hotel rooms. This allows the pair to revisit the reasons they love each other – and the reasons they hate each other, of course.

Private Lives’ strength is in its cast, with everyone bringing their A-game. However, David Whiteley and Alix Sideris as divorced couple Elyot and Amanda really shine in their scenes together thanks to their obvious chemistry. Steve Martin wins the award for best facial expressions as Amanda’s bumbling and well-meaning new husband Victor. Martin has the ability to crack up an audience with only a single bewildered glance. Bronwyn Steinberg is a delight as Elyot’s new wife Sybil, who is the human incarnation of naïve femininity.

The Abominable Showman, October 23, 2011

La Cattrall (Photo: Hugo Glendenning)

Photo of Louis Negin and Liliane Burnett - by Richard Bunrett

Glamour girls

Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe, Joan Collins, Kim Cattrall  (and even my mom) on the art of staging a head-turning entrance

By Richard Burnett

I absolutely worship a fabulous diva who owns – no, commands – a stage the moment all eyes are on her. It happened to me again this past week when I decided to check out the still-beautiful Kim Cattrall star in Noel Coward’s Private Lives opposite another Canadian actor, the still-handsome Paul Gross.