Private Lives - Donmar Warehouse

Well, I’ve booked and am excited about it - it’s one of my favourite plays and I rather disliked the recent UK tour, so would love to see a good production

Do you mean the Nigel Havers/Patricia Hodge tour? If so, what was it that you particularly disliked? (If you don't mind my asking) Were you not convinced by the age shift? I'm genuinely curious because I saw the tour and loved it, but then it was my first production of PL so I have nothing to compare to...

I do and yes, of course. I wasn’t massively convinced by the age change, but it wasn’t the main reason - instead it was Nigel Havers and the direction.

As Showgirl mentioned, there was a significant imbalance in the main relationship - Havers was a far more affable (but lapsing into a petulant child when frustrated) Elyot than usual and Patricia Hodge (who’s a class act btw, I met her once and she was a delight) ran rings around him. I think the play is a lot more interesting when you have a fair fight between the two of them.

Ultimately it stems from the director - he stated explicitly he considered it very important that the characters were “likeable” to a modern audience. The result is he leaned into the comedy aspects and away from the tragic. Objectively these characters have done quite horrible things and a good production imo wouldn’t shy away from this, instead finding humour in the darker elements. It does still work as a comedy, but I think it’s a shame when there’s so much more in the text you can use.

There’s a lot of other productions available online (I’m rather fond of Alan Rickman in a production from the 2000s and Penelope Keith in the 1976 version) if you’re interested that I think find a better balance.

Sorry for waffling on, that was probably more detail than you wanted oops- I’m pleased you liked the play and I hope you like this production too!

I saw a tweet around lunchtime saying they had released £10 standing for the whole run.

Anyone seeing the first preview tonight?

Saw this tonight, and it's the bitterest least funny version I've seen: the least like a sitcom, the most like genuine toxicity. The cast are terrific but don't expect a laughfest!

Some spoilers follow. . .

Maybe the Donmar just isn't the right place for a massively funny version: maybe the furniture setups and whatnot, that you might need to stage comedy fighting, just aren't feasible when the audience is so close on all sides and props and actors might risk toppling into the audience.

Cos this version definitely chooses to go the other way, and turns from desperately romantic to horribly destructively bitter and cruel.

And for me, these moments are the most interesting and most memorable of this production, the way the two old flames fall romantically into each others' arms again being unduly moving (rather than silly and funny) and the way they turn on each other being a particularly horrific instance of domestic violence (rather than pratfalls and exaggerated attitudes).

Usually, I'd expect something about the characterisations and style of playing to lend itself to comedy. Not so here, for me.

To set the scene, not only is the Donmar ridiculously intimate, and thus a perfect platform for moments of quiet portentousness, but this intimacy is heightened by mournful violin playing in minor keys at specific moments, by dark lighting that heightens such moments of mournful nostalgia or danger, and by acting that is more naturalistic and emotive than the usual comedic exaggeration, accompanied by comedic attitudes.

By contrast, typically, you'd have a brightly lit sitcom set filled with comedic exaggeration that defuses painful moments and emphasises laugh lines. For example, you'd have Matthew MacFadyen playing up his poshness by precise and prim line readings, or you'd have Toby Stephens puffing up his masculinity as a target to be punctured, or you'd have Alan Rickman singling out every odd word in the script with lingering nasal emphasis; all the kind of non-naturalistic silliness that sets up an audience to laugh and laugh and laugh some more.

Mangan, despite his comedic origins in just such shallow puffed-up comedy, doesn't play it that way at all. He's the most normal unaffected Elyot I've seen: his worry is real, his love is real, and his toxicity is real.

This will probably result in critics, looking for a good laugh, slamming this production. It will also probably result in a smaller number of critics, interested in seeing something a bit different, praising the production.

Rachael Stirling can do broad comedy brilliantly: witness the recent "Scandaltown," in which her hilariously puffed up monster of a character stormed about the stage being broad, dumb, mean and generally hilarious. Stirling has the most marvellous voice for comedy too, deep, smoky and authoritative, perfect for setups and even more perfect for punchlines. And it IS used for comedy here, but equally as much for a roar of anguish that I really wasn't expecting from this play.

The portrait of genuine affection combined with it's flipside, total violent toxicity, is a confection that ultimately is more disturbing than funny, and although Coward can't help but be funny, given his jokes loaded upon jokes, what lingers with me from this production is it's portrait of toxic relationships, how cyclical and addictive they can be.

Sargon Yelda is amusingly stolid and Laura Carmichael, always excellent in everything I've seen her in, is amusingly straight-laced, but even this amusement turns to bitterness in Michael Longhurst's vision of this play.

For one uber-romantic moment and one uber-toxic moment, and for a fine cast across the board, I'd rate this 3 and a half stars, downgraded from 4 stars cos I missed having more laughs.

What's the running time for this please?

I was there too. One of the most bizarre productions of a Coward play I've ever seen.


Running time, maybe two hours ten minutes?

Spoilers...


First, it's not funny, except maybe in the first act. It's played very naturalistically and with an emphasis on the toxic nature of relationships. The domestic violence scene that closes the second act is brutal and raw. The food fight bit made me feel squeamish.



There are two really weird directorial choices which I didn't understand.



First, during the interval two of the musicians (a man and a woman) come down from the orchestra and play on stage, but


The second thing and the thing that destroyed the play for me, they've added a sound track of artificial sound effects, basically a background track which plays through the speaker system at various points throughout the play. Maybe it's because I was sitting directly underneath the speaker but the sound effects were so loud it was a constant source of distraction and made it incredibly hard to focus on the actors. I overheard some other people complaining about it too. I don't understand why anyone thinks a live theatre play needs a background track anyway. Some of the sound effects were fine but didn't really work (for example when Stirling throws a glass at the wall there's a really hammy and overly dramatic "glass smashing" sound effect but the timing is slightly off, so she smashes the glass then a beat later the sound effect plays. She really does smash the glass for real so why add a fake sound effect over it?) During the whole of the last half, there's a background track of car noises. Like cars going brmm brmm, car doors opening and closing. But super loud and distracting. WHY?? They're in the living room of an apartment. Not in the pit of a Formula 1 race. It felt like trying to watch a movie on your phone while driving down the M1 with the windows open.

I'm a bit confused about Private Lives being a comedy, I mean it has funny dialogue and scenes but it's not Noises Off!

I believe it's always described as a comedy. Coward subtitled it 'an Intimate Comedy,' Wikipedia has it as a 'comedy of manners' and the Donmar calls it a 'dark comedy.'

Although sometimes society looks back at what was “funny” years ago and takes another look? I am intrigued at the toxic relationship vibe being looked at as a drama and not played for laughs. And as for “well he meant it like x or y” I’m pretty sure Shakespeare would be a bit surprised at some of the versions of his plays I’ve seen!!!!!

Whilst I appreciate people not thinking this is an out and out comedy, I still laughed a lot!

This is unquestionably funny, and well written. Longhurst has directed this, however, to show a couple that can't live without each other (fights and all). The end of each act is pretty startling (I can't do spoiler tags but some of that is not in the original stage directions...)

Well cast (Rachael Stirling one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen) and a nice design, but like, can't say that I enjoyed it really.

3 stars