Photos via American Players Theatre
Phoebe Gonzales and Laura Rook - Fallen Angels
Phoebe Gonzales and Laura Rook in Noel Coward's 'Fallen Angels'
The genius of American Players Theatre is that the talented company can often take the merest bit of theatrical piffle and turn it into a glittering jewel of performance. This is especially true with drawing room comedies, and APT succeeds again with Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels. The 1925 farce speaks of love, lust and alcohol less from the heart than from somewhere somewhat lower on the human anatomy.
Coward’s plot is sit-com simple. Posh socialites Julia and Fred Sterroll (Phoebe Gonzalez and Nate Burger, respectively) and their close friends Jane and Willy Banbury (Laura Rook and Sam Luis Massaro, ditto) find themselves five years into their respective marriages with something less than happily-ever-after on their minds, at least for Julia and Jane who drive the narrative. The men’s solution is a golf weekend just outside of London, leaving their wives to stew—and get stewed—over what could possibly happen if their lives took another turn.
Enter the specter of Maurice Duclos (Ronald Roman-Melendez), the one-time lover of each of them, Julia in Pisa and Jane in Venice. He has sent each of the women a postcard announcing an upcoming London visit and expressing his interest in seeing each of them again. “Swoon” is not a strong enough word to describe the women’s reactions to what might happen, again.
Playwright Noel Coward once said, “It’s never too early for a cocktail.” In Fallen Angels, that happens about a third of the way into the first act. Or maybe sooner. From then on, the narrative teeters into slapstick in lipstick, sometimes newly applied, later terribly smeared. But it’s all part of the fun, driving the women into their inevitable reunion with their former paramour.
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All players have masterful control over the physical comedy the play requires. Burger and Massaro do fine jobs as clueless husbands supporting their wives, but props go to all the female performers, who drive the action, develop what depth there is in the text, and carry the day with antic proceedings that deftly avoid sliding into caricature. Director Shannon Cochran strikes a lively pace, helping Gonzalez and Rook go from sympathetic friends to cutthroat competitors while dressed to the nines in costume designer Fabio Toblini’s beautifully rendered vintage gowns.
Photo via American Players Theatre
Phoebe Gozales and Colleen Madden - Fallen Angels
Phoebe Gonzales and Colleen Madden in Noel Coward's 'Fallen Angels'
A special nod goes to Colleen Madden’s robustly idiosyncratic performance as Saunders the Scottish maid, who appears to have done every job there ever was and follows her own antic muse down some unusual paths as the story continues through the antics unfolding on scenic designer Scott Penner’s gorgeous two-story cream-and-rose-gold period set, where even the rolling ottomans figure into the action.
If you are in the mood for a romp that taxes your funny bone more than your brain, Fallen Angels is a must-see production. And for those of you who can vicariously enjoy the cast’s increasing inebriation from the audience, so much the better.
American Players Theatre’s production of Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels runs through Oct. 3 Up the Hill on APT’s Spring Green campus. For information visit americanplayers.org.
