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AUGUST 2004
IVORYTON, CT: The fourth production of River Rep’s 18th summer season is the madcap farce Present Laughter by Noël Coward, the British writer, actor, and composer who gained international fame as a master wit and satirist. The show will run from August 11 through 21 at the Ivoryton Playhouse.
Present Laughter is Coward at his best – with razor-sharp repartée and barbs aimed at his entourage and at himself as the pampered, adored, but temperamental actor, Gary Essendine. (Coward acknowledged that Essendine is really himself.) The play is set in a quirky London flat as the actor is preparing for an extended theater tour in Africa. The plot reveals numerous complicated relationships: his estranged wife; a theater producer and his disenchanted wife; a star-struck young actress who has designs on him; and a young playwright who initially thinks the actor a hollow man but later falls under the star’s spell.
With more than sixty plays to his credit, Noël Coward was the acknowledged master of the English stage during the first half of the 20th century, according to many critics. Some of his greatest comedies also included Hay Fever (1925), Private Lives (1930), Design for Living (1933), and Blithe Spirit (1941). Late in his career he was granted knighthood and received a Tony Lifetime Achievement Award in 1971, as revivals of his plays continued to delight American audiences.
Present Laughter was written in 1939 and first produced in 1942 during World War II. The play did not reach New York until 1946 when it opened on Broadway and starred Clifton Webb in the lead with Jan Sterling as co-star. The New York Times said, “He (Noël Coward) is still the master of the quick and impudent sardonic line...sharp, withering, and funny.”
For the River Rep production, Director Evan Thompson has staged the play in the 1946 time frame. “While Coward was supporting Britain’s war effort with some overly patriotic works, he seems to have wanted to contribute a contrasting piece of pure entertainment as a morale booster, a self-titled ‘light comedy’ in a time of dark tragedy,“ explained Thompson. “The relief and euphoria that followed the Allied Victory seem an appropriate setting for this enchanting bubble of a comedy.”
Joining in the tour de force are Warren
Kelley as Garry Essendine, Julia
Kiley as Liz Essendine, his estranged wife, John
T. Swanson as Hugo Lyppiatt, his producer, Jean
Tafler as Joanna Lyppiat, Owen
Thompson as Morris Dixon, intern Courtney
Shaw as Daphne Stillington, the aspiring actress, and David
Christopher Wells as Roland Maule, the young playwright. The
cast also includes Joan
Shepard, Arthur
Pignataro, Jackie
Sidle, and Jean
DeGrooth.
The River Rep Theatre Troupe is the professional summer stock repertory company now in its 18th season offering five productions at the Ivoryton Playhouse. Remaining this season are:
- aug 11–21: Present
Laughter, a brilliant lampoon by the incomparable author/entertainer Noël Coward.
- aug 25–sept 5: Proof, David Auburn’s powerful Pulitzer Prize-winning play.
Performances are:
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, & Saturday evenings –
8 pm
Wednesday & Saturday matinees – 2:30 pm
Sunday twilight matinees – 5 pm
Special talk-back sessions with the cast will
be held
after the Thursday evening performances.
Tickets: $25–27, with senior and under 12 discounts available.
The Ivoryton
Playhouse is located at 103 Main St., Ivoryton (off Rt #9).
For ticket information, call the box office at (860) 767-2954.
For more information on this story, contact River Rep Publicist
Helen Barnett at helenbarnett@riverrep.com.
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