AVERY BRUNKUS
Ashley Blanchet and Britt Michael Gordon co-star in The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s production of Noël Coward’s “Private Lives.”
Sibyl and Elyot — two of the characters in Noël Coward’s sophisticated 1930 comedy “Private Lives,” which is currently opening the 2026 season of The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey — are on their honeymoon. Sibyl, now married for the first time, is acutely aware that her husband Elyot has been married before, and keeps asking him questions about the woman he is divorced from.
“Do you think you could ever love her again?” Sibyl asks. He says no, and adds, “I love you.” She replies: “Yes, but you love me differently. I know that.”
“And more wisely, perhaps,” Elyot says.
AVERY BRUNKUS
Ashley Blanchet and Britt Michael Gordon in “Private Lives.”
How wrong Elyot is. About everything.
By wild coincidence, his first wife Amanda is, we soon find out, honeymooning at the same French resort with her new husband, Victor. Not just that, but the two couples’ suites are next to each other. And all hell is about to break loose.
While Sibyl and Victor seem like stable, sensible, nice-enough sorts, Elyot and Amanda are colorful, witty and passionate. They are drawn to each other, but represent a perfect example of a couple who can’t live with each other, and can’t live without each other. There is a deep love to their bond, but at any moment, it could turn to disdainful hate.
It is no wonder they got divorced. But no wonder, also, that in these close quarters, they can’t resist rekindling their relationship. It will be different this time around, they seem to believe. But we know it won’t be.
That is the set-up for this classic comedy of manners, and Coward packs the dialogue with laughs, some of which will remind you of Oscar Wilde witticisms, others that have a touch of Monty Python-like absurdity. As Amanda and Elyot, Ashley Blanchet and Britt Michael Gordon exude the charm and confidence necessary to make them irresistible to each other, as well as the unpredictability and shallowness that makes their re-coupling problematic.
“I think very few people are completely normal, really, deep down in their private lives,” Amanda says, in the line that gives the play its title. That certainly goes for her and Elyot.
AVERY BRUNKUS
Britt Michael Gordon and Fiona Robberson in “Private Lives.”
Fiona Robberson, as the insecure and often crying Sibyl, and Clark Carmichael, as the regular-guy Victor, have less to do, but they are purposely dull characters — Amanda and Elyot, in their second marriages, have “settled,” and seem dissatisfied with their new spouses from the moment we meet them.
A fifth character, the French-speaking maid Louise (Nicole Lawrie), is only in a few scenes, and generates some laughs, but does not play a major part in the action.
This is a three-act play. There is a full intermission between Act II and Act III. But between Act I and Act II, something else happens that is described in the program as a “5-minute pause.”
Director Michael Stewart Allen adds a clever, modern touch here. Audience members remains seated, and watch as stagehands change the set from the terrace of the honeymooners’ hotel, to Amanda’s Paris apartment. Sibyl and Victor, who are in the last scene of Act I together, stick around, too, and look at the stagehands in wonder, as if they have no idea who these people are, moving everything around.
This is very amusing, and underscores the cluelessness of Sibyl and Victor. At this point, they have no idea that Amanda and Elyot are planning to (as Elyot puts it) “run like stags” away from the hotel and their current marriages, and shack up together in Amanda’s apartment, which is decorated in a sumptuous, period-appropriate Art Deco style by scenic designer Dick Block. (see photo at the top of this review)
AVERY BRUNKUS
Clark Carmichael and Ashley Blanchet in “Private Lives.”
Overall, “Private Lives” is good, fizzy fun. You will laugh hard, and often. But I do have to add a final caveat.
When the play premiered, nearly 100 years ago, it was controversial because of the cavalier way it treated the resumption of a physical relationship between Amanda and Elyot while they were married to other people. Now, of course, this seems very tame. But the casual way Coward depicts physical violence between men and women and even jokes about it — which might not have raised eyebrows in 1930 — seems tasteless now.
When Amanda says, for instance, “I’ve been brought up to believe that it’s beyond the pale for a man to strike a woman,” Elyot responds, haughtily, “No. A very poor tradition. Certain woman should be struck regularly, like gongs.”
Coward does make it clear that Amanda is no helpless victim, and can hold her own, physically and mentally, against the worst that Elyot can throw at her. But still, he should not have gone there. And if he were still alive and writing now, with concern about spousal abuse being so drastically increased, he wouldn’t dare.
The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey will present “Private Lives” at its F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre at Drew University in Madison, through June 7. Visit shakespearenj.org.
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