{"id":10483,"date":"2019-07-18T16:15:07","date_gmt":"2019-07-18T16:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/?p=10483"},"modified":"2019-08-07T15:53:38","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T15:53:38","slug":"present-laughter-at-the-old-vic-old-timey-fun-for-the-most-part","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/2019\/07\/18\/present-laughter-at-the-old-vic-old-timey-fun-for-the-most-part\/","title":{"rendered":"Present Laughter at the Old Vic: Old Timey Fun, for the Most Part"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
It\u2019s Theatre Thursday!\nToday\u2019s show is Present Laughter at the Old Vic, playing until August 10.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Noel Coward is such a goofball, am I right?! In one of his\nclassic plays, Present Laughter<\/em>, he\nbasically goes autobiographical and has a jolly old time caricaturing his own\noutsized persona. Representing Coward is the lead character Garry Essendine, a\nfamous actor who has several romantic exploits and several exaggerated\nbreakdowns over the course of the few days we see. More than anything, Present Laughter<\/em> is a vehicle for a star\nto have the time of his life as Garry. Recently, Kevin Kline won a Tony for his\nportrayal, because he was probably perfect as always. The draw of this current\nOld Vic production is Andrew Scott, hot off his stint as the hot priest on the\nuniversally acclaimed Fleabag<\/em>. The\nshow is worth seeing for his fantastic performance, but the changes to the\nsource material are less than ideal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the show starts out strong, with an impeccable,\nuproariously funny first act, it quickly turns maddening, as all farce and\nfarce-adjacent work tends to do. Andrew\u2019s Garry wakes the show by trying to\nusher out a flaky one-night-stand named Daphne Stillington (a very funny Kitty\nArcher; they could have swapped the real and character names for perhaps an\nimprovement) amid the judgmental eyes of his household staff (all three the\nsteady highlights of the show). With this material, Andrew gets to play so\nmuch, it\u2019s amazing. He shines so bright, so pitch perfect and hilarious in this\nfirst act that it\u2019s almost distasteful. He looks to be having the time of his\nlife, relishing some of Coward\u2019s funniest lines and his ability to turn the\nregular ones into the funniest lines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But then, it starts farcing all over the place and it took all my might to not shout at everyone to just communicate better. Okay so in this 1940s play, they were obsessed with marital affairs to get their minds off war. Garry is dealing with an issue in his close-knit \u2018family\u2019 of people who work for him: his secretary Monica, his ex-wife Liz who is still pretty much his wife, his manager Morris, his producer Henry. Henry is married to Joanna, who is rumored to be having an affair with Morris. Monica has a serious conversation with Garry about finding out whether this is true about Morris and Joanna, and instead of Garry trying to put a stop to this lest it destroy their little family, Garry goes and shtupps Joanna himself. Bad call Gar! As people find out, things get SHOUTY, like MAN ALIVE SHOUTY, and Garry gets apoplectic a lot, like a LOT a lot, and Morris is like BUT I LOVE JOANNA, and Henry is like BUT SHE\u2019S MY WIFE (and John Mulaney is like THAT\u2019S MY WIFE) and Daphne for some reason comes back to audition for a theatre school?, and Liz is like I\u2019m fine and calm because monayyyyy, and for some reason Garry\u2019s staff KEEPS LETTING some random stranger INTO HIS HOUSE who is very clearly going to murder everyone in the sequel (Luke Thallon was so funny as Roland but OMG) and everyone\u2019s like WHEEEE THIS IS CRAZY and I\u2019m like MY BLOOD PRESSURE. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But in this production, because, I\u2019m guessing, people realized that the whole idea of three rich men fighting over a married woman like she\u2019s property is\u2026kinda gross, they took a note from the recent success of the Company<\/em> revival and had some fun with gender switches! In theory, I love this idea, because it would have been too outdated and frustrating to watch Joanna get treated simultaneously like a piece of meat and an uncontrollable hoo-er. So, in theory, they made the right call making Joanna now \u2018Joe\u2019, a man, married to the producer \u2018Helen\u2019, a woman. This change does several things. First, it makes literally everyone in the cast bisexual, which, okay fine, I\u2019ll go along with that (\u201cit\u2019s 2018! More people should be bi! It\u2019s like, get over yourselves!\u201d). But it throws off the dynamic like hella<\/em> hard, because the casting is not done well. There\u2019s no way the couplings in the show would happen and I just couldn\u2019t buy it. But most of all, worst of all, the actor playing Joe is miscast. Whereas Joanna is a flighty and glamorous young woman who seduces all these men but like is fun, Joe is a too-serious, gloomy, severe mufucka who brings the action to a screeching halt. It makes no sense that Garry would say anything to him when he comes a\u2019knocking other than like \u201cgtfo my house you\u2019re in the wrong show, this is a fun one not an Italian murder mystery where you\u2019re clearly the butler and you clearly did it.\u201d With the wrong actor playing Joe, you\u2019re just like, why. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The changes continue in the same direction the quality of play goes in after that first act. Most of all, I was disappointed in the ending. Through all of Garry\u2019s breakdowns, all his mid-life crises and all his issues he\u2019s clearly dealing with, it\u2019s clear most of all he wants someone to love the real him and cure his loneliness. (Oh another burning question I had several times: why doesn\u2019t this famous actor have a bodyguard or someone who actually sleeps at his house to prevent 100 of the annoying things that happen.) It\u2019s obvious throughout the play that his ex-wife Liz is still this person, and at the end they reconcile. In this version, after Liz announces that she\u2019s coming back to him, and you expect Garry to be like YES PLEASE THANK GOD I NEED YOU, he literally is silent, and walks over to the window while he has a drink, and I truly thought he was going to jump out the window. It was a weird vibe and did not work for me, and definitely not as an ending. It made the original ending of Pippin<\/em> look like a Mamma Mia!<\/em>-style dance party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regardless, it\u2019s still overall a fun time, and it\u2019s worth seeing Andrew shine in a role that seems tailor-made for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n INFORMATION<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Get ready for big bunches of small purple fruit as said by an Australian because I have me some gripes<\/em>. First of all, yes the Old Vic is still under hella construction, which you can\u2019t hold against them. But I am so over theatres not giving paper tickets at will call and telling you to just use your phone, and it was an especially bad move here: Given all the construction, the staff have to check your tickets frequently because to get to the temporary toilet area or the bar you have to leave the building entirely (toilets are outside only on one side! Don\u2019t sit upstairs you\u2019ll never get there!). But hi, hello, this is the theatre, where people should be TURNING THEIR PHONES OFF! Everyone stop with the e-tickets please and thank you. Any decent people have shut their phones off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Secondly, speaking of phones, London theatres in general\nneed to forking quit it with those little white NO PHONES signs that two ushers\nin dark corners of the theatre hold up like any\nforking person in the audience notices them<\/em>. Make a GOTTAM preshow\nannouncement that everyone must shut their phones off and not use them during\nthe show like a GROWN ASS ADULT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Third, there was a super frustrating technical problem that I\u2019m not even sure the stage managers or lighting people realized: During most of the show, an amber light was reflected out of the mirror by Garry\u2019s bar table, and it was blinding us from looking at the stage. INFURIATING. That\u2019s the kind of technical thing you\u2019d think would have been caught and handled by now. It was the worst in the 20-minute scene right before the interval and for most of Act II (so, just Act I was fine (maybe that\u2019s why it was my favorite, because I was able to watch it without corneal damage)).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lastly (lol am I ever done), I am sick and tired of plays trying to establish characterization with smoking. Literally, I am sick and tired from it, because it gives me breathing issues. If you can\u2019t establish something without having an actor harm their own health with cigarettes, then you aren\u2019t doing a good job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh I thought of another: I am tired of the Old Vic’s boring af programmes and show art. For the love of god add an image. I’m not going to pay $5 for block letters and weird color schemes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n STAGE DOOR<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the saddest part for me to recount, because I love(d) Andrew Scott. Who doesn\u2019t adore the Hot Priest? I was excited to see that the stage door (wisely) had a barricade up and a security guard at the ready, telling everyone to line up in single file and that you could either get an autograph from OR a photo with Andrew. So with things progressing like that, with a security guard already taking care of business, with maybe 80 people already lined up?? all of that suggests that Andrew was coming out. Now, I\u2019m the first person to state that actors have no obligation to come to the stage door (hell, they have no business doing it; why on earth would anyone want to greet a crazy mob) and that they should absolutely not face any scrutiny for not doing it. BUT, that\u2019s a different situation from lining up your crowd in single file, making sure they know all your rules, &c\u2026and then making them wait a frankly offensive amount of time. I\u2019d be saying absolutely nothing except \u2018good on you\u2019 if he had decided not to stage door. But to make sure his crowd was organized to his requirements and then just not come out for hours is plain rude, showing zero respect for anyone\u2019s time. That security and staff waiting outside (but hidden from our view after a while so they didn\u2019t have to answer any questions) didn\u2019t relay any message was bullshit. We left after about 50 minutes of waiting, but I was told on the socials that Andrew came out at about 11:40 \u2013 an hour after we <\/em>left. That sucks. Just don\u2019t come out if you don\u2019t want to! But to make people wait and wait and not say anything is a weird kind of torture, and it sucks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s Theatre Thursday! Today\u2019s show is Present Laughter at the Old Vic, playing until August 10. Noel Coward is such a goofball, am I right?! In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"yoast_head":"\n