Present Laughter (St. James Theatre) by Noel Coward

There is no one better at witty repartee delivered by characters both larger than life and all-too-human than Noel Coward. 

This delightful production has the audience falling in love with Kevin Kline’s self-absorbed but oddly loveable Garry from the first moment.  Garry is a famous stage actor whose wife, Liz (played by a luminous Kate Burton), in spite of having left him to his peccadillos and younger women years ago, still works with and for him.  His secretary, Monica, is comic perfection as delivered by one of my favorite stage actresses, Kristine Nielsen and Ellen Harvey and Matt Bittner as the household help, Miss Erikson and Fred, are the slap-sticky glue that bind this lunatic household together.

This is a cast filled with talent and impeccable timing and the laughter filled the theatre from the minute the curtain rose until it fell.  There wasn’t a single false note in the entire show.  The set is perfection and the costumes may make you long for the elegance of days gone by.

The story is typical Coward; very fallible, very likeable and very human characters falling in and out of wonderfully capricious situations dealing with work, life, love and sex. 

Garry is (easily) seduced by Joanna (the gorgeous and martini-dry Cobie Smulders) the manipulative wife of one of his best friends and business associates, Henry (Peter Francis James as a suavely undercover cad).  Joanna is also having an affair with his other best friend and business associate, Morris, played with high-strung hysteria by Reg Rogers.  Throw in a melodramatic young wanna-be actress who believes she loves Garry and a stalking playwright (the laugh-out-loud funny Bhavesh Patel) and you have all the makings of a classic Coward free-for-all and an amazingly entertaining theatre experience.