Garry Essendine is a preeminent actor in the professional theatre. A leading man and star, Garry is famous throughout England. No longer a young man, he nonetheless hasn’t reached his fill of the dissolute life. Seducing sweet ingenues, benders, weasliness and affairs with wives of friends. He is long-suffering, put upon, persecuted, ill-used and exploited. At least according to him. His staff are on strict instructions to never wake him, so when his latest, starry-eyed conquest begs to say goodbye, they must run interference. Apparently the spare bedroom keeps Garry’s guests from getting underfoot.
At first Garry seems vain, superficial, callous and pompous. But once we get past his salient qualities, there might be more below the surface. He must deal with an ongoing parade of strangers wanting favors. When he crosses paths with a rather manic, though not disagreeable playwright, his practical experience goes a long way towards guidance. The key women in his life are not hesitant to put him on the spot, or deliver a well-deserved blow, when he’s got it coming. Yes, they indulge him, but only to a point. It says a lot (if subtly) that he doesn’t retaliate when they catch him out. Perhaps he’s reached a personal reckoning in his life, but he actually seems to be learning from past transgressions. When we might just as easily expect him to be defensive or stubborn.
Playwright Noel Coward has a gift for weaving substance into crisp, disaffected banter. It would be easy to skate on humor alone, or his fine knack for narrative. But he understands context makes the difference between be good and great humor. Absurdism and non sequitur has its moments, but jokes that emerge from a premise, has such punch that laughter is all but inevitable. We might arrive at the theater primed to laugh. We might not. Is it funnier if we know the reason why the man who came to dinner faked his broken leg, or assume it was on a whim? If Didi and Gogo wait interminably for a mysterious visitor, won’t clues to their predicament stick the day after the show?
Director Janette Oswald kept many dishes in the air, to manage Present Laughter. Numerous characters to cue, quips to time, shticks to consider, twists to navigate. This is not Oswald’s first rodeo, and her confidence and intuition make that clear. Despite surprises, eventualities, blindsides and abrupt turns, she coordinates this nimble, poised gathering of actors with less fear than a toreador wearing red.
Richardson Theatre Centre presents: Present Laughter, playing March 25th-April 10th, 2022. 518 West Arapaho, Suite 113, Richardson, Texas 75080. 972-699-1130. richardsontheatrecentre.net