Artists Repertory Theatre is staging an engaging revival of one of Noël Coward’s more infamous works.
Coward, an English playwright, was forced to premiere Design for Living on Broadway because the official censor in London did not approve of the play’s content. It was not produced in London until seven years after its 1932 publication and was preceded by a film adaptation.
Design for Living chronicles half of a decade in the lives of Gilda (Sarah Lucht), Otto (Todd Van Voris) and Leo (Michael Mendelson), three “creatives” living in 1920s London. Otto is an emerging painter, Leo is a playwright fast achieving critical and commercial success and Gilda is difficult to pigeonhole. She seems to be Otto and Leo’s most trusted critic and adviser and both of them are in love with her.
It’s difficult to tell how Gilda comes by her seeming wealth—either she’s provided for by her paramours or is independently wealthy. She has a career as an interior decorator that seems like a side note. Still, Gilda seems to be the epitome of class, taste and social grace, and she increases in all three areas throughout the course of the play.
In Act 1, Gilda is living with Otto, has an affair with Leo and subsequently takes up residence with him. In Act 2, Gilda cheats on Leo with Otto. Otto and Leo then fall in love, while Gilda moves in with a third man, Ernest (Doren Elias). Otto and Leo return as a couple in Act 3, and seduce Gilda away from her husband, much to his disapproval.
Coward wrote Design for Living as a way of fulfilling a personal pact. The play is a vehicle for Coward and his close friends, actor couple Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, who had sworn in their youth to act together onstage once they had all become famous.
The result is a play with delightful symmetry and a nuanced sense of drama and climax. Coward’s mastery is evident here, as is the playwright’s very personal warmth. The play’s love triangle is ostensibly based on Fontanne and Lunt’s private life, which helps to explain why Coward is able to portray a three-way relationship with such compassion. The only condemnation of Gilda, Otto and Leo comes from Ernest, who is upset at Gilda for leaving him.
Design for Living works well at Artist’s Repertory Theatre because of the rapport between its actors. Company members Michael Mendelson and Todd Van Voris are perfectly cast and add a wonderful element of physical comedy to the proceedings. The two truly seem like old friends. Sarah Lucht, for her part, is radiant and energetic. She lights up every scene with her pitch-perfect rendition of Coward’s snappy dialogue.
The play’s only shortfall is its sheer verbosity. Otto, Leo and Gilda expound excessively at times on the nature of friendship, love and fame. These dialogues make up the majority of the show’s nearly three-hour duration, but are mercifully punctuated with enjoyable cameos from the likes of kooky housekeeper Miss Hodge (Vana O’Brien).
Overall, Design for Living is a wonderful period piece and an amusing, compassionate look at unconventional relationships that should resound with modern audiences.