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| IF LOVE WERE ALL |
September 14 – October 16
Written by Sheridan Morley & Leigh Lawson
Music & Lyrics by Noel Coward
Directed and Choreographed by Jeffry Denman
Music Direction by Theresa E. Quinn
Set Design by Chris Schenk
Lighting Design by Chris Cavanagh
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From the 2005/2006 Season: This witty and moving show tells of the friendship between two of the twentieth century's great stage personalities: Gertrude Lawrence and Noel Coward. Featuring Coward's music and lyrics along with excerpts of his plays and letters written between the two legends, IF LOVE WERE ALL epitomizes an era of style, wit and grace that will never be forgotten. (Read the BUFFALO NEWS review and other reviews below)
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BUFFALO NEWS Review
By RICHARD HUNTINGTON
9/16/2005
***1/2 (out of four)
MUSICALFARE GIVES SPARK TO PLAY ON COWARD'S FRIENDSHIP
Anything that Noel Coward wrote, even the mediocre stuff, has a way of putting actors on alert. They must be prepared to have their style, timing and diction put to the test - not to mention their capacity for the ridiculous.
As IF LOVE WERE ALL which opened Wednesday night at MusicalFare Theatre, so amply demonstrates, this alert is in effect even when the play is about Coward. This is no real surprise. Sheridan Morley and Leigh Lawson have drawn on scenes from Coward's plays, on his songs, letters, telegrams and recorded pronouncements, to construct their well-wrought musical drama about the long-running friendship between Coward and performer Gertrude Lawrence.
Brian Riggs and Lisa Ann Ludwig, the engaging pair being tested by this lively little piece of Coward homage, get two gold stars and a free lunch pass. They are triumphant.
Riggs plays Coward himself, a task complicated by the playwright's own unforgettable voice and presence. Riggs is impeccable. He creates a charmingly deliberate character that uses words like little knives, precisely cutting up the air.
I wish that the playwrights had made more fuss about Coward's impish nature when he is speaking; his dedication to nonsense only shows up only in the songs. A more playful speaking Coward would give Riggs another area to ply his multiple skills.
But in any case, Riggs gets the Coward tone without coming off as a mere impersonator. Thankfully, in the tearful final scene Riggs does have a chance, fleeting as it is, to show a bit of his wide-ranging dramatic acting ability. Momentarily, the humor subsides and the play takes a sad turn. It is tender moment.
Ludwig, as Lawrence, has more freedom, and she uses it with an easy assurance. Gertie, as Coward affectionately called her, is not now a known commodity. Ludwig gives her a slightly bigger-than-life presence, through a voice that can growl or purr or sputter or snap out a line with comic precision. Her archly controlled enunciation with its popping T's and D's that sound like T's is a riot.
Her movements are equally skillful, ranging from sexy posturing in torch songs like "Parisian Pierot" to wacky - and wildly energetic - song-and-dance antics in the vaudevillian numbers. Her hands alone have their own repertory - her fingers even. Her mouth can be pert, coy or agape in campy exuberance, her eyes always on the move.
The play has Coward telling the story of his enduring love between himself and Lawrence - a love that was consummated in every way but sexually. As Coward says, "I adore women except in what is known as "that way.' " The tale begins with the day they first meet as children, moves through the years when Lawrence was something of a muse for Coward and his favorite performer, to Lawrence's death in 1952. The pair, for all their closeness, only performed twice together, in PRIVATE LIVES and TONIGHT AT 8:30. Both figure prominently in IF LOVE WERE ALL.
The musical numbers are priceless. Among the ballads are the opener "Someday I'll Find You," "I'll Follow My Secret Heart" (given a melting beauty by Ludwig) and of course "If Love Were All." For those yearning for Coward-inspired nonsense look to "Don't Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs. Worthington," a song in which the singer's pleas become progressively more aggressive. Riggs adeptly lets out the anger in stages until it breaks free in the final stanza when Mrs. Worthington is told that her daughter is a "vile girl" and "uglier than mortal sin." Riggs also does a splendid rendition of that Coward favorite "Mad Dogs and Englishmen."
Riggs' voice, a steady instrument with barely a tremor, works marvelously with Ludwig's warbling mezzo. Ludwig's expressive vibrato adds an extra emotional turn while Riggs keeps things on track. Together they work wonders. Their ballads are touching and vivid and their comic numbers are quick, sharp and precise.
And as amazing, their harmonizing is able to re-create the sweet and slightly maudlin temper of Coward's time without so much as a passing nod to contemporary music. The Coward-like lilt of Theresa E. Quinn's piano, supported by Dave Siegfried's straight-forward bass, help immensely in this quest to capture a time past in music. All is done before an elegantly reserved art deco set by Chris Schenk that admirably avoids the excessive curlicues and comically jaunty trim that often accompanies plays of the era.
Jeffry Denman's direction finds the right pace throughout. His choreography adds much to the Coward ambience by means of well-placed slow dances and much to audience amusement in the fast, comic routines.
It is a sweet production, balanced, free of affectation and, thanks to two terrific performers, both hilarious and emotionally engaging.
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SPEAKUPWNY.COM review
By Augustine Warner
Sep 22, 2005
IF LOVE WERE ALL/MusicalFare Theatre
For decades, they were not just friends, but collaborators on stage and off. Actor Gertrude Lawrence and writer and actor Noel Coward became friends while breaking into the acting business as really young performers in the England before World War I.
She grew into one of the great figures of the stage, in Britain and on Broadway, dying tragically young.
He grew into one of the great figures of 20th-century entertainment, playwright, song writer and performer.
Using Coward’s music and lyrics, Sheridan Morley and Leigh Lawson tell the story of a friendship in IF LOVE WERE ALL, getting a revival on the MusicalFare stage.
This two-performer musical ran on that same stage five years ago featuring the same team of director Jeffry Denman and performers Lisa Ludwig and Brian Riggs. It’s entertaining and sometimes sad, as the doomed Lawrence careens through life, observed and helped by Coward. She never seemed to control her own life, relying on the assistance of strangers…and, on Noel.
The two just clicked, with him seeming to understand her and the material for her and for both of them.
Sometimes it was the varying segments of TONIGHT AT 8:30 and sometimes it was the social commentary of PRIVATE LIVES, that look at how love can survive divorce and re-marriage.
Always, there was the music, whether his, hers or both of theirs, Noel with “Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs. Worthington” or “Poor Little Rich Girl or “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” or the two of them with “A Room with A View,” “London Pride” or the show’s name, “If Love Were All” or Ludwig’s Gertie with “Twentieth Century Blues” or “Has Anybody Seen Our Ship” or sharing the sexually ambiguous “Mad About the Boy.” Riggs and Ludwig are really good at the material in the show and the thin narration.
Lawrence seems a fairly standard stage performer.
Coward was much more than that, not just because he was a writer as well as performer but because of his ability over the years to re-invent himself and because he could take his talents in other directions, whether wartime propaganda like “London Pride” or his work in Las Vegas, far from London’s West End.
He had a career arc covering generations, not just a few shows or a few songs.
That’s the part missing in this show, although it’s certainly hinted at.
The true problem with the show is the shrinking number of people who know who either Lawrence or Coward used to be.
Both have been dead a long time. IF LOVE WERE ALL is far from dead. It’s entertaining and well done and well worth seeing.
© Copyright 2005 by Speakupwny.com
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