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by Noel Coward, directed by Kate Lynch

Shaw Festival, Royal George Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake

July 11-October 11, 2009

"Order, Order"

Of the ten one-act plays that Noel Coward wrote under the collective title “Tonight at 8:30”, “Star Chamber” is the least known.  The reason is simple.   After only one matinée performance on March 21, 1936, Coward withdrew the play from the series.  In staging “Star Chamber” along with the other nine plays, the Shaw Festival is not only giving “Star Chamber” its Canadian premiere but mounting the absolutely complete “Tonight at 8:30” in repertory for the first time in Canada.

The play portrays a committee meeting of a theatrical charity for a home for destitute actresses where the participants are so self-absorbed they pay scant heed to the subject at hand.  The title is a pun on the original English “Star Chamber” or “camera stellata” active until 1641, a secretive body that enforced laws against prominent people.  Barry Day’s excellent note in the programme explains that “it was precisely at this moment that [Coward] took over the Presidency of the Actors’ Orphanage from Sir Gerald du Maurier ....  Presumably he felt that satirizing people who were engaged in good work, no matter what their personal affectations, was in questionable taste.  He took his own duties seriously--and took the play off.”  Coward’s scruples are admirable, but they did plunge a highly enjoyable play into obscurity until its first professional revival in 2000.

In William Schmuck’s amusing design the committee meeting is situated on stage in front of a an incongruous seascape partially obscured by racks of such bizarre costumes it’s hard to imagine what kind of play in being rehearsed.  Around a large table the participants have to make do with all kinds of seating including fake-granite garden bench and a fake rock for J. M. Farmer (Guy Bannerman), the non-thespian secretary of the fund.  He is the first to arrive since he has a lot of facts and figures to present to the executive committee for Garrick Haven concerning its expansion, renovation and the costs involved. But he has not reckoned on the nature of the actors he has to deal with.

One by one they traipse in making theatrical entrances and greetings.  First is Hester More (Marla McLean), an intense young actress, the kind of person who automatically believes in the least rational explanation for any phenomenon.  Then comes the vaudeville comedian Johnnie Bolton (Neil Barclay in the role Coward played), filled with theatre stories which he repeatedly launches into without ever being allowed to finish one.  Next come the aging but famous actress Violet Vibart (Sharry Flett), the meek Elsie Brodie (Jenny L. Wright) with baby in pram and Julian Breed (Evan Buliung), the West End’s leading man of the day.

After them comes Maurice Searle (Mark Uhre), an actor who has sold out to Hollywood and has grown his hair long for some swashbuckler.  His plea of “Don’t look at me!” of course has just the opposite effect.  Next is the grand Dame Rose Maitland (Gabrielle Jones) in a tartan cress, vest, jacket, cape and cap.  She is the kind of person found in every committee who is a stickler for rules of order and when she notes that the president has not yet arrived, assumes the presidency herself.  She tries to begin the meeting when in bursts Xenia James (Fiona Byrne in the Gertrude Lawrence role), who makes the splashiest entrance of all.  Schmuck has updated the action from the 1930s to the 1960s so that Xenia looks just too smashing in a floral mini-dress, mod cap and white go-go boots.  In the original she brings her lapdog Bravo.  In the Shaw production the is accompanied by a Great Dane, Atherton.  As Coward must have known we, like the committee members, pay virtually no attention to what is going on as long as the dog is on stage, especially when he is licking Xenia’s mouth as she tries to speak.

When Atherton is finally banished off stage, the meeting begins in earnest.  The group seriously tries to understand Farmer’s presentation, but given that they have the attention span of gnats, every mention of one of the old dears in the home calls forth unfinished reminiscences and unrelated anecdotes.

Kate Lynch has paced the comedy perfectly so that the gradual crescendo from relative calm and order into complete noise and chaos is as inexorable as it is hilarious.  Finally, Farmer is left rattling off absurdly detailed calculations about the renovations to a group involved in multiple mini-conversations paying no attention whatsoever--that is, until a press photographer (Kelly Wong) shows up, whereupon they drop everything to pose in various combinations.

Coward’s satire may be specifically be directed against actors, but anyone who has every been on a committee will recognize the characters types and the dynamics he so cleverly portrays.  Nevertheless, Coward underscores that the actors are fundamentally kind-hearted and do mean well even if they can’t focus on specifics.  Byrne stands out for her sheer panache as does Barclay, who brings a note of pathos to a character everyone disregards and who belongs to a dying tradition.  Fundamentally, though, “Star Chamber” is really an ensemble piece that shows off the Shaw Festival’s renowned strength in this area.  To fill out the show Lynch inserts three Coward songs that draw the actors together despite their differences--”Any Little Fish”, “World Weary” and the well-known “Mad Dogs and Englishmen”.  The first is begun by Barclay to recall the good old days.  The second is given an hilarious rock-and-roll rendition by Uhre complete with screams and yelps, while Buliung gives an appropriately sophisticated delivery of the third.  This a rarity that no Coward aficionado will want to miss but, more than that, it will please any theatre-goers seeking to fill their lunchtime with laughter.   

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Marla McLean, Fiona Byrne, Sharry Flett, Evan Buliung, Neil Barclay, Gabrielle Jones and Jenny L. Wright. ©Emily Cooper.