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Channel NY1 has a weekly drama program, "On Stage." On Sunday 4/29 they reviewed and showed scenes from two shows that opened last week, so there's a pretty good chance that next weekend they'll cover PL. They also interviewed an actor from a show that's been around for a few weeks, so we can hope that AR will turn up somewhere down the road. The same show is repeated several times on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. It looks like you might be able to see it at the website, www.ny1.com, but due to my employer's firewall I can't confirm this. Here's from their website:

New York City's only weekly half-hour theater show, "On Stage" covers all the action on, off and off-off Broadway. The show features in-depth interviews with performers, writers, producers and directors, as well as the latest backstage scoop from contributing correspondents, plus reviews of all the current shows.

"On Stage" airs Saturdays and Sundays from 9:30 a.m.-10:00 a.m., and again from 7:30 p.m.-8:00 p.m. It also airs Mondays from 9:30 p.m.-10:00 p.m., and that same night from 12:30 a.m-1:00 a.m.
Anne/Manhattan <agilhuly@gibsondunn.comfoo>
- Tuesday, April 30, 2002

The Tony nominations will be announced on Monday, May 6. The announcement will be webcast live via streaming audio at www.tonys.org, beginning at 8:30 a.m.(ET) sharp.

Per the Tony website: "Then, throughout the following month, check back for interviews with the nominees, video clips from nominated shows, news updates, daily poll questions, and more.

The Tony Awards will be broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, June 2. PBS stations begin the national telecast at 8:00 p.m. (ET/PT) with coverage of the first ten awards. CBS will continue the broadcast 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. (ET/PT). Here at www.tonys.org, you'll be able to meet the nominees and presenters live on the red carpet at Radio City. We'll also take you backstage to interview the winners immediately after they pick up their Tony medallions."
Ann
NJ USA - Tuesday, April 30, 2002

This is another New Jersey review, from The Star Ledger:

'Lives' in the fast lane

Witty repartee propels comedy about lovers who drive each other crazy NEW YORK STAGE

Monday, April 29, 2002

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

Star-Ledger Staff

NEW YORK -- A witty yet wistful comedy, "Private Lives" is an intoxicating mix of "cocktails and laughter -- and what comes after," as the lyric goes to a song composed by Noel Coward a few years before he wrote his stage classic late in 1929.

Opening yesterday at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, a splendid new production of "Private Lives" stars Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan in their first Broadway appearance since "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" in 1986.

Rickman and Duncan are superbly matched as Elyot and Amanda, a glamorous couple who can't live without each other. Unfortunately, neither can they live together.

"Like two violent acids bubbling about in a nasty little matrimonial bottle" is the way Amanda describes her tempestuous first union to her new groom Victor (Adam Godley). Elyot says much the same to his bride Sybil (Emma Fielding).

As the newlywed couples begin their Riviera honeymoons on flanking hotel terraces, however, Elyot and Amanda accidentally meet in the moonlight as a distant orchestra plays "their" song, "Someday I'll Find You."

"Extraordinary how potent cheap music is," muses Amanda as she and Elyot reluctantly realize that they're still terribly in love. After "Romeo and Juliet," "Private Lives" boasts the most famous balcony scene in the English language -- humorous, tender, rueful stuff -- and the present stars make it glow with the seductive magic of their chemistry together.

Designer Tim Hatley provides lovely surroundings. All Art Nouveau trimmings in alabaster creams and gold, the terraces on the floors above the couple rise in sharply diminishing perspective like layers on a wedding cake. Rippling shades of mauve and blue in Peter Mumford's lighting scheme enhance the romantic atmosphere as Elyot and Amanda vainly struggle to resist each other's charms.

When those old feelings prove too strong, they elope to Paris. But their lovemaking gives way to brittle bouts of bickering that erupt with increasing volatility despite the couple's best efforts to remain idyllic. By the time Victor and Sybil track them down, Elyot and Amanda are battling royally, trashing their apartment -- another striking design, this time in vermilion -- and attacking each other with gusto.

But many know this story already, since "Private Lives" has remained a popular item ever since Coward and Gertrude Lawrence memorably romped about in the original. Criticized then as a slight escapade dependent upon the stars' magnetism, the comedy proves to be a brilliantly crafted study of soulmates whose destiny is to drive each other crazy.

Director Howard Davies' keen direction brings out the occasional notes of poignant emotion that lurk beneath the glissandos of small talk that give "Private Lives" sparkle.

Rickman and Duncan portray Elyot and Amanda as a couple of melancholy babies whose sophisticated banter disguises their pensive inner selves. They're simultaneously too, too divine, yet all too aware of their own frailties. "We're figures of fun, all right," notes Elyot. Somehow the growling, moody Rickman makes a scowl appear sexy while Duncan effortlessly volleys high-comedy repartee with a sweet voice and great tragic eyes.

A perfect comedy, perfectly played, "Private Lives" is not to be missed by anyone who savors the finer points either in life or theater.

Ann
NJ USA - Tuesday, April 30, 2002

The New York Times article on the Drama Desk nominations is now on line. No new information. (You need to be registered with them to access this site.)
Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Tuesday, April 30, 2002

One more thing about the DD Awards. They'll be televised live on May 19th at 9 PM on the NY1 channel, which I don't have. They'll be re-broadcast on May 27th at 9 PM on WNET Channel 13, which I do have. So I'll probably tape it then.
Melissa
NJ, USA - Tuesday, April 30, 2002

The Drama Desk Awards will be handed out on May 19th in the LaGuardia Concert Hall at Lincoln Center. Tickets are pricey: $175 for the General Public, and $400 for a Prime Access Pass. There are only 30 PAP's. They give you prime seating at the award show. The seats are located in the first 3 rows of the center section of the theatre. The PAP also allows you admittance to 2 private VIP celebrity parties, one before the show and one after. Call SmartTix at 212/206-1515 or order online at: www.smarttix.com. I got this info from the Drama Desk website: www.dramadesk.org. So, does anyone wanna go?
Melissa
NJ, USA - Tuesday, April 30, 2002

The Drama Desk Award nominations are just out and PL has done splendidly. Alan Rickman, Best Actor; Lindsay Duncan, Best Actress, Best Revival, Howard Davies, Best Director. PL also got nominations for best costumes, set design and lighting. The Awards will be be handed out May 19th. For the complete lit of nominees, visit the Playbill website.
Melissa
NJ, USA - Tuesday, April 30, 2002

A small entry in Variety today, from the now-famous party:

Sunday's Broadway opening of "Private Lives" turned out some famous couples for Noel Coward's most famous couple, Amanda and Elyot. Duos watching Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman on stage at the Richard Rodgers Theater included Emma Thompson and Mike Nichols, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin, Ernestine and Bill Bradley (news - web sites) and Ian McKellen and Nick Cuthell.

Although the production is yet another sterling Brit import, the life in this "Private Lives" began with Gotham producer Emanuel Azenberg, who held the play's option. A year ago, he and director Howard Davies decided to open in London and, if all went well, bring their Coward to Broadway.

"I wanted it to be done like Ibsen," Azenberg said at the Tavern on the Green party. "Not campy or with a wink the way Noel Coward is usually performed here, but with respect."

Surprisingly, neither of the evening's two stars mentioned Ibsen. "Coward is very difficult to perform," Rickman said. "The first act of 'Private Lives' is Restoration comedy, the second is Chekhov and the third is Feydeau."

As for Duncan, her attention was drawn to Broadway's previous incarnation of "Private Lives," the infamous 1983 production starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. "What was it like?!" exclaimed the actress, eyes wide. Neither Chekhov nor Ibsen could do it justice.

Magda
Canada - Tuesday, April 30, 2002

From the New York Sun:

Shining Late-Season Imports - Jeremy McCarter Reviews a Coward Revival . . .

The British are bringing much-needed luster to the closing days of this year's Broadway season.

The glittering "Private Lives," which Noel Coward wrote in four days in 1930, is a precursor to Hollywood's comedy of remarriage. Divorced for five years, Elyot and Amanda find themselves in adjacent hotel rooms on the first night of their honeymoons with new spouses. They realize they are even more miserable apart than they were together, and decide to run off. The bickering that begins almost immediately and never lets up echoes the verbal combat in Strindberg's "Dance of Death" that Sir Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren brought vividly to life earlier this season. In fact, when the bemused Edgar laments in that play's last scene that no sooner do you stop fooling and begin to take life seriously than "someone comes along and makes a fool of you," he is warming up to the "Private Lives" world-view.

Coward neither wanted nor attained Strindbergian levels of seriousness here (or anywhere else), but a dark current does run beneath this story about charming, perpetually droll bon vivants. Before divorcing, Elyot and Amanda's relationship was physically violent, and it will be again before the show ends. It's played for laughs, of course, though they're not as big here as in "Blithe Spirit," where Elvira complains that her ex-husband used to hit her with a billiard cue and he replies, "Only very, very gently."

It is presumably to mine the darker reaches of the play that Alan Rickman has been tapped to play Elyot. He succeeds in this, and proves himself to be a deft comic actor besides. Yet in his unguarded moments Rickman reveals a saturnine air that's out of place in this confection. He pinches his eyebrows and squints down his nose, and seems to be deciding if he should devour one of his co-stars. He lacks the naturally flippant disposition to be the ideal Elyot (a role Coward did after all create for himself), but has the talent to be an effective one.

It is hard to imagine a more fully realized Amanda than Lindsay Duncan's. She has the range to hit all of Amanda's notes - insouciance, hurt, rage, charm - and the confidence to informs her overmatched husband Victor that, far from being vulnerable, her heart is "jagged with sophistication." The line is pure Coward, and so is Duncan's reading of it: like a pitcher she winds up before her delivery.

The notoriously image-obsessed Coward could have been better served by the show's designers. He would roll in his grave if he saw the riot of clashing yellows they perpetrate with Sybil, Elyot's new bride, in act three. Her hair and dress and the stage-right sofa are all shades of yellow - oddly bright, oddly bland, and oddly dirty, respectively. Individually, they're palatable; together, they're discouraging. To paraphrase Wilde's reputed last words, one of them has to go.

I noticed the same thing about the yellow. Odd!
Anne/Manhattan <agilhuly@gibsondunn.comfoo>
- Tuesday, April 30, 2002

One final review for tonight from Newsday with a link which shows another pic I haven't seen.

The Sophistication of 'Private Lives'

The revival of Noel Coward's comedy is elegant and refreshing

By Linda Winer

STAFF WRITER

April 29, 2002

FINALLY, BROADWAY HAS actors who wear silk pajamas without looking tarted up for a Noel Coward costume ball. At last, we have a production of "Private Lives" that plays high-stakes romantic games for keeps at what one grown-up character calls the "big tables."

After decades of revivals that exploited Coward's most popular comedy as a sideshow for aging actresses with something to prove, we have been granted a visit from the exquisitely sophisticated Lindsay Duncan and the sardonically sophisticated Alan Rickman in the Howard Davies staging that recently broke box office records for a nonmusical in London.

For a generation forced to know Amanda as Elizabeth Taylor with her itsy- bitsy voice and hopeless stage presence in her saddest 1983 days, or Amanda as Joan Collins with her bad wig and Kabuki technique in 1992, this is both a relief and a revelation. Even Davies and company can do little to stop Coward's smart and breezy 1930 style show from degenerating into tedious low-comedy violence in the third act. For the hours until the inevitable slapping and the chasing and the household-object tossing, however, we are rapt in a world where hearts may break but always keep their wits about them.

The only other time Duncan and Rickman made sparks on Broadway together, they were the most glamorous of sadistic 18th century co-conspirators in Davies' erotic and elegantly brutal staging of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." Fifteen years later, their relationship is dangerous again - only, this time, their cruelty to others is merely an afterthought by two people delighted, terrified and transported by passion for one another and for their irresistible selves.

How different this play feels when Amanda and Elyot are so palpably crazy about one another. Divorced for five years and on honeymoons in the same French hotel, the two brilliant but bratty spirits reconnect with a frisson that, for once, convinces us that they have no choice but to leave their inadequately normal new spouses immediately. Duncan, a specialist in the shudder under the surface of Harold Pinter plays, can make the fine bones beneath her creamy skin into weapons. Rickman, one of Hollywood's favorite smart villains, has such a believable combination of rough and slick qualities that expressions of love feel almost unbearably intimate.

It helps to remember that Coward created these volatile free spirits for himself, at 31, and Gertrude Lawrence, 29. Duncan and Rickman are not such crazy kids, but their Amanda and Elyot have the combustible chemistry of people who can't stay away from each other, no matter whom their libidos might hurt. There are positive and negative charges between them, but every high-strung moment is charged.

They meet, deliciously and agonizingly cute, on their honeymoon nights at a hotel that Tim Hatley has designed as an enchanted leaning tower of meringue and moonlight - dreamily created by Peter Mumford. Seldom has onstage air seemed so high in the clouds. After the two abandon their new mates, we are dropped into Amanda's Paris flat, a darkly rose and deeply tufted studio, where intimacies seem as inevitable - and at least as authentic - as the Eiffel Tower outside.

Davies has wisely acknowledged that, though the new spouses are all too conventional for these wild things, the other newlyweds have to be attractive enough to keep us from doubting the instincts of the main characters. Emma Fielding and Adam Godley are somewhat more than stock characters in the first act, though the difference between their elevated artifice and the others' articulate emotionalism is more than merely style. But in the last act, when Coward goes for pratfalls instead of profundity, Fielding and Godley have blissful fun proving Coward's proposition that "Few people are completely normal, deep down in their private lives."

Alex Belcourt, despite an ill-advised but virtuosic somersault entrance, has just the right rude superiority as the French maid. And, except for the oddly snug cut of Elyot's fashionable suits, Jenny Beavan's costumes - like the Coward song the couple so touchingly croaks - have a talent to amuse and to dazzle.
Annette
Mansfield, Tx - Monday, April 29, 2002

Here is a different link to some more opening night photos ...once there, just click on The Scene: Private Lives opening.
Annette
Mansfield, Tx - Monday, April 29, 2002

Go to www.playbill.com for some excellent pictures of the Private Lives party and cast. He looks great!!
Juliana <daltrey63@hotmail.comfoo>
- Monday, April 29, 2002

The following review is from a northern New Jersey newspaper, The Record.

Another great Rickman-Duncan liaison

Monday, April 29, 2002

By ROBERT FELDBERG

Staff Writer

PRIVATE LIVES: A Broadway play revival at the Richard Rodgers Theater, 226 W. 46th St. Written by Noel Coward. With Alan Rickman, Lindsay Duncan, Emma Fielding, and Adam Godley. Directed by Howard Davies. $47.50 to $85. (212) 307-4100.

Noel Coward's bittersweet romantic comedy "Private Lives" is a wonderful play that has, in recent Broadway history, attracted the wrong people. One foul production starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, while another showcased the talents of Joan Collins.

This time, though, the people reviving Coward's 1930 work have gotten it very, very right. The British production that opened Sunday at the Richard Rodgers Theater is extremely funny, touchingly romantic, brilliantly acted, and altogether one of the brightest treats of this or any other theater season.

Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman, who teamed up on Broadway 15 years ago in the memorable "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," are Amanda and Elyot, the couple who can't live apart but might murder each other if they stay together.

From the moment Elyot appears on that famous balcony with his new second wife, the fluttery but practical Sybil (Emma Fielding), Rickman subtly gives us his exact emotional temperature. A few restrained though easy gestures, a half-smile, a measured voice let us know that this is a man who's reined in his wit and style to accommodate the conventionality of a new mate.

Similarly, when Amanda appears on the adjoining balcony with her new spouse, the proper and dull Victor (Adam Godley), Duncan, though making Amanda quite charming, suggests a woman striving to keep her willfulness under wraps.

The tower of identical, art deco hotel balconies, designed by Tim Hatley in exaggerated perspective, makes its own statement, as does his dark, lush, heavily pillowed Paris apartment, which houses the characters in the second and third acts.

After Amanda and Elyot each, hilariously, sense the presence of the other on the next balcony and then come face to face for the first time since their divorce five years earlier, the comic tone slides naturally into a deeply romantic - yet cool-eyed - evocation of love.

Running off to Paris, Amanda and Elyot luxuriate in their rediscovery of each other, unlimbering their smart, impudent, and subversively funny true selves while trying to keep their assertive personalities from sabotaging their joy. They express their tenderest emotions through Coward's sublime songs "Some Day I'll Find You" and "If Love Were All."

The scene, with its summoning of that heady moment when love is at its most dominant, is remarkable, not only because that feeling is seldom tapped in other productions of the play, but because it's rarely evoked in any play.

Strictly speaking, Duncan and Rickman are a bit old for their parts, since Amanda and Elyot should be in their 30s. But the actors are so good, their chemistry so strong, and the spell of romance so deep, that observation is instantly forgotten.

With Amanda and Elyot being who they are - and with Sybil and Victor inevitably showing up - their new-old relationship hits several enormous bumps. They are, however, wildly funny bumps as this marvelously symmetrical play careens toward its perfect ending.

Under the smooth, confident direction of Howard Davies, the production is a series of delicious moments. Fielding and Godley are perfectly cast, making Sybil and Victor ideal foils while also giving them distinctive personalities. Even the fleeting appearances of a slovenly French maid (Alex Belcourt) who coughs on the food she serves are richly amusing.

This is captivating theater.

Ann
NJ USA - Monday, April 29, 2002

Forgot to add: the Drama League nominations came out today. Nominated in the category "Distinguished Production of a Revival" is, of course, "Private Lives"! The awards will be presented at a May 10th luncheon.
Ann
NJ USA - Monday, April 29, 2002

Broadway.com
April 28, 2002
By William Stevenson

It's hardly shocking that Noël Coward's 72-year-old Private Lives holds up as a witty comedy. After all, it's frequently revived as a star vehicle for everyone from Maggie Smith to Joan Collins. But it's still a pleasant surprise that the latest Broadway production, imported from London with its entire cast intact, is fresh, sparkling, and delightfully, wickedly funny.

This is due not only to Coward's brilliant dialogue ("Some women should be struck regularly-like gongs") but also to Howard Davies' lively direction and the star turns by Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan (who previously costarred on Broadway in Les Liaisons Dangereuses). As the battling Elyot and Amanda, they're a priceless pair.

For those who haven't seen Private Lives or who've forgotten the plot, Elyot and Amanda were once married and then bitterly divorced. We first meet Elyot and his new bride, Sibyl (Emma Fielding), who are enjoying the first night of their honeymoon on the terrace of their hotel room in the south of France. While at first they appear blissfully happy, the mood doesn't last, thanks largely to Elyot's temper. "I should like to cut off your head with a meat ax," he says before long.

If Elyot is a lovable rogue, Sibyl is a goody two shoes. And it so happens that Amanda is staying right next door on her honeymoon with her new husband, Victor (Adam Godley), who is also prim, proper, and, well, pretty boring. Like Elyot, Amanda is armed with a rapier tongue. In other words, they're made for each other. And their mousy new spouses aren't cut out for the abuse Elyot and Amanda are inclined to dish out.

I won't give away the rest of the story, but it's not difficult to predict. What makes the play so amusing is Coward's bitchy repartee. Rickman earns one of the evening's biggest laughs when he calls Amanda a "slattern" and a "fishwife." But Amanda holds her own: Her bite is just as bad as her bark. Some of the dialogue will no doubt ring a bell, as when Amanda remarks, "Extraordinary how potent cheap music is."

With lines like that, it's no wonder Private Lives remains a classic. But it's not usually presented with such panache. Director Howard Davies keeps the pace sprightly, although it does slow down in the second act. With help from fight coordinator Terry King, he stages more physical roughhousing than is necessary. But most of the time Davies wisely keeps the focus on the sharp dialogue.

And fortunately, he has Rickman and Duncan to put it over with style. Rickman, who's also done memorable work in low-budget movies like An Awfully Big Adventure and Truly Madly Deeply, makes Elyot absolutely incorrigible, as he should be. Nasty and selfish, Elyot is also so entertaining-especially as played by Rickman-that you forgive him almost anything.

As Amanda, Duncan is even more chicly elegant. Stunning in a black robe and black evening gown, she even looks smashing wearing satin pajamas. (Jenny Beavan designed the gorgeous 1930s costumes.) Hilarious when delivering zingers, Duncan also manages to be touching when she says that after the divorce her heart was "jagged with sophistication." And when she flashes her devious smile, Duncan steals laughs without uttering a word. The only thing Duncan and Rickman can't do well is sing, which makes the brief musical interludes less successful than they might be.

In their supporting roles, Fielding and Godley are convincingly square. They're certainly no match for Rickman and Duncan, which is a problem in a few scenes but generally works to the play's advantage. In a smaller role as a French maid, Alex Belcourt makes a hilarious entrance and has fun displaying Parisian pique.

But besides Rickman and Duncan-who should be assured of Tony nominations-the most striking thing about the revival is Tim Hatley's set design. His seaside hotel is tall and grand, and the Paris apartment he's created is even more glamorous, complete with an illuminated Eiffel Tower in the background. Peter Mumford's lighting is also first-rate.

All in all, this Private Lives is one of the best productions of the season and should not be missed.

Melissa
NJ, USA - Monday, April 29, 2002

Variety
April 29, 2002

Revivals have become Broadway's bread and butter in recent years, and it sometimes seems that most have all the flavor the metaphor implies. But Howard Davies' "Private Lives" is something else entirely: a heady, heaping spoonful of pure caviar. Celebrated in London --which is saying a lot, since Noel Coward's comedy seems to reappear in the West End every time they change the guards at Buckingham Palace -- the production glitters even more brightly on Broadway, at the tail end of a particularly grueling season. In its mixture of wit and style, smarts and feeling, it is simply without peer on a New York stage.

The director's approach is by no means revisionist: The play runs its merrily mean course on traditional if splendidly stylish sets by Tim Hatley (the seaside hotel of act one is wonderfully rendered as an art nouveau wedding cake), in Jenny Beavan's elegantly cut period costumes. And it respects the perfect tailoring of Coward's words, too.

But Davies and his chief collaborators, the mutually sublime Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan, who give performances as savagely funny as they are emotionally fertile, find provocative new colors in its famously flippant dialogue. Playing with delicate shifts in tempo and tone, they allow surges of vivid feeling to bubble up in between bouts of arch repartee. A comedy that is often rattled off like a bedroom farce becomes a richly rewarding exploration of the confounding nature of love and attraction.

This isn't to say the production gives short shrift to Coward's acidic wit. On the contrary, Rickman and Duncan, reunited on Broadway some 15 years after playing another pair of romantic combatants under Davies' direction in "Les Liaisons Dangereuse," reveal perfectly matched comic styles, as subtle as they are assured.

Watching the emerging acerbity of the characters they're playing, the divorced Amanda and Elyot, both honeymooning with their new spouses at that seaside hotel, is the chief delight of the play's delicious opening act.

Languidly petting his new bride, Emma Fielding's pert and prettily played Sibyl, as he deflects the conversation from his romantic past, Rickman's Elyot is clearly a man whose personality has been temporarily tranquilized. Only the flickering of an occasional eyebrow, or a flamboyant slouch indicating irritation, suggest the potential for theatrics underneath the Elyot's tailored surfaces. And as she coos on cue to the gamely earnest Victor of Adam Godley, Amanda, too, seems to be working to keep up a placid mask of composure.

But when the two are left alone on their respective balconies, it doesn't take long for sparks to start flying. Indeed, as we watch Amanda's face register astonishment, then dismay and finally a warmly pleasurable relish when she first catches sight of Elyot, it's as if a well-oiled machine that has been idling begins to warm up.

Soon enough it's at full throttle. Abandoned by their spouses after mutually desperate attempts to escape, Amanda and Elyot begin lacing into each other with playful abandon, and Duncan and Rickman bring such sly and witty inflections to Coward's cutting dialogue -- the amount of scorn Duncan pours into three words, "Very flat, Norfolk," is impossible to convey -- that it's easy to overlook how clearly the actors also convey the submerged feeling that simmers beneath the brittle words.

With their warring instincts suddenly activated, it's not long before Amanda and Elyot's mutually loving ones break out into the open, too. The brisk clip of the dialogue subsides into a torturously slow give and take; silences fall heavily in between the sarcasms. A sad tenderness springs into Duncan's darkly glittering eyes.

It's in this transition that the sorcery of the production most amazes. Mere minutes after whipping the audience into a frenzy of laughter, Rickman and Duncan reduce us to a kind of painful rapture: The aching truth of the feeling between Amanda and Elyot, their sudden, agonized recognition that the love they still share is the purest expression of their proud individuality, strikes us with a terrible poignancy. The flight to Paris becomes something more than a farcical adventure: It's a matter of life and death.

Successful as it is at presenting the play's glossy comic surfaces -- Duncan's honey-dipped politesse as she serves coffee in the last scene is alone worth the price of admission -- the production more crucially reawakens us to the radical ideas that Coward dressed up in funny banter: Here and elsewhere, the playwright questions the nature of love as it has been codified and celebrated through centuries of Western culture. Is it, as Sibyl and Victor and the rest are led to believe, a state of placid comfort, a happily-ever-after heaven on earth? (Tellingly, Coward chooses to make clear that Amanda and Elyot don't buy the standard religious pieties either.) Or is it simply an electric current between two personalities that can express itself in combat just as naturally as cuddling, flippancy as naturally as fond declarations?

Whatever name it is given, the feeling between Amanda and Elyot is a force so powerful it even manages to set a few fires in the temperate hearts of Sibyl and Victor. But even as these two bring the play to its farcical finale, tearing at each other with a violence that silences their amused spouses, Rickman and Duncan rivet the attention with a mere glance, as Elyot looks imploringly at Amanda and reaches gently for her hand. The moment contains a sad irony to rival the comic one in the foreground: It's only when these two wonderfully articulate creatures aren't saying a word that they can really communicate.
Sue
England - Monday, April 29, 2002

And one from the New York Daily News:

Coward's Classic, Classily Done

Noel Coward's "Private Lives" has weathered seven decades with unusual grace. It has even survived productions with Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Collins.

You're not going to see it more elegantly performed than in the current revival, imported from London, starring Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan, who last appeared on Broadway together 15 years ago in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," then as now directed by Howard Davies.

They play Elyot and Amanda, '20s London Smart Setters, divorced for five years, each now honeymooning with a new spouse in a French hotel, where their terraces adjoin.

Duncan is perfect for Coward. Her lithe body has a natural elegance. Her features are exquisite, and when she smiles, the radiance in her eyes fills the theater.

Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman in a revival of 'Private Lives' directed by Howard Davies, who oversaw them in 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses.' One of the high points of the first act comes when they make their discovery of a potentially disastrous coincidence. A band is playing "Someday I'll Find You," which is their song. Elyot, not yet having seen Amanda next door, begins humming. She then starts humming. When he gives her a startled look, she beams him that extraordinary smile. The effect is both hilarious and warm.

Rickman is not a conventional choice for Elyot. His face has a kind of oafish quality, his voice is gruff, his manner a bit crude, not like the refined types who generally play the part. But the counterpoint of his earthy swagger and her ethereal poise gives the play a modern tone. By contrast, their spouses, played by Emma Fielding and Adam Godley, seem very much period types.

For the first act, which has the wit, elegance and polish of a Mozart string quartet, it all blends harmoniously. The second act, when Elyot and Amanda have deserted their new loves and taken refuge in Amanda's flat in Paris, becomes problematic. It is as if Davies instructed his cast to play it seriously, which seems too stark a contrast to the effervescence of what has come before and the rambunctiousness that follows, when everyone is again in great form.

The terraces Tim Hatley has designed are unusually opulent. Jenny Beavan's costumes have great period flair. Her first-act gown for Duncan is the essence of chic.

Coward was an object of derision for Britain's Angry Young Men in the '50s. Yet many of their plays now seem far more dated. When "Private Lives" is performed this well, its charm feels timeless.

I've included a link to the review because the article contains an unseen pic (by me) of LD and AR sprawled on a couch ... click here
Annette
Mansfield, Tx - Monday, April 29, 2002

New York Post

'PRIVATE' FIRST CLASS

By CLIVE BARNES

April 29, 2002

THEY can't live with one another and they can't live without one another. Sounds familiar? Of course, it's Elyot and Amanda again, the battling lovers of Noel Coward's "Private Lives. "These two have probably appeared on Broadway almost as often as Damon Runyon, and they returned last night to the Richard Rodgers Theatre, once more to spread their wayward magic.

But they returned with a fierce edge of difference. This is a surprising, electric "Private Lives," done jungle-style.

This Elyot and Amanda have the heady scent of an entire zoo of predators.

Credit for this extraordinary change of pace must go to the director Howard Davies, who can always see a skull beneath its skin, and two fantastically gifted actors, the dangerously sublime Lindsay Duncan and the sublimely dangerous Alan Rickman.

Coward claims to have written this disarmingly disciplined masterpiece in a few days. Doubtless he did. But a wealth of feeling and experience went into those few days.

Like many great plays - for example Strindberg's class- and sex-obsessed "Miss Julie," - the story is so simple it's scarcely worth repeating.

A once-married couple meet on adjacent hotel balconies on the French Riviera - with a coincidence breathtaking enough to convert a non-believer into acceptance of destiny - on the first night of their respective honeymoons to other people.

After politely tortured small-talk, the seemingly unquenchable embers of their love flame up into hot lust. They grab their still unpacked suitcases and decamp at once to Paris.

All too often, this tale, with its modestly predictable outcome, is presented in the clipped tones and bored superiority of a Coward caricature, who bears a teacup in one hand and a veddy, veddy dry martini in the other. We are neither shaken nor stirred.

Now Davies, Rickman and Duncan have peeled back the facade of upper middle class behavior to lay bare a wild madness, hints of almost heroic evil and a cool, selfish sexuality.

This Amanda and Elyot don't really give a fig for anyone and they don't even bother to use the spare fig leaves to cover it up. And both can recognize an obsession when they see one.

Oh yes, they suffer - like spoiled children denied the one toy they dote on.

Duncan, luxuriously sensual, has the grand and distanced air of a model from a 1930s glossy fashion magazine to whom polo, gambling, dancing and adultery were serious pursuits. And everything is either fun . . . or not fun.

Rickman, feral and unsatiated, glittering eyes searching for his mirror image, is all shifty charm personified and wrapped up with a nonchalant and appealing seediness.

The trickiness with such performances is that they could be too real for the flimsy structure of the play - that the actors might remind us too often of their earlier acclaimed Broadway duet in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses."

But here, Davies' tact and Coward's sheer good humor keep that possibility pretty much at bay, although at times these record-bashing combatants are a little, as Coward puts it, "jagged with sophistication."

Simpler humors are masterfully conveyed by the pair's naive, blustering and miserably unsympathetic dupes, the always superb Emma Fielding as Elyot's Sibyl (never has a Sibyl quibbled better) and an impeccably starched Adam Godley as Amanda's Victor.

Completing the cast is Alex Belcourt's sulky French maid, who manages the best pratfall seen on Broadway since Michael Crawford in "Black Comedy."

Take these provocative joys, add settings by Tim Hatley that playfully echo the play's mood, costumes by Jenny Beavan's that unerringly catch the period, and skillful lighting by Peter Mumford that makes time its essence, and you have a blissful night of wicked enchantment.

Annette
Mansfield, Tx - Monday, April 29, 2002

Associated Press:

Review: `Private Lives': Gloriously dissecting the leasures and pain of love
Sun Apr 28, 9:06 PM ET
By MICHAEL KUCHWARA, AP Drama Critic

NEW YORK - There's new life to be found in "Private Lives," the popular Noel Coward comedy first seen on Broadway more than 70 years ago and which hasn't been offstage since.

Yet it's taken director Howard Davies and a superb cast headed by Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman to find not only the pleasures but the pain in Coward's smart, witty rumination on the ways and waywardness of love.

The production, which opened Sunday at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, is blissfully funny - sharp and chic, as well as insightful into the destructive things people do to the ones they care about the most.

By now, we all know - or should know - the story. Amanda and Elyot, divorced five years ago, meet accidentally on their Riviera honeymoons with new spouses, Victor and Sibyl. The flame may have flickered between the ex-helpmates but it never entirely went out. The only thing to do is run off together to Paris.

"We're being terribly bad, so terribly bad, we'll suffer for this. I know we shall," says the overly dramatic Amanda. "It can't be helped," counters Elyot - and she readily agrees. The two spend the rest of the play dealing with their impetuous decision.

"Private Lives" has gotten a bum rap on Broadway over the last two decades. The leaden Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton vehicle in the 1980s and then the equally misguided Joan Collins-Simon Jones version in the '90s did nothing to enhance the play's reputation.

What makes Davies' production, seen in London earlier this season, so successful is that he has grounded the frivolity of both Amanda and Elyot in the couple's awareness of the high cost of their shenanigans. It reaches its high point in a wistful duet between the two, combining Coward's "Someday I'll Find You" - sung in the original by Coward and Gertrude Lawrence - with his "If Love Were All," interpolated into the show by Davies.

Duncan and Rickman are not singers, but they are accomplished performers, getting the emotional underpinnings to those songs. Both, however, are expert comedians.

Watch what Rickman can do with just one raised eyebrow. Guaranteed laughs. His Elyot is cranky, spoiled and thoroughly captivating. There is also a world-weariness to his portrait of the man, a sadness that occasionally creeps over his face as he contemplates further outbursts, physical as well as emotional, with Amanda.

Duncan is sleek and sexy, particularly in the formal wear designed by Jenny Beavan for the play's first act. The actress, best-known for her work in the plays of Harold Pinter, can make her voice purr with the smoothness of satisfied kitten. Yet she too can find the unease which accompanies Amanda's rediscovery of old romance. And Duncan does a delicious doubletake when she first discovers Elyot on an adjoining balcony in the honeymoon scene.

Davies doesn't neglect the play's second spouses, two of the most unappreciated characters in 20th-century English comedy. Here they hold their own and even shine. Can you make a stuffed shirt out of a lanky tweed scarecrow? Adam Godley does and his portrayal of the bewildered Victor is a model of comic hilarity.

Emma Fielding's Sibyl is equally proper and formidable in her own way, as the evening's very physical finale reveals. Alex Belcourt, as a most gymnastic French maid, completes the cast.

The London production has been expanded to fill the large expanse of the Rodgers stage, making Amanda's Parisian apartment look as big as an airplane hangar. Yet designer Tim Hatley's Act 1 hotel balconies are marvels, extending all the way to the proscenium arch of the theater.

"We're older and wiser now," Elyot says in justifying the couple's actions. Older, yes. Wiser, maybe, as the characters continue to spar with a fierceness that doesn't slacken even as their self-doubts never quite disappear.

This "Private Lives" is a revival in the best sense of the word. It resurrects the play, celebrates Coward's near-perfect craftsmanship and yet manages to find new meaning in the master's stylish banter.

Magda
Canada - Monday, April 29, 2002

And there's another lovely picture.

Trisha <patricia.schuman@gte.netfoo>
Bothell, WA United States - Monday, April 29, 2002

New York Times
April 29, 2002

Take Hate, Add Love and Shake Tenderly

By BEN BRANTLEY

The laughter stops, at least for a moment, with the first embrace.

It's been more than five years since Amanda and Elyot have been cheek to cheek, and the occasion is honored with a silence that roars like the ocean. Lest you doubt this is serious stuff, check out the expression on her face, seen over his shoulder. It's a look of rapture, resignation and abject terror. As he will say later, none too happily, "We're in love all right."

The play is "Private Lives," and the subject - although you may have forgotten this - is sex. Or as Amanda describes it, "our chemical what d'you call 'ems." Since Amanda is played by the ravishing Lindsay Duncan and she is speaking to the equally ravishing Alan Rickman, no further definition is required.

In Howard Davies's scintillating new revival of Noël Coward's best-known work, which opened last night at the Richard Rodgers Theater, the erotic bloom is restored to one of the funniest comedies of the 20th century. Although long dismissed as a stylish arrangement of smart surfaces, the implicit carnality in "Private Lives" stirred shivers among the censors of the Lord Chamberlain's office when it was presented for vetting in 1930

An immoral play" was the verdict of one Lord Cromer, who took especial offense at "the amorous business" of Act II, which he felt went "very far" and required caution in the staging. Mr. Rickman and Ms. Duncan, it should be noted, make you fully appreciate the old boy's alarm. But reviewers, that jaded breed, raised nary an eyebrow when the play first opened in the West End and on Broadway, starring Coward and Gertrude Lawrence.

What critical objections there were centered on the play's perceived superficiality. Coward, wrote Brooks Atkinson in The New York Times, "has nothing to say, and manages to say it with competent agility for three acts." The playwright himself dismissed it as "the lightest of light comedies." And most revivals - often laugh-milking showcases for aging glamour girls (Tallullah Bankhead, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Collins) - seemed to confirm that opinion.

But from the earliest performances of "Private Lives," others sensed a graver, more solid center beneath the froth. No less an admirer than T. E. Lawrence, who as Lawrence of Arabia knew a thing or two about conflicted passions, pronounced it a work with "bones and muscles." Generously add flesh and blood to that description and you have Mr. Davies's recipe for his vibrant interpretation of the play, which has only deepened since I saw it in London several months ago.

The production, rest assured, doesn't scant on the expected cosmopolitan pleasures of "Private Lives," which portrays the combustible reunion of the long-divorced Amanda and Elyot when they run into each other on their respective honeymoons with Victor (Adam Godley) and Sybil (Emma Fielding).

Tim Hatley's exquisitely mannered sets, combining Deco geometry and sybaritic luxury, should instantly dispel any worries that this is one of those dreary deconstructions that drain the joy from a familiar frolic. Ditto Jenny Beavan's costumes, which as worn with disarming ease by Ms. Duncan and Mr. Rickman suggest that black tie and slouchy pajamas are interchangeable as evening wear.

Nor do any of the five ensemble members - deftly balanced out by Alex Belcourt as a casually contemptuous French maid - shortchange theatergoers who expect a full ticket's worth of rib tickling. The epigrams crackle or scathe, as called for; the comic pauses are as precise as Greenwich mean time, and when knockabout farce is demanded, the performers deliver it like a team of acrobatic clowns outfitted by Savile Row.

Nonetheless I was entirely sympathetic when at intermission I heard a woman ask her companion, "Is it all right for me to cry at Noël Coward?" Because this production finds the pathos in the idea of a couple who both love and despise each other with such finely matched ferocity. (So do the novels of Thomas Hardy, but they're less fun.) Apart they aren't fully alive; together they create the sort of damage that would make them an insurance underwriter's nightmare.

What makes this "Private Lives" pulse so convincingly is that you never doubt that Amanda and Elyot are, for better and worse, kindred souls. They are first glimpsed apart on adjacent balconies of a hotel in the South of France with their respective younger new spouses. Elyot has just married Sybil, a sweet, stubborn little matron in the making; Amanda is now partnered with the tweedy, gangly and virile Victor.

Despite some cooing and cuddling, the conversation doesn't flow easily for either set of honeymooners. The sardonic playfulness that is the first language of both Amanda and Elyot might as well be Albanian to Victor and Sibyl.

Nor can the younger newlyweds begin to appreciate Amanda and Elyot's shared conviction that flippancy is a necessity because life is far too serious to be taken seriously. Never mind that when Amanda and Elyot become aware of each other's presence they aren't at all pleased to see each other. The very rhythms of the evening alter.

Here at last are two people on the same wavelength. When Amanda speculates idly, as she had with Victor, on whose yacht that might be in the water, Elyot lazily gives exactly the right answer. As Ms. Duncan and Mr. Rickman present it, however, there's a tension and even a sadness beneath the linguistic game playing. Clever words, like smart clothes, are a counterweight to the urgent demands of the naked self. When Amanda and Elyot bolt from their honeymoons to her Paris apartment, the air is thick with equal parts glee and alarm.

Mr. Rickman and Ms. Duncan convey this stinging self-consciousness beautifully. There are tasty hints of feminine vanity in him and masculine belligerence in her that make them seem all the better matched. When they sing snatches of songs to each other, you sense a shared language beyond language.

Last seen on Broadway as the vicious aristocratic lovers of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," also directed by Mr. Davies, they exude a natural two-sided familiarity that chafes even as it stimulates. As a consequence the hair-trigger reversals between adulation and irritation of the second act, as Amanda and Elyot make love and war, never seem forced or arbitrary.

In roles first played on Broadway by Laurence Olivier and Jill Esmond (Olivier's wife at the time), Mr. Godley and Ms. Fielding firmly hold their own comic ground. One wishes they were allowed to be a tad sexier, though. As it is, it's only their drolly drawn bourgeois solidity that justifies their appeal to the wayward Amanda and Elyot.

It is said all too frequently that opposites attract. The truly subversive aspect of "Private Lives" is its sly insistence that like is drawn to - and repelled by - like.

"I think very few people are completely normal, really, deep down in their private lives," Amanda says famously. Coward, a gay man in a country where homosexuality was legally punishable, knew all about private realms of shared sensuality.

Mr. Davies, Mr. Rickman and Ms. Duncan translate that sense of a secret self, searching with hope and fear for its other half, into universal terms. Against this shadowy terrain, the glitter of "Private Lives" shines all the more bewitchingly.

Trisha <patricia.schuman@gte.netfoo>
Bothell, WA United States - Monday, April 29, 2002

From The New Yorker magazine:

LOVE BITES

by JOHN LAHR

Behaving badly in "Private Lives."

Issue of 2002-05-06, Posted 2002-04-29

On Noël Coward's bookplates was a caricature of him winking-a gesture that announced both his raffish insouciance and his high-camp refusal to suffer. Coward was his own unrepentant invention, and he made a myth of his separation from others. "I am related to no one except myself," he said. He was an egotist; he was a gay man who passed for a heterosexual matinée idol; and he had the public's number. His wink was the visual equivalent of a raspberry blown at convention. Coward gives that impulse a voice in the most gossamer of his good plays, "Private Lives," when his spokesman Elyot Chase says, "Let's be superficial and pity the poor philosophers. Let's blow trumpets and squeakers, and enjoy the party, as much as we can, like very small, quite idiotic school children." Coward's trumpets and squeakers blow full force in the acclaimed London production directed by Howard Davies (which has been imported to the Richard Rodgers, along with its two theatrical grandees, Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan). "You mustn't be serious, my dear one; it's just what they want," Elyot tells his former wife, Amanda, after they've rediscovered each other, on adjacent patios in Deauville, while both on their second honeymoons with new mates. He goes on, "All the futile moralists who try to make life unbearable. Laugh at them. . . . Laugh at everything, all their sacred shibboleths. Flippancy brings out the acid in their damned sweetness and light."

"Private Lives" is a comedy of bad manners, whose emotional and structural minimalism turns all the cumbersome proprieties of English drawing-room drama upside down. The play was first staged in 1930, as the decorum of the turn of the century was giving way to a post-First World War sense of dissolution, in which romance was a put-on, honor a masquerade, and communication a kind of false trail of language that led only back to solitude:

AMANDA: China must be very interesting.

ELYOT: Very big, China. =

AMANDA: And Japan-

ELYOT: Very small.

In the play's brilliantly constructed first scene, Amanda and Elyot don't meet cute; they meet in high dudgeon. Elyot smokes a cigarette, and Amanda crosses over to his balcony. "Give me one, for God's sake," she says. They are furious with each other and with their new marriages of inconvenience. They stand looking out at the sea, and at the Duke of Westminster's yacht. Amanda says, "I wish I were on it." Elyot replies, "I wish you were too." Thus begins the rebarbative banter, the vinegar in which Britain's sophisticated twenties and thirties were pickled.

Elyot and Amanda-two dandies of detachment who jilt their spouses and run away together to a Parisian love nest-do no real work and have no faith, no principles, and no commitment to anything but their own pleasure. "Within a few years," one dyspeptic early critic wrote, "the student of drama will be sitting in complete bewilderment before the text of 'Private Lives,' wondering what on earth these fellows in 1930 saw in so flimsy a trifle." On the contrary, Elyot and Amanda are among the first enduring sightings on the British stage of what might be called "the modern." Coward-who wrote, in the song "Twentieth Century Blues," "What is there to strive for / Love or keep alive for?"-managed to translate his metaphysical stalemate into comic action. English life had lost its sense of continuity, and Elyot and Amanda are, like the plot, aimless. Their capriciousness is at once galling and, when viewed from Coward's slyly renegade perspective, gallant. His totemic wink surfaces dramatically at the play's finale, during a humiliating showdown between Elyot and Amanda and their outraged mates, Sybil and Victor, who hunt them down and are hellbent on castigating them. The castoffs start to bicker-"I fail to see what humor there is in incessant trivial flippancy," Victor says, when Sybil defends her feckless husband-and, just then, Elyot slips the wink to Amanda. The plot hinges on this moment: it acknowledges the defiant bond of caprice and engineers peace between the exes. As the curtain falls, Sybil and Victor are pummelling each other; Elyot and Amanda tiptoe away from the chaos and out the door. For Coward, who never fully revealed himself in public, this image of evasion is iconic-he repeats it at the end of "Hay Fever" and of "Present Laughter"-and it works as a sort of mission statement for all of his comedy.

In an attempt to disarm critics as well as the public, Coward wrote a series of acute assessments of his plays, which serve as introductions to them. " 'Private Lives,' from the playwright's point of view, may or may not be considered interesting," he wrote, "but, at any rate, from the point of view of technical acting, it is very interesting indeed." As usual, the Master was right; as Elyot and Amanda, Rickman and Duncan have a field day with Coward's nuanced silences, with all the verbal tics and physical revelations of repressed feeling. They understand and convey the essential spiritual conundrum of their characters, who are at once overexcited and underinvolved. I have heard it said that Rickman is a selfish actor--an opinion I heartily decry. He has a sensationally droll presence, underscored by his oboelike voice, which is bored at the edges and content to make its own mellow ironic music. Words--especially consonants--hold their fire, then spill out with hilarious precision. "Mr. and Mrs. Victor Prynne," he says to Amanda, rolling her new name on his tongue with teasing condescension. In mockery, Rickman can be lethal. He also knows the value of being still; his underplaying draws the audience in. In the face of his jejune, pert new bride (the excellent Emma Fielding), Rickman uses his heavy-lidded eyes to parse every aspect of ennui-resignation, sorrow, fatigue, scorn. Standing on Tim Hatley's witty hotel balcony, with the other white balconies above him cantilevered backward like a tilting wedding cake, he strikes something more than the usual clipped, pukka Coward stereotype. Like Coward, he exudes an adamant faith in his own intelligence.

This confidence positively combusts when it meets up with Duncan's quick-witted combination of sex and steel. Duncan is, for me, the finest and most versatile English actress of her generation. In the first scene, she strides onstage in a sleek black-and-white dressing gown, and before she even opens her mouth you know, from her particular aura of containment, that a wild heart is trapped within the cage of her politesse. Duncan has the look of an angel and the mischievous eyes of a devil. When she confesses to her lanky, jug-eared husband (the expert Adam Godley) that her young heart "was jagged with sophistication," she reveals both a sharp mind and a wicked tongue. With her bravado, Duncan hints at shadow but never shows it.
"Manners are especially the need of the plain," Evelyn Waugh joked. "The pretty can get away with anything." "Private Lives" proves the point. Act II finds the giddy goats ensconced in Amanda's garret, a large crimson split-level pad, overflowing with pillows and couches. Elyot and Amanda, who are "beautiful people," are now working hard to behave beautifully with each other. Rickman and Duncan have a great time walking on these emotional eggshells. They foxtrot around the parquet floor; they sing; they make a playful spectacle of their mental agility; they even staunchly refuse to fight.

AMANDA: It's nice, isn't it?

ELYOT: Strangely peaceful. It's an awfully bad reflection on our characters. We ought to be absolutely tortured with conscience.

AMANDA: We are, every now and then. . . .

ELYOT: You're even more ruthless than I am.

Coward understands that manners are about reciprocity, which is well beyond these two. All avowals to the contrary, Amanda and Elyot can't get beyond themselves-a tragedy in life, but a gold mine in comedy. Their outrageousness works a kind of psychic jujitsu that dethrones the serious and neutralizes moral indignation. Thrown off guard by the characters' irresistible high jinks, the audience finds itself accepting the unacceptable; "bad" becomes "good." This is Coward's deft and exhilarating game.

Howard Davies's radical notion is to play Elyot and Amanda's physical passion for real, rather than opting for the standard notional sexual allure. This allows him to capitalize on the wonderful chemistry between Rickman and Duncan, and gives them some memorable moments of "big romantic stuff" while snuggled up on sofas, but it also throws the comedy weirdly off kilter. Coward knew that this particular fun machine was jerry-built-"As a complete play, it leaves a lot to be desired," he wrote-and that speed was essential to make its jokes and its artificiality pay off. Here Act II, which is the play's set piece, goes on too long. When the tormenting couple shout out their code word for silence ("Sollocks") and call for a two-minute cool-down period, the actors amble wordlessly around their garret for two real minutes. When Elyot sits at the piano to sing "Some Day I'll Find You," the song turns into a medley, in which he is joined by Amanda. The famous battle royal that ends the second act is transformed by Davies from a spontaneous free-for-all into a self-conscious production number. Although well executed, it mutes the hilarity of Sybil and Victor's shock when they walk in on their spouses, only to find them rolling on the floor, going at each other hammer and tongs. Still, if the pacing sometimes falters, the stars' bad behavior does not. Rickman and Duncan give the best comic performances that have been seen on Broadway in a very long time.

Annette
Mansfield, TX - Monday, April 29, 2002

From USA Today
By Elysa Gardner

NEW YORK: You could say Noel Coward was the Neil Simon of his time and social class.

Strip away the British sensibility and erudite wit coloring the former's plays, and you're generally left with a bunch of two-dimensional characters trading quips and barbs that often seem contrived and are seldom revelatory. And frankly, Simon's characters tend to have less free time to indulge in the sort of idle chatter that can get pretty tired over two hours.

But the right director and cast can work wonders with Coward's wry humor and elegant wordplay. Luckily, such a team was deployed for the U.K.-based revival of Private Lives (*** out of four) that opened Sunday at Broadway's Richard Rodgers Theatre.

The key players here are Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan, the seasoned pros cast as Coward's most notorious ex-spouses. Elyot and Amanda--poor darlings--are both desperately trying to move on with their lives when, by a most unfortunate coincidence, they find themselves honeymooning with new mates in adjacent suites at a French hotel.

Brash, impetuous creatures that they are, the two throw caution and reason to the wind and dive into wanton bliss. But it's only a matter of time before their rekindled passion takes a sour turn, and matters get messy--as does Amanda's stylish flat in Paris, a stunning testament to scenic designer Tim Hatley's flair for structure and lush detail, even after it is trashed in one of the play's more amusing moments.

Rickman and Duncan manage this turbulent journey with perfect comic pitch. Expertly balancing brisk irony with unabashed goofiness, both reveal the sillier and more whimsical qualities underlying Elyot and Amanda's haughty airs, and illustrate how central this duality is to the couple's volatile chemistry.

Their rapport is complemented by deft supporting performances from Emma Fielding and Adam Godley as Elyot's perky young bride and Amanda's stiff, seemingly rather dim husband, who from the start seem much better suited to each other than either's demanding partner. Fielding's overenthusiastic ingenue is a bit cloying at first, but when called on to lose her composure, she proves winningly wacky.

Likewise, Godley's self-conscious suitor evolves from a droll distraction into a vigorously funny foil for both Elyot and Amanda, even as he tries to resist getting carried away with all the others. "I'm glad I'm normal," he tells Amanda at one point. "What an odd thing to be glad about," she responds.

Director Howard Davies handles such moments with playful precision, capturing the breezy and biting elements that continue to make the play thoroughly diverting. Private Lives may not be the richest biscuit as comedies go, but its cool charm has remained surprisingly fresh.

Linda P
- Monday, April 29, 2002

From today's "Hollywood Reporter": Through Sept. 9
The Richard Rodgers Theatre, New York

The last two times Noel Coward's classic 1930 comedy made its way to Broadway, the stars were Joan Collins and a teaming of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, so the camp factor in each version was, as you might imagine, through the roof. This London import, now on Broadway for a limited engagement after a sold-out run on London's West End, removes all such vestiges of silliness.

Brilliantly acted by Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan, reuniting onstage fifteen years after their legendary teaming in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," the production is a revelation, a biting re-examination that conveys the seriousness of the war between the sexes as well as the witty bon mots for which the playwright was justly celebrated. Critical kudos, multiple awards, and sold-out status is virtually assured for this limited engagement.

Thankfully brought to Broadway with every creative element intact, the production is arresting from the opening moments, thanks to a set by Tim Hatley depicting the looming terraces of a French seaside hotel from a startling perspective. When Rickman and Duncan, as Elyot and Amanda, the former couple now finding themselves in unfortunate proximity during their honeymoons with their respective new spouses, make their appearances onstage, we instantly know we're in safe hands. Skillfully underplaying while wresting every drop of humor from the brilliant comic dialogue, they make quite clear the poignant underpinnings to their characters' plight.

As superbly directed by Howard Davies, the first act, in which Elyot and Amanda quickly realize that they're fated to be together and must quickly ditch their new partners, is both hilariously funny and, much more surprisingly, almost unbearably moving. The all too familiar lines -- "Funny how potent cheap music is" -- take on a new poignancy as delivered by these two superb performers, who readily convey the emotional truth underlying the farcical construction. The second and third acts, in which the characters retreat to a Paris apartment and quickly resume their warring ways, followed by an appearance by the disgruntled spouses, again expertly blends the expected comedy with much darker elements. When Elyot announces, "Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs," it comes after an actual blow that produces gasps from the audiences.

The remainder of the original London cast has also made the trip, to excellent effect. Adam Godley and Emma Fielding, as the abandoned spouses, convey their characters' superciliousness while still garnering sympathy, and both have fine comic moments during the third act shenanigans. Alex Belcourt, as a befuddled French maid, makes a strong impression during her brief time onstage. The production design is outstanding, from the Olivier Award-winning sets and costumes to Peter Mumford's absolutely gorgeous lighting.

Presented by Emanuel Azenberg, Ira Pittelman, Scott Nederlander, Frederick Zollo, Nicholas Paleologos, Broccoli/Sine, James Nederlander, Kevin McCollum, Jeffrey Seller and Duncan C. Weldon and Paul Elliott for Triumph Entertainment Partners Ltd

Credits: Playwright: Noel Coward
Director: Howard Davies; Scenic designer: Tim Hatley; Costume designer: Jenny Beaven; Lighting designer: Peter Mumford; Sound designer: John Leonard; Music composition: Paddy Cunneen. Cast: Elyot: Alan Rickman; Amanda: Lindsay Duncan; Sibyl: Emma Fielding; Victor: Adam Godley; Louise: Alex Belcourt.
B
Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Monday, April 29, 2002

Filmfest for Kids
The Washington Post; Washington, D.C.; Apr 19, 2002; Jane Horwitz
[FINAL Edition]

Abstract: Program 3 consists solely of "Help! I'm a Fish," a 72-minute animated feature from Scandinavia (in English) that [Zanne Lexow] recommends for all ages. An imaginative, funny fantasy about three kids who drink a potion that turns them into fish, it deals with transformation, friendship, courage, and even the misuse of knowledge. Fly, his nerdy cousin Chuck and his kid sister Stella discover an eccentric professor's underground lab. Stella drinks the man's potion and morphs into a fish. Fly and Chuck drink it, too, and dive into the sea to rescue her. They lose the antidote that can turn them back into kids and discover it's been co-opted by a fish named Joe who's developed the worst possible human traits and become a little fish dictator. (Joe's snarky voice is actor Alan Rickman.) The kids must escape the fish fascists and gulp some antidote.

Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Sunday, April 28, 2002

Here's a link to the NY Times article that Renie posted. It contains a NY rehearsal photo--clearly looks to have been shot in the midst of New York's heat wave a week or so ago. You may have to be registered at their site (no charge) to access this.
Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle, - Sunday, April 28, 2002

April 28, 2002
New York Times
Straight to the Heart of Noël Coward's Wit
By MATT WOLF

FIFTEEN years ago, two visiting British actors, Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan, raised sexual cunning to a terrifying art on Broadway in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." As aristocratic partners in Christopher Hampton's stage adaptation of the Choderlos de Laclos novel of 1782, their sex and power games had diabolical consequences. Writing in The New York Times, Frank Rich said the play's malicious wit was "fueled further by a pair of brilliant lead players."

Tonight, directed again by Howard Davies, they open once more together on Broadway, this time as battle-scarred but deeply attuned lovers. At the Richard Rodgers Theater, they are portraying Elyot and Amanda, the on again/off again/on again partners in "Private Lives," Noël Coward's 1930 comedy of manners in which the two chief characters seem quite unable to live together or apart.

Imported from London, following rave reviews last fall and seven Olivier Award nominations in February (the production won three, including one for Ms. Duncan as best actress), the West End cast has remained intact. Besides Mr. Rickman and Ms. Duncan, Adam Godley and Emma Fielding are on hand as Victor and Sibyl, the interim spouses in Amanda and Elyot's quite deliberate inflammatory domestic arrangement, and Alex Belcourt is the maid who briefly adds to the mayhem. (Lest Ms. Belcourt seem an outsider to events, she is in fact married to Mr. Godley.)

Since the two stars last played Broadway, Ms. Duncan, who is 51, has appeared with some regularity in the New York theater, on Broadway in 1996 in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Off Broadway subsequently in Harold Pinter's "Ashes to Ashes" and, last summer, in a Pinter double bill, "Celebration" and "The Room." Mr. Rickman has starred in such disparate movies as "Die Hard" (1988), "Truly Madly Deeply" and "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" (both 1991) and, most recently, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," in which he played Snape, the villain of the piece. Mr. Rickman, who is 56, has just finished shooting the first of many Harry Potter sequels to come.

Early one evening in March near the end of the play's London run, the two performers met in Mr. Rickman's dressing room with Matt Wolf, the London theater critic for Variety, to talk about "Private Lives." Here are excerpts from the conversation.

MATT WOLF: When you both finished "Les Liaisons," was there any sense of unfinished business? Did you say, "Someday we must do `Private Lives' "?

LINDSAY DUNCAN: (Laughs) Oh, no! We did "Troilus and Cressida" together, but we didn't work together, of course.

RICKMAN: Achilles and Helen don't have too much to say to each other. They're too busy posing.

DUNCAN: And a damn good thing, too! We've hardly ever worked together. After two years of delivering "Les Liaisons," the idea of another project was the last thing on our minds.

RICKMAN: Or even acting ever again.

DUNCAN: It was more like, "Let's go to the nearest bar for rather a long time," yes, but "Let's do something else"? No.

WOLF: What was the impetus for the production?

RICKMAN: I said yes because I knew we would all approach the play from a very direct starting point, knowing that Howard had at first turned it down. Then a smart producer said to him, "Have you actually read it?" He said no and read it and basically fell in love with what to him was a new play. So that was a good start.

WOLF: Presumably, your success with it has to do with playing it for keeps, free of posturing or camp.

RICKMAN: I think we instinctively knew we would basically be saying the lines without any of the usual stuff that comes with Noël Coward. It's at that point that you start to realize how brilliantly constructed the play is.

DUNCAN: As with any play, you think: "Who are these people? What are they saying to each other? How do they go about their relationship with each other and with Victor and Sibyl?" What is revealed is Noël Coward's heart as much as his wit, which you kind of get for nothing; it's all there in the play. I can't think why you wouldn't want to make these people real. It's the writing first; we never discussed any style.

RICKMAN: In rehearsal, I think one of the most - I won't say encouraging, but it was showing us where to go - was this idea of the more serious it was, the more Howard laughed. It wasn't that Howard was trying to be ingratiating; he just genuinely found it funnier and funnier the more we were true.

DUNCAN: What Coward understands is that if someone makes you laugh, it's a direct line to your heart. It is quite sophisticated wit, but it's also ridiculous and childish, and that's the intimate side of it. He is showing something very private about them.

WOLF: How well did you know the play?

RICKMAN: I wasn't that familiar with it.

DUNCAN: No, but audiences are.

RICKMAN: I saw it at the National in 1999 with Anton Lesser and Juliet Stevenson. But I thought this was far enough away; in many ways, it was like reading something new.

DUNCAN: People do remember the lines and latch on to the wit that has gone down through the decades. There's no getting away with it: it's the same with Shakespeare. This is an extremely popular play, and also very manageable: it's got five people in the cast. So the task is to get an audience to hear it as if for the first time. (To Rickman) I mean, you've played Hamlet, so you know you've got to find your way around what the audience already thinks they know.

RICKMAN: It is a bit of a hurdle. On the other hand, when I was playing Hamlet, I wasn't thinking of any other Shakespeare plays.

WOLF: I've had people wonder whether this was a deconstruction of "Private Lives."

DUNCAN: People ask us if it's been rewritten. (She laughs). Not very likely. Look, we've set it in the same period, we've done nothing (she breaks the word down into its component syllables) ra-di-cal; I mean, the sets are quite a strong statement but they're not odd in any way. We are doing the play: the first call is the writing, really. You just go to that; you start with that.

WOLF: How do you set about playing the play, in practical terms?

DUNCAN: You need some dexterity. These characters are very quick-witted, and it requires that you think and speak quickly and with precision because the language has to have clarity. Although it sounds very modern, there is nothing sort of casual or 2002 about it. Amanda and Elyot say what they say because the other person says something: these are two people working off each other who know each other very, very well.

WOLF: Does the audience, do you think, regard Amanda and Elyot as being recognizably them or recognizably not them?

DUNCAN: That's the fascination: you don't literally want to watch your lives onstage if you've made an effort to leave the house. But I also think Amanda and Elyot are recognizable. And so much of the humor as well as the more moving moments comes from that fact.

RICKMAN: Yes, and in the middle of their beautifully phrased exchanges, they're incredibly capable of saying, "Shut up," or "Be quiet," or smacking each other; it's very non-P.C.

DUNCAN: They just lose control.

RICKMAN: And at the same time, the gauntlets are flung down throughout the evening as to whether you choose to recognize yourself or not. Although it's not as if Amanda and Elyot think they're in any way like us or even know what normal is. As Amanda says, "What is normal?"

DUNCAN: Both of them have a vitality and a recklessness, as if they are living that fantasy that we all have about being that reckless--

RICKMAN: Childish--

DUNCAN: And loving that passionately. It's at the heart of people's fantasies about falling in love. They play silly games and are foolish and yet they seem to be living life just a notch above the level of most of the rest of us. That element of just moving on is what I so love: get that suitcase and go. It's fabulous: they are ruthless, absolutely ruthless.

WOLF: What happens, then, after the curtain falls? Can you imagine a "Private Lives, Part 2?"

RICKMAN: (Smiles wryly) Well, I'm always sure that they're fighting before they get to the street--

DUNCAN: (Laughing) Screaming at each other. All relations are flawed, but Amanda and Elyot's is hugely flawed. They'd be lucky to make it to the pavement."

Renie <reniept@hotmail.comfoo>
CA - Sunday, April 28, 2002

A heads-up to everyone in the New York area, in today's issue of the New York Post, the Weekend Calander section (page 60 to be precise) contains a very nice photo of AR and LD from PL. I scanned the picture and asked Suzanne to post it because I don't have some of the special symbols required to post it as a link, and unfortunately the Post doesn't have the photo on it's website. So, if you can pick up a copy of the paper by all means do.
Melissa
NJ USA - Friday, April 26, 2002

Attention Brits - Tonight at 8.30, BBC 1, Alistair McGowen's Big Impression - He is doing an impression of Mr. Rickman, which should be sooo funny because he is really good. Hope you all have a fab Friday night and a good weekend. Don't miss that program. Of course it won't all be him, but it is worth watching anyway.........LOL
Kirstie xxx
Kirstie
London, England - Friday, April 26, 2002

From the NY Daily News, 4/24/02: "The revival of 'Private Lives' ... will open Sunday night with a very healthy $1.8 million advance. Reviews are expected to be strong (the Times' Ben Brantley has already raved about this London import), and the show will surely be the odds-on favorite to win Best Revival of a Play."
Anne/Manhattan <agilhuly@gibsondunn.comfoo>
NYC, - Friday, April 26, 2002

Excerpts from an interview with Juliet Stevenson

Copyright 2002 Times Newspapers Limited
The Times (London)
April 20, 2002, Saturday
SECTION: Features
HEADLINE: Straight act
BYLINE: Pauline McLeod

The actress loves film matinees, Sydney and The Archers, but has no time for over-inflated egos in the arts world.

Films: Sometimes Hugh (partner Hugh Brody) and I go to a matinee if we are free. It is like having an affair -such a naughty thing to do. We saw this fantastic film at the ICA called Atanarjuat, the Fast Runner (above) which is a myth about a community from 200 years ago in the Inuit language of the tribes of the Northern Arctic. It sounds obscure but it isn't. It has you on the edge of your seat all the way through and it is exquisitely shot. Because of his work as an anthropologist, Hugh has lived in the Arctic for long stretches so this was home territory for him.

Theatre: I love to see new writing and keep up with what is being written now. As much as I love the play, I don't think I want to see Hamlet ever, ever again. The last play I saw was Private Lives with Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan, because they are great friends of mine and I had to see them. I did enjoy it but the choices about what I see are often dictated by things that friends are in because they are mates and it is a supporting thing. I should be going to everything at The Royal Court and I can't; I don't have the time.

From a very favorable 8 April "Hollywood Reporter" review of "Fortune's Fool":

While the play takes its time getting going, it eventually reaches comic heights in Vassily's lengthy and hilarious drunken monologue in the first act and becomes very moving with his encounter with Olga in the second. Alan Bates makes the most of these scenes, beautifully balancing bluster with pathos, self-assurance with vulnerability. He wrings every laugh possible from his character's pride and foolishness while also conveying his essential dignity and deep feeling. While Alan Rickman is yet to arrive in "Private Lives," this performance will be the one to beat at Tony time.

Daily Record
April 20, 2002, Saturday
SECTION: TELEVISION; Pg. 34
HEADLINE: MAN OF MANY FACES; ALISTAIR MCGOWAN'S BIG IMPRESSION BBC1, 8.30PM

ALISTAIR MCGOWAN and ex-girlfriend Ronni Ancona recreate one of the biggest hits in recent movie history with their usual unique twist.

In Louis Potter And The Philosopher's Scone, Alistair takes on the guise of Louis Theroux as Harry Potter who encounters the queen of mean, Anne Robinson, domestic goddess Nigella Lawson and Alan Rickman.

The Express
April 18, 2002
SECTION: TV4; Pg. 62
HEADLINE: TV EXPRESS - SATELLITE, CABLE & DIGITAL - TODAY'S CHOICE; DOGMA (1999)
BYLINE: SARAH KNAGGS

Cult favourites Jay and Silent Bob (played by Jason Mewes and director, writer, producer and actor Kevin Smith) find themselves on an important mission to save the world by helping the last descendent of Christ to prevent a pair of fallen angels returning to heaven through a loophole in dogmatic law. Featuring a starstudded cast of Smith's friends, including Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Jason Lee, Linda Fiorentino, Alan Rickman, Salma Hayek, Chris Rock and singer Alanis Morissette.

An absolute must-see.

SKY PREMIER, 10.10pm

Here is the photo to which I was referring below. It can be found in the May 2002 issue of Town & Country. AR Town&Country pic

I apologize for the fuzziness of the pic - our scanner doesn't do a very good job scanning pics from magazines.
Annette <annettegeisel@charter.netfoo>
Mansfield, Tx USA - Thursday, April 11, 2002

The May 2002 issue of Town & Country has an article titled, on the front cover, 'What Is It About British Men?'. The actual article is titled 'Mad About The Boys' by Catherine Calvert and is about 'One woman's weak-in-the knees fascination with Englishmen. And guess what? She's not alone.' Below are the comments about or related to AR.

"...But still, the appeal of the Englishman can span the generations, and we've all been there, if only in the theater. Most prominently, there are the stars, old and new: Ronald Colman, Cary Grant, Peter Finch, Alan Bates, James Mason; or, more recently, Jeremy Irons, Colin Firth, Jude Law and Alan Rickman, as well as those fine Fiennes - Ralph and Joseph ..."

And talking about the Englishmen's clothes

"...I'm sure Alan Rickman keeps his shoes on shoe trees, and we like a man confidant enough to dress just this side of popinjay. ..."

and finally "... Englishmen manage to combine the sensitive and the assertive, to a greater or lesser degree, and each mix has its charms. There's the smoldering sadness-at-bay that some exhibit, exemplified by, say, Jeremy Irons and Alan Rickman. It's left to us sensitive women to make it up to them for being sent away to school at age eight and having cold baths and never seeing Mummy and Daddy. ..."

The article has a scrumptious photo of AR, a full page close-up photo of Ralph Fiennes which made my heart skip a beat, plus photos of Jude Law, Cary Grant, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Prince William, Laurence Olivier, Charles Prince of Wales and Jeremy Irons. My scanner is not operational currently but hopefully will be later this evening, and I will then post the pic of AR, if not done by someone else before then.

I must say, this article certainly captures the appeal, for me, of Englishmen. If you can find it, get the magazine.
Annette
Mansfield, Tx USA - Thursday, April 11, 2002

A nice article in this month's Theatregoer mag about Lindsey Duncan and some references about PL which i thought you might like to hear. It's written by Sheridan Morley, and I'll only include the pertinent bits! "Since Coward died almost 30 years ago, I have been literary executor of his estate, and in all those years I have never seen a better Private Lives than this one, and for a very simple reason. Ever since Noel and Gertie premiered the play back in 1930 the casting problem has always been in finding a perfectly matched duo who actually look as though they belong together even after divorce and remarriage. Alan Rickman and Lindsey Duncan do just that. So, from the very first rehearsal of this new Private Lives they came as a pre-existing couple."
Then at the end of the article LD says about being in NY last time for a Pinter play and recalls how one woman in the audience was overheard to say "They have the brass balls to call this a play?" Sheridan Morley concludes his article with "And it's not as though anyone is likely to say the same about Private Lives".

To our friends in USA, just look what you're getting (as if you hadn't guessed already!) Enjoy it's entire run! We look forward to hearing all about it when you finally get to actually see it!! and him, of course!
Sue
Lincoln, U.K. - Thursday, April 11, 2002

Announcement:

Valerie has kindly volunteered to collect name's of those who would like to be added to the "Who's going to PL schedule." If you'd like to be included on the list, please write her at Brookdoc913@cs.com with your name and the date(s) you will be attending Private Lives. And also let her know if you'd like your e-mail address included, so that other fans who want to meet up can contact you. I have also added a link to the top of the Guestbook for easier access. Valerie will then send the list to Fausta, who will put it up on a web-page next month, which I will also add link to. Thank you, Valerie and Fausta!

I also added a link to the top of the Guestbook for anyone who'd like to contribute to the PL Opening Night Gift, which I am collecting for. To those who have already e-mailed me about this and are waiting for a reply, thank you for your patience! I will respond ASAP.

Thank you!
Suzanne <Suz@mail.usa.comfoo>
TX USA - Monday, April 08, 2002

An article in today's "Guardian" leads with a reference to Mr. Rickman:

Office hours: Help, I need a job: Charity workers are no longer little old ladies. The voluntary sector is now a good career option, says Oliver Robinson
Guardian Office Hours Pages, Pg. 8
BYLINE: Oliver Robinson

Part-time charity work was once a refuge for grey-haired philanthropists whose hearts were coming in from the cold. Today, Alan Rickman and Harry Enfield front Amnesty International's campaign. So the grey hairs have remained, but the temporary charity sector is attracting an increasingly diverse crowd.

Frankie posted this on her yahoo group. She found an article on Hugh Jackman in the Sunday Herald and pulled out the pertinent AR bits:

"He enjoys living in London, and after a couple of years of non-stop working, he's taking a break to look after young Oscar while his wife oversees production in London of a short film called Standing Room Only. Although Jackman has a role (alongside Alan Rickman, Joanna Lumley and Maureen Lipman), he explains the film is really his wife's project. 'It's based on a true experience we had in New York waiting in line for tickets for Al Pacino in Eugene O'Neill's Hughie. Four mornings in a row we had to try . They only released eight tickets for each night. Debs has written this fantastic, funny story. It's also a silent movie.'"

Silent Movie!?!? No voice!?!? Ah well, maybe the movie will actually be released in theaters (unlike TSFJG, so far).

The link for the Hugh Jackman article, for those interested, is (hopefully this will come out okay) Jackman Sunday Herald article.

Annette
Mansfield, TX USA - Saturday, April 06, 2002

Hollywood Reporter
April 2, 2002

Deneuve, Everett, Sobieski play in French 'Liaisons'
by Zorianna Kit

Catherine Deneuve, Rupert Everett and Leelee Sobieski will star in the French miniseries "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" (Dangerous Liaisons), based on Choderlos de Laclos' classic 18th century novel. French helmer Josee Dayan will direct.

The project, which will shoot simultaneously in English and French, will begin filming this month in the south of France, Paris, Montreal and Scotland.

"Liaisons," adapted by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, will see Sobieski portray Cecile Volanges, an innocent young girl who becomes a pawn and later a participant in the Machiavellian sexual games of her elders, Madame de Merteuil (Deneuve) and Valmont (Everett).

JLA Prods, Hamster Prods. and Les Productions Dangereuses Inc. in France are producing "Liaisons." Distribution and airdates have yet to be announced.

The project marks Sobieski's second French-language project, having recently wrapped shooting the French feature "L'Idole" (The Idol). The actress recently signed to star in George Hickenlooper's indie feature "A Whale in Montana," opposite Susan Sarandon, which shoots at the end of the month (HR 4/1). The two-time Golden Globe nominee, repped by CAA, Malatier Artists and Current Entertainment, next stars in the indie feature "Max" opposite John Cusack.

Everett, repped by ICM and ICM London, has several upcoming projects, including New Line Cinema's "Who Shot Victor Fox," Miramax Films' "The Importance of Being Ernest" and IAC Films' "Cromwell & Fairfax."

Deneuve is repped by UTA and her French reps at Art Media.

Dayan directed the French miniseries "Les Miserables" and "The Count of Monte Cristo," among numerous other projects.

De Laclos' novel has been adapted for the big screen in Roger Vadim's 1956 French feature, Stephen Frears' 1988 English-language feature and the teen version "Cruel Intentions" in 1999. The project also was adapted as a French-language made-for-television movie in 1988.

I've found a web-site with some information about the film "The Actors" currently being filmed in Dublin. Is this the one Alan is supposed to be in? Here's the site: Showbiz Ireland.
Gaye
Adelaide, South Aust - Thursday, April 04, 2002

Upcoming movies also lists Michael Gambon in the cast of "The Actors" (although not Gabriel Byrne--there may have been changes...). Looks like a lovely cast, in either case. This is to be written and directed by Conor McPherson, who wrote "I Went Down," which was directed by Paddy Breathnach, who also directed "Blow Dry." It's more of those circles within circles...
Georgiana <gellis@drizzle.comfoo>
Seattle - Thursday, April 04, 2002

Alan Rickman has got a part in the UK TV-Production of *The Billy Elliot Boy* as HIMSELF.The film was produced in 2001 and there are also stars like Russell Crowe,Juliet Walters,Hugh Grant,Goldie Hawn,Davis Letterman and Haley Joel Osment, all as themselves.****** Alan Rickman has supposedly got a part in a production called *The Actors* in 2003.The film is supposedly in production.
Vee
HB, HB - Thursday, April 04, 2002

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