Review: Older actresses shine in rarely revived Nol Coward play at Theatricum Botanicum
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Set us as preferred “Waiting in the Wings” doesn’t come around all that often.A late play of Noël Coward’s, it was considered outdated when it premiered in 1960.
In Britain, the “angry young men” movement led by John Osborne in the theater was underway, and the social pretensions and expertly crafted witticisms of Coward’s comedies had fallen out of fashion.The play only had its Broadway debut in 1999, in a production that starred Rosemary Harris and Lauren Bacall.The script was revised, but even still it was seen as a dramatic throwback to a quaint yet belabored school of playwriting.
What redeems this creakily plotted work is the showcase it provides for a company of savvy older actresses.These contradictory impressions persist in the new production of “Waiting in the Wings,” running in repertory at Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum through Oct.10.
Experiencing Coward outdoors on a summer night is both an amusing delight and an expositional slog.He sets so many plots in motion that you can’t help wishing he might forget about one or two of them.But the play, which is set in “The Wings,” a charity home for retired actresses, provides a feast for veteran thespians for whom it would be impolite to ask their age.
Led by Susan Angelo, Jan Wikstrom and Ellen Geer, this ensemble, under the direction of Willow Geer, diverts and distracts from the mustier aspects of Coward’s style.Wikstrom plays May Davenport, one of the residents at the retirement home.She has retained her regal hauteur and formidable sang froid, the same qualities that made her such a sensation on the British stage.
A paragon of good taste, she is reserved by nature but knows how to wield a melodramatic gesture when the occasion calls for one, as it does when she hears the dreaded news that Lotta Bainbridge (Angelo), her detested rival, ...