In late January, Emily Ellis and Morgan Allen’s adaptation of Present Laughter by Noël Coward ran at The Annex Theatre.
After watching the performance on the opening night, I was left charmed by the energy throughout and grateful to have been introduced to Coward’s work in such an inspired manner. The play had humour to its core, with no wasted opportunity to deliver a punchline.
The ensemble was led by Megan Lawrie, whose performance was not only a display of well-executed humour but also athleticism. Lawrie, as the lead Garry Essendine, was the metronome of each scene, filling the stage with a masterful chaos, displaying the overconfidence and immaturity of Gary’s man-child ego-mania. This came out in both his overemotional outbursts and his relationship with the house staff.
Gary, Fred (played by Charlie Hodges) and Miss Erikson (Olesia Lakhno) enter and exit through the crowd, immersing the audience in the setting of Gary’s house. This makes the scenes between just Gary and Fred or Miss Erikson feel far more intimate as they exist off stage together.
Mel Ensert and Kiera Robinson did a fantastic job playing two straight characters for Lawrie to bounce off while still bringing individuality to their roles. Characters Liz Essendine and Moinca Reed act as a relenting duo of judgment that are reluctantly bound to Gary’s constant hysteria through their loyalty. Both Ensert and Robinson portrayed this reluctance very well, providing the audience with two relatable figures, establishing an emotional background for the play.
The climax of the production arrives when Gary destroys an unspoken love-triangle between characters Joe and Helen Lyppiatt (played by Nick Skordellis and Charlotte Klafkowska) and Morris Dixon (played by Sam Duffy). The three played the group of insecure high achievers excellently, each of them out-tantruming each other on the stage.
Klafkowska and Duffy demonstrated their ability to create tension and improvise, managing to stay in character while dodging a falling hatrack and lending it to their dynamic. Skordellis played the least favourable character in the cast, as we watched his affair play out on stage. The character came across as grimey and self-centred as intended, due to Skordellis successfully bringing the character to life. I was happy watching him leave the stage.
Alex Tsherit and Maile-Ana Crompton play two aggressively vulnerable characters in Roland Maule and Daphne Stillington. How the two characters chase Garry around the stage and will border on the psychopathic with their willingness to stalk Garry and follow him to Africa makes for a hilariously cringe-inducing watch. Both Tsherit and Crompton had the hard task of acting more emotionally unstable than Lawrie, which was a tall order. Regardless, both manage to stand out, adding to the chaos of each scene. The reappearance of Daphne with her aunt, Lady Saltburn (played by Ciara Harrison), was a comedic highlight, with Daphne manipulating her aunt, who remains formal despite the frantic energy on stage.
Overall, the play was well-executed, well-cast and never missed an opportunity to make me laugh. Ellis, Allen and their production team framed Coward’s story brilliantly, leaving the cast to execute their vision, which they did flawlessly.
