Tracy-Ann Oberman: 'Present Laughter has always been one of my favourite plays - and we haven't broken Noël Coward’s masterpiece'
There is a beautifully preserved myth surrounding playwright Noël Coward. For many, he exists in a world of silk dressing gowns, perfectly enunciated vowels and silver cigarette cases. His Present Laughter has always been one of my favourite plays.
But when I looked at it more closely, I saw something beyond the sparkling comedy. I saw a portrait of the cost of celebrity — of a fragile ego trapped inside a gilded cage, desperately trying to hold back the one thing that catches up with every icon: time, and the fear of becoming irrelevant.
In Coward’s original 1939 play, Garry Essendine is an ageing stage idol, prone to theatrical tantrums and ill-advised affairs, while those around him manage his chaos.
But the moment I flipped the gender, the stakes suddenly became even more fascinating. Enter Geri Essendine — who has been thirty-nine for the best part of a decade. The idea of a badly behaved middle-aged actress, conducting herself every bit as outrageously as her male counterparts, immediately intrigued me.
But would it work in pre-war London? Or could another setting honour Coward’s original while allowing us to look at it through a different lens, without losing any of its wit, farce and brilliance? I found myself drawn to New York in 1977, at the height of Studio 54.
The endless queues outside, the celebrities gliding into those hallowed VIP spaces (sometimes on horseback), where strong charismatic women were centre stage in a world of glamour, excess and intoxicating sense of belonging to “the in crowd”. Where bad behaviour and egotism was rife across all genders.
And I began to wonder: what if Geri were an expatriate British actress?
A hugely successful West End star who had arrived in America fifteen years earlier with her chosen family — her dashing ex-husband, her fiercely loyal secretary and her producers — all determined that she would conquer Broadway and make all their fortunes.
Setting Present Laughter in the world of Studio 54 throws a fresh light on questions that feel surprisingly contemporary.
In an industry that has so often been harsher on women than men, ageing and relevance are not simply matters of vanity. For performers whose lives have been shaped by applause and attention, the fear of losing the spotlight can feel overwhelming.
But we haven’t broken Noël Coward’s masterpiece. Quite the opposite. Beneath the mirrored disco ball, Present Laughter remains what it has always been: a dazzling comedy about love, vanity, friendship and the strange business of being adored.
- Present Laughter has been reimagined by Tracy-Ann Oberman, who will star as Geri Essendine and whose many credits include roles in EastEnders and Friday Night Dinner, as well as work with Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre.
The play will be at Grand Opera House York, from October 6 to 10. For tickets, visit atgtickets.com/york