FEBRUARY 11, 1994

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 17

ENTERTAINMENT

Wit, style and gay subtexts

of the bemused outsider

Noel and Gertie

Great Lakes Theatre Festival

Reviewed by Barry Daniels

Noel Coward was the epitome of racy sophistication and worldly glamour for the generation that grew up between the two world wars. He wrote hit plays, revue sketches, composed songs and musicals, and quite often performed in his own works. Coward was the darling of an international set that tolerated his sexual orientation and lavishly praised his talent to amuse them with his witty chatter and tinsel sentiments.

Sheridan Morley's Noel and Gertie, currently playing at the Great Lakes Theatre Festival, is an entertainment made up of scenes from Coward's plays, 18 of his songs, and material from his memoirs. It is an account of Coward's relationship with his long-time friend and frequent co-star, Gertrude Lawrence. The production, staged by Victoria Bussert, is often stylish and engaging. John Ezell's turntable set, beautifully lit by Mary Jo Dondlinger, is a marvel of simplicity and elegance. As it moves, it virtually stages the play, creating an exquisite series of visual compositions. The actors wear James Scott's elegantly draped gowns and perfectly tailored evening clothes.

Alison Bevan as Gertie and Noble Shropshire as Noel are accomplished performers. Bevan has a fine Broadway voice. Shropshire has a thin voice, and like Coward he projects the songs through his acting of them. Musical director, Dan Sticco, is on stage at the white grand piano and keeps the evening nicely paced between Coward's pleasant ballads and witty patter songs.

Bevan and Shropshire are especially fine in the scenes from Private Lives and Blithe Spirit. Although well done, I found the long section from Still Life (later filmed as Brief Encounter) somewhat tedious.

The production's most notable failure is perhaps inherent in Morley's concept. Neither Bevan nor Shropshire has the charisma of the stars that Noel and Gertie were. How

can the actors portray the personalities that made Coward and Lawrence "unique" and their "magic imperishable?" In the scenes between Coward and Lawrence that Morley has constructed from Coward's autobiographical works, the actors are singularly uninteresting. There is none of the spark and sparkle that they find when performing the characters Coward created or singing his songs.

Although Lawrence is the ostensible subject of Noel and Gertie, it is Coward who comes to life through his words and music. In retrospect, Coward's homosexuality seems central to his work. The scenes from his plays are wry commentary on heterosexual love; they are clearly the observations of a bemused outsider. The songs often deal with a different kind of passion. Their gay subtexts offer great insight into Coward and his times. It is a credit to this

production that no attempt is made to conceal this reality. Bevan sings "Mad About the Boy" in her lowest register making very clear the meaning of the song for Coward. The gay man that Coward was is poignantly present in the song, "I Travel Alone," whose lyrics proclaim, "No chains can ever bind me/ No remembered love can ever find me," and "Free from love's illusion, my heart is my own/ I travel alone."

"Strange how potent cheap music is," is a line Coward wrote for Lawrence in Private Lives. It is an apt summary of the paradoxes of Coward's own work. He often affected nonchalance and glamorized superficiality, but he did so with a wit and style that required considerable art. The Great Lakes Theatre Festival production of Noel and Gertie, in its best moments, demonstrates how seductively charming a showman Coward could be; its great revelation, however, is the distinctively queer nature of Coward's sensibility.

Noel and Gertie continues at the Ohio Theatre through February 19, ThursdaySaturday at 8 pm, and Sunday February 13 at 1:30 pm. Tickets range from $16-28 9half off at 5 pm day of show) at 241-6000.

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THEATER SPOTS

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The Seventh Annual Performance Art Festival is part of an event called Outside the Frame: Performance and the Object which the Festival is producing in collaboration with the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art. An exhibition, opening at the CCCA on February 11, is the first major survey of the entire field of performance art. With over 30 featured performers and 100 performances in the 10 day Performance Art Open, this year's Festival will run from February 11 to May 1. It is sprawling and ambitious and will feature such "stars" as Karen Finley, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Anne Halprin, Ann Magnuson, and Peter Schumann. Gay audiences will want to see Keith Hennessy, a queer artist from San Francisco, at Karamu House, February 2427, and John Fleck, one of the NEA defunded four, at the Cleveland Public Theatre on April 3. At the CCCA on Sunday, February 13, there will be a panel discussion, "Performance Art is Dead: Long Live Performance Art." For information and a schedule of events telephone CCCA at 4218671, or the Performance Art Festival at 221-6017.

Cleveland artist Frank Green will present two AIDS-related performance pieces in New York City in February. As part of the Emerging Artists Series produced by Franklin Furnace, Green will per-

form The Scarlet Letters (1993) in Wollman Hall at the New School for Social Research, 65 W. 11th Street, on Friday, February 18, at 8 pm. Green was one of ten out of over 500 applicants to be selected for this annual event. For reservations telephone 212-9254671. At Dixon Place on Monday, February 21, at 8 pm, Green will present Adventures in Safe Sex and Advances in Orificial Surgery (1992). One of New York's most popular showcases for new work, Dixon Place is located at 258 Bowery. For reservations telephone 212-219-3088.

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