Love, Noël: The Songs and Letters of Noël Coward – Irish Repertory Theatre, New York

Picture: Carol Rosegg

Love, Noël: The Songs and Letters of Noël Coward continues at the Irish Repertory Theatre, New York, until 25 August 2019. 

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Two pillars of New York’s cabaret scene, singer/pianist Steve Ross and singer-actress KT Sullivan, combine to offer some 90 enchanting minutes or so of vintage elegance in Love Noël: The Songs and Letters of Noël Coward.

The show is described as “an entertainment devised and written by Barry Day”, who has written more than a dozen books on Coward and adaptations of his unknown work. It takes us briskly through Coward’s life with quotes from his letters and elsewhere, tying together more than a score of his songs.

The focus is primarily on the many women who figured deeply in his days, from his beloved mum to stars he either directed and/or starred with, such as, most notably of course, Gertrude Lawrence, and others who crossed his path, some becoming close friends, such as Marlene Dietrich.

As Ross, who assumes the Coward persona through most of the show, says toward the close: “It was all about people, really. Not the places. Not even the plays. But the people. So many of them.”

Ross does not attempt an impersonation, but garbed in a trim black-tie look, he certainly captures the soigné aura that was so much a part of Coward.

For Coward aficionados, much of the storytelling will undoubtedly seem familiar. Nevertheless, it is still fun to hear these two nonpareil performers volley the repartee back and forth, as the narrative unfolds. And the score contains several of Coward’s less-performed songs, such as ‘I Wanted to Show You Paris’, sung as a duet. The song, we’re told, was written for a musical he started called Later Than Spring but never finished when he couldn’t make the plot work.

Ross has a fine time tripping through such comic numbers as ‘Mrs. Worthington’, ‘I Like America’ and a same-sex version of ‘Mad About the Boy’ that he intended to include in a revue entitled Set to Music. But as Ross/Coward says: “wiser councils prevailed. After all, it was only 1938.”

He also transmits affectingly the poignancy and depth of ‘I’ll Remember Her’, sung after we’re told of the early death of his beloved Gertrude Lawrence, and the personality-revealing ‘I Travel Alone’.

At the gleaming black baby grand, he provides wonderfully sensitive accompaniment for Sullivan, whose shimmering soprano seems absolutely created for a lot of Coward’s oeuvre. With her endearing kewpie doll features balanced against the sophistication of her sparkly red-and-black gown, Sullivan furthermore suggests with a kaleidoscope of moods the essence of a Coward leading lady.

Her renditions, whether in solos or in duets with Ross, of such classics as ‘If Love Were All’, ‘Someday I’ll Find You’ and ‘I’ll See You Again’ are expressed with sublime simplicity of intent and blending of lyric and melody.

In another mood, Sullivan drops her voice a couple of octaves to deliver a rousing Elaine Stritch-like manifesto in ‘Why Do the Wrong People Travel?’

She also brings tenderness and an appropriate (if appropriated) sense of pride to a sequence of songs with Ross about Coward’s hometown, climaxed with a stirring ‘London Pride’.

Irish Repertory Theatre’s artistic director Charlotte Moore has staged the piece with an assured sense of style within Irish Rep’s very intimate studio theatre. The whole event has the feel of a salon, perhaps a salon for the privileged, but those privileged in the sense of being able to appreciate the élan, talent and sheer genius Coward brought to the many facets of his creativity.

The handsome art deco-like set designed by James Morgan takes on shifting atmospheres under Michael Gottlieb’s lighting. It’s further informed by a bust of Coward overlooking the proceedings from a pedestal upstage centre. He seems pleased, as she should be. Love, Noël is a masterful homage to The Master.

Ron Cohen