When Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels was submitted to The Lord Chamberlain in 1925, approval was not a given. A script that included talk of premarital sex and two women involved with the same man was theatrically ahead of its time. In the end, Lord Cromer allowed it was “light and unreal and humorous.” The Public Morality Council unsuccessfully campaigned to have Angels license revoked calling it “a revolting sex play.”
Reviews were half praise, have scandalized. “If Fallen Angels had been written by Sacha Guitry and brought over here as art of the family luggage, it would have been acclaimed as witty, airy, and deliciously Gallic…But since it is an English essay in the French mode, a cry of shocked surprise has gone up.” (Ivor Brown – The Saturday Review) The cast featured Tallulah Bankhead and Edna Best.
Elizabeth Hayden (Julia); Jenny Tucker (Jane)
Julia (Elizabeth Hayden) and Jane (Jenny Tucker) are upper middle class English women who’ve been best friends since childhood. Five years ago, both opted for security, companionship and affection rather than being “in love.” Julia married Fred Sterroll (Jeffery Passero), Jane married Willy Banbury (Jeffrey Hardy) – who also became best friends.
The men are what they seem – pleasant, conservative, and oblivious to their wives’ emotions. Julia and Jane, however, share a wild streak both indulged seven years ago in Italy when they unknowingly had an affair with the same attractive Frenchman. Maurice (Tony Javed) remains the great passion of both lives, a treasured might-have-been.
One day Jane and Julia received postcards from Maurice who’s coming to London. Jane panics and shows up at Julia’s with a suitcase declaring they must immediately flee for fear of succumbing. After a lively back and forth, they resolve to face him together, framing the event to their best advantage. The friends vow whatever happens, their relationship is paramount.
Jeffery Passero (Fred); Jeffrey Hardy (Willy)
Fred and Willy conveniently go away on a golf trip. The ladies don evening wear, order a fancy dinner prepared by Julia’s housekeeper Saunders (Zoe Badovinac, who makes little of frequent appearances), and wait all evening for Maurice – who never arrives. Inebriation (deftly manifest by lack of focus, giggles and imbalance) eventually provokes a jealous cat fight. Jane stalks out proclaiming not only does she know where Maurice is staying, but she’s going to him!
Next morning, nursing a bad hangover, Julia can barely face breakfast. Having argued with Fred, Willy shows up. He’s dropped bags at home and comes looking for his absent wife. “It’s true then! “She’s gone off with a Frenchman!” Julia exclaims. (We see her pass through surprise, anger, and horror.) She tells Willy the whole story. An egotistical bourgeois, he literally can’t fathom Jane as described.
Zoe Badovinac (Saunders); Tony Javed (Maurice)
Meanwhile, Maurice leaves a phone message for Julia and equally furious, Jane reveals “the truth” to an incredulous Fred. These are decidedly NOT the women they married. Suddenly all four are in the same room, Jane still wearing her gown. This being a comedy of manners, even this eventuality is not what it seems. Maurice enters. Quick thinking deescalates the scene with a wink and a question.
Elizabeth Hayden (Julia) is the more subtly comedic of the women. We can see her mind whirr; facial expression flickers with nuance. Jenny Tucker is broad and less grounded until Act II when choices distinguish Jane. Jeffrey Hardy offers a fully developed pompous, but not stupid, husband with verisimilitude. His gravitas contributes ballast. Jeffery Passaro’s milquetoast Fred works in contrast, though a tad more specificity would add. As Maurice, Tony Javed manages to be convincing to the couples and wily to us. A moment of hesitation before his fabrication, however, is missing.
Director David Edwards allows ersatz British accents and might tighten up line delivery. Having said that, Edwards has an eye. When offered a cigarette from Julia’s case, Jane literally can’t grasp it during her friend’s extravagant, case-in-hand gestures. Willy’s absent-minded nibbling from Sterroll breakfasts adds to entitled characterization. The ladies’ interaction with furniture when drunk is adroit.
Harlan D. Penn does a good, budgeted job evoking a likely drawing room. Costumes by Omar Sama’ey are spot on from plus-fours to dropped waists, a cloche and correct shoes.
Coward’s play is a bonbon, as the reviewer noted, a relocated French farce. The production is entertaining and respectful of its source.
Out of the Box Theatre Company presents
Fallen Angels by Noel Coward (original 1925 script)
Directed by David Edwards
Out of the Box
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