PRIVATE LIVES Electronic Press Kit

ELECTRONIC PRESS KIT

Private Lives Press Release ............................................................................................................................................................2 Useful Links.........................................................................................................................................................................................7 Photo Library..................................................................................................................................................................................... 8 Selections from Spotlight and the program ...........................................................................................................................10 Boston Globe Feature: “Noël Coward’s Timeless ‘Lives’”................................................................................................... 18 2012-2013 Season Lineup ............................................................................................................................................................ 23

Contact: Rebecca Curtiss, Communication Manager 617 273 1537  rcurtiss@huntingtontheatre.bu.edu Have a great summer!

Coming Up Next: Good People press opening Wednesday, September 14, 7pm BU Theatre / Avenue of the Arts

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Rebecca Curtiss, rcurtiss@huntingtontheatre.bu.edu / 617 273 1537 PHOTOS: huntingtontheatre.org/news/photo-library (see instructions at the bottom of this release)

May 3, 2012

NOËL COWARD’S SPARKLING COMEDY "PRIVATE LIVES" BEGINS MAY 25 TO COMPLETE HUNTINGTON THEATRE COMPANY'S 30TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON WHAT Huntington Theatre Company presents Noël Coward’s Private Lives, directed by Maria Aitken (Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, Educating Rita) and featuring Bianca Amato (The Coast of Utopia on Broadway) as Amanda and James Waterston (As You Like It at The Public Theater/NYSF) as Elyot.

WHENMay 25 – June 24, 2012 Evenings: Tues. – Thurs. at 7:30pm; Fri. – Sat. at 8pm; Select Sun. at 7pm Matinees: Select Wed., Sat., and Sun. at 2pm Days and times vary; see complete schedule at end of release.

Press Opening: Wednesday, May 30, 7pm. RSVP online at huntingtontheatre.org/news.

WHERE BU Theatre, 264 Huntington Avenue, Boston – Avenue of the Arts

TICKETS Single tickets start at $25 and FlexPasses are on sale:  online at huntingtontheatre.org;  by phone at 617 266 0800, or  in person at the BU Theatre Box Office, 264 Huntington Ave. and the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA Box Office, 527 Tremont St. in Boston’s South End. $5 off: seniors $10 off: subscribers and BU community (faculty/staff/alumni) $25 “35 Below” tickets for patrons 35 years old and younger (valid ID required) $15 student and military tickets (valid ID required) A free ticket to Private Lives is included with the purchase of a seated subscription to the 2012-2013 Season.

(BOSTON) – The Huntington Theatre Company completes its 30th Anniversary Season with the perfect play for springtime: Lifetime Tony Award-winning playwright Noël Coward’s beloved sparkling comedy Private Lives. Tony Award-nominated Maria Aitken, director of the Huntington’s acclaimed productions of Educating Rita and the Olivier and Tony Award-winning Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps and director of the upcoming Betrayal (November 2012) helms. Filled with unforgettable dialogue and sparkling sophistication, Private Lives is a joyful romp of a good time.

In the play, newlyweds Elyot and Sibyl are honeymooning at a hotel in northern France where they unexpectedly encounter Elyot’s ex-wife Amanda and her new husband Victor on the adjacent balcony celebrating their recent nuptials. The romance between Elyot and Amanda is quickly revived, and the two desert their new spouses and flee to Amanda’s Paris flat. There, the stormy rivalry that first divided them rekindles in time for Sibyl and Victor to rediscover the pair in the throes of a passionate fight. One of the most shining examples of Coward’s trademark wit, The New York Times calls this stylish and savvy play, "one of the funniest comedies of the 20th century."

"Noël Coward's signature wit and keen eye for human behavior make his plays vibrate emotionally," says Huntington Artistic Director Peter DuBois. "It's thrilling to have Maria Aitken, one of the world's greatest interpreters of Coward, here at the Huntington to bring his work to life."

Aitken, who has appeared in more West End productions of Coward plays than any other actress, played the role of Amanda in the 1980 West End revival of Private Lives opposite Michael Jayston. She was the youngest actress to play the part since close Coward friend and frequent collaborator Gertrude Lawrence, for whom the role was written and who played opposite the playwright in the original 1930 production. Aitken and Jayston carried on the long, rich legacy of acclaimed actors synonymous with the respective roles: Tallulah Bankhead and Donald Cook (Broadway, 1948), Brian Bedford and Tammy Grimes (Broadway, 1969), Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton (Broadway, 1983), and most recently Kim Cattrall with Matthew Macfadyen (West End, 2010) and with Paul Gross (Broadway, 2011).

“Private Lives is a pretty perfect play,” says Aitken. “It is about love and pain and obsession and is very visceral. The fact that it is wrapped in elegance and wit makes it all the stronger. My admiration for Noël Coward increases with the years as I see what a stayer he is and how successive generations discover him and adore playing him. I’ve been involved with his work for I think 36 years, and it’s with a sense of such promise that I approach this particular production in this, my favorite American theatre, with my extraordinary creative team and an incredible bunch of actors.”

ABOUT THE ARTISTS The cast includes:  Bianca Amato (Amanda): Arcadia and Coast of Utopia (Broadway), The Broken Heart (Theatre for a New Audience), Trumpery (Atlantic Theater Company), The Importance of Being Earnest (Brooklyn Academy of Music);  James Waterston (Elyot): Gross Indecency and Ah, Wilderness! (Huntington Theatre Company), Parents' Evening (The Flea Theater), The Importance of Being Earnest (Brooklyn Academy of Music);  Autumn Hurlbert (Sibyl): Legally Blonde and Little Women (Broadway), Tomorrow Morning (The York Theatre Company), Killing Women (Theatre Row);  Jeremy Webb (Victor): The Visit (Broadway), The Glorious Ones (Lincoln Center Theater), The Baltimore Waltz (Signature Theater); and  Paula Plum (Louise): Jumpers and St. Joan (Huntington Theatre Company), Today I Am a Man (Greenwich Street Theatre), Mother Courage and No Exit (American Repertory Theater).

Noël Coward (playwright, 1899-1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer known for his wit and what Time magazine called “a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, posh and poise.” He was born in a suburb of London and made his professional stage debut at eleven. He wrote and published more than 50 plays including Fallen Angels, The Vortex, Hay Fever, Easy Virtue, Private Lives, Design For Living, Present Laughter, Blithe Spirit, and Waiting in the Wings. He is also the author of more than 300 songs including “Mad About the Boy,” “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” and “London Pride,” more than a dozen musical theatre pieces, poetry, short stories, the novel Pomp and Circumstance, and a three-volume autobiography. His stage and film acting and directing credits spanned six decades and included many of his own works. He was knighted in 1969, elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and received a Lifetime Tony Award in 1970.

Maria Aitken (director) previously directed Educating Rita and the pre-Broadway staging of the Olivier and Tony Award-winning production of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps at the Huntington Theatre Company where she will direct Harold Pinter’s Betrayal in November 2012. Other credits include Man and Boy (Broadway and Duchess Theatre), The Gift (Melbourne Theatre, Australia), As You Like It (Shakespeare Theatre Company), Quartermaine’s Terms (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Japes (Bay Street Theatre), Easy Virtue (Chichester Festival Theatre), Lady Bracknell’s Confinement (Vineyard Theatre), School for Scandal (Clwyd Theatre), As You Like It (Regent’s Park), and many others. As an actress at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, and in the West End, her leading roles include Blithe Spirit, Bedroom Farce, and Private Lives, among others. Her film credits include A Fish Called Wanda. Ms. Aitken is a visiting teacher at the British American Drama Academy, The Juilliard School, Yale School of Drama, New York University, The Actors Center in New York, and the Academy for Classical Acting. She is also the author of two books, A Girdle Round The Earth and Style: Acting in High Comedy.

Choreography by Daniel Pelzig (Candide and The Mikado at the Huntington), Scenic design by Allen Moyer (Before I Leave You and Educating Rita at the Huntington); costume design by Candice Donnelly (Fences on Broadway); lighting design by Philip S. Rosenberg (Bus Stop and She Loves Me at the Huntington); sound design by Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen (How Shakespeare Won the West and Bang the Drum Slowly at the Huntington). The dialect coach is Stephen Gabis. Production stage manager is Leslie Sears. Stage Manager is Kevin Robert Fitzpatrick.

SPONSORS  Grand Patron: Boston University  30th Anniversary Sponsor: Carol G. Deane  Season Sponsor: J. David Wimberly  Production Sponsors: Nancy and Ed Roberts  Production Co-Sponsors: Faith and Joseph Tiberio

ABOUT THE HUNTINGTON Since its founding in 1982, the Huntington Theatre Company has developed into Boston’s leading theatre company.

Bringing together superb local and national talent, the Huntington produces a mix of groundbreaking new works and classics made current. Led by Artistic Director Peter DuBois and Managing Director Michael Maso, the Huntington creates award-winning productions, runs nationally renowned programs in education and new play development, and serves the local theatre community through its operation of the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. The Huntington is in residence at Boston University. For more information, visit huntingtontheatre.org. #

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MEDIA NOTES For interviews and more information, contact Communications Manager Rebecca Curtiss at rcurtiss@huntingtontheatre.bu.edu or 617 273 1537.

PHOTO DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS To download high-resolution (or smaller) photos of Private Lives: 1. Visit huntingtontheatre.org/news/photo-library.

2. Click on a thumbnail, and let the image load in your browser on the Flickr site. Note caption information is displayed below the image.

3. Click the Action button, located above the image on the Flickr site, and select View All Sizes.

4. Select the size you wish to download from the choices listed across the top of the image.

5. Let the image load in your browser, then right-click on it to save to your computer.

PRODUCTION CALENDAR AND RELATED EVENTS

Post-Show Audience Conversations

Humanities Forum

Ongoing

Sun. 6/10, following the 2pm performance

Led by members of the Huntington staff. After most

A post-performance talk exploring the context and

Tuesday - Friday, Saturday matinee, and Sunday matinee

significance of Private Lives.

performances throughout the season. Free with a ticket to the performance.

Actors Forum Thurs., 6/7 following the 10am student matinee

35 Below Wrap Party

Thurs., 6/14, following the 7:30pm performance

Fri. 6/1, following the 8pm performance

Wed., 6/20 following the 2pm matinee

A post-show wrap party with drinks, live music, and

Participating cast members answer questions from the

exclusive backstage access. $25 ticket includes admission

audience.

to both performance and party. Learn more at huntingtontheatre.org/35Below.

Student Matinee Performance Thurs. 6/7 at 10am For students in grades 6-12. To reserve tickets, call 617 273 1558.

USEFUL LINKS: PRIVATE LIVES 

Read about the playwright, Noël Coward, as well as the director, Maria Atken: huntingtontheatre.org/articles



Video of Artistic Director Peter DuBois discussing the production, behind the scenes footage of Private Lives and more: huntingtontheatre.org/media/



Biographical information about the artists who created and perform in this production under the "ARTISTS" tab: huntingtontheatre.org/season/2011-2012/private-lives/



High-resolution production photos – available for download: huntingtontheatre.org/news/photo-library/2011-2012/iPrivate-Livesi/



The spring issue of Spotlight, the Huntington’s magazine: huntingtontheatre.org/season/Spotlight/Spring-2012/



Huntington Theatre Company website: huntingtontheatre.org

PHOTO LIBRARY Private Lives

by Noël Coward Directed by Maria Aitken May 25 - June 24, 2012 Avenue of the Arts/ BU Theatre

Available at huntingtontheatre.org/news/photo-library/2011-2012/iPrivate-Livesi/

PrivateLives_HuntingtonTheatreCompany_5373 Autumn Hurlbert and Sam Waterston in Noël Coward’s PRIVATE LIVES. May 25 – June 24, 2012 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. Photo: Paul Marotta

PrivateLives_HuntingtonTheatreCompany_5399 Bianca Amato and Jeremy Webb in Noël Coward’s PRIVATE LIVES. May 25 – June 24, 2012 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. Photo: Paul Marotta

PrivateLives_HuntingtonTheatreCompany_5458 James Waterston in Noël Coward’s PRIVATE LIVES. May 25 – June 24, 2012 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org.

Photo: Paul Marotta

PrivateLives_HuntingtonTheatreCompany_5681 Bianca Amato and James Waterston in Noël Coward’s PRIVATE LIVES. May 25 – June 24, 2012 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. Photo: Paul Marotta

PrivateLives_HuntingtonTheatreCompany_5713 Bianca Amato in Noël Coward’s PRIVATE LIVES. May 25 – June 24, 2012 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org.

Photo: Paul Marotta

PrivateLives_HuntingtonTheatreCompany_5765 Bianca Amato and James Waterston in Noël Coward’s PRIVATE LIVES. May 25 – June 24, 2012 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. Photo: Paul Marotta

PrivateLives_HuntingtonTheatreCompany_5839

PrivateLives_HuntingtonTheatreCompany_5919 Jeremy Webb in Noël Coward’s PRIVATE LIVES. May 25 – June 24, 2012 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org.

Photo: Paul Marotta

Autumn Hurlbert in Noël Coward’s PRIVATE LIVES. May 25 – June 24, 2012 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org.

Photo: Paul Marotta

PrivateLives_HuntingtonTheatreCompany_6020 James Waterston, Jeremy Webb, Bianca Amato, and Autumn Hurlbert in Noël Coward’s PRIVATE LIVES. May 25 – June 24, 2012 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org.

Photo: Paul Marotta

A BLISSFUL VACATION FROM RESPONSIBILITY

DIRECTOR MARIA AITKEN ON THE WORK OF NOËL COWARD

Michael Jayston and Maria Aitken in the 1980 West End production of Private Lives.M

Michael Jayston and Maria Aitken in the 1980 West End production of Private Lives.

Maria Aitken holds the record for most performances by an actress in the works of Noël Coward in London’s West End. She spoke with us about her take on Britain’s wittiest playwright as rehearsals on this new production began.

Charles Haugland (Artistic Programs and Dramaturgy): When was the first time you worked on a play by Noël Coward? What do you remember of your initial attraction to his work?

the language or through the subtext?

Maria Aitken: First play was in at the deep end – it was Private Lives in the West End. I was the youngest Amanda since Gertrude Lawrence. I could hear the tune of Coward’s dialogue, and I loved the fact that despite a surface elegance, it’s all down and dirty underneath.

It’s a mixture. Sometimes Coward uses language as a decoy from the real intention. Sometimes the desires are naked – usually after some sparring has worn away all other tactics. The great thing is that since all human beings use tactics to get what they want, we can read them quite clearly in his characters and see when sarcasm is masking pain, for example.

Playing ”the truth”” is not always a matter of being straightforward.

Is it hard to be witty onstage? Is there a secret?

Are his plays different with American actors? Is anything lost in translation?

The secret is to obey Coward’s rhythms; his punctuation is very specific. Don’t pause for the little laughs, go for the big one. Listen to the other speaker. Embrace flippancy, and abandon any idea that good manners are a virtue.

Coward had a sensibility that was his own.

His characters are not representative of anyone of their period (though some people started to behave like his characters after they’d seen them!). Many of his characters have no specific English background – no one in Design for Living need be English, and in Private Lives we haven’t a clue where Amanda and Elyot spring from. So it’s not so English as all that.

Does Coward still make you laugh?

He does still make me laugh, in the right hands. He curdles my blood when done badly. I think my admiration for Coward increases with the years as I see what a stayer he is and how successive generations discover him and adore playing him.

You have appeared in and directed Private Lives before. Anything new you are planning to try this time out?

The actors’ contribution is the wild card and the joy. Their take on their roles can change anything, as long as it’s for the better. I am very stimulated by this cast and looking forward enormously to rehearsals. Usually I’m rather anal about planning productions, but this time I intend to leave as much as possible to the rehearsal process. Because I already know the world of the play, it’s the performers’ contribution that will, I hope, surprise me and enliven the proceedings anew.

You have said elsewhere that comedies like Coward’s are really about our basest desires: love, sex, and power. Do you approach the desires in the text through

What is unavoidable is that his sentences require more inflection than some American dialects offer – but that can be achieved without using a British accent.

And so many American actors now do perfect Brit. When it comes to embracing the behavior of Coward characters, in my experience, American actors regard it as a sort of blissful vacation from responsibility.

They embrace the customs of the place and have a damn good time. So not much is lost in translation, because it’s a fantasy world anyway.

What is the biggest assumption or misconception that audiences have about Private Lives?

I fear that many people think it’s all about cigarettes and cocktails and poncing about using a posh voice, whereas in fact the play is about love and pain and obsession and is very visceral. The fact that this is wrapped in elegance and wit makes it all the stronger.

It’s a pretty perfect play.

AND BOLD: AEFFORTLESS PLAYWRIGHT’S THE CENTURY CYCLE: THE WORK OF FRENCH MA RAINEY, THE BLUES, AND INSPIRATIONS PAINTER DUFY WILSON THE WORKRAOUL OF AUGUST

Tour Eiffel 14

PRIVATE LIVES

Paysage avec maisons et bétail

Scenic designers often draw inspiration from art of the era shown onstage, and for this production of Private Lives, designer Allen Moyer was drawn to an icon of French painting: “My mind went to this wonderful painter Raoul Dufy,” he says.

“He’s one of my favorite painters and is exactly the right period.”

Dufy was born in 1877, lived in France for his entire life, and actively painted from 1901 until his death in 1953. His paintings represent the French school of fauvism, founded by Henri Matisse and André Derain. Eschewing strict realism, fauvist

Vieilles maisons sur le bassin de Honfleur

artists favored bold colors and expressive, painterly brush strokes. (Dufy once said, “My eyes were made to erase all that is ugly.”)

The curtain for the first act is after a reproduction of a Dufy painting of the Harbor at Deauville, where the initial scene in Private Lives is set. The second and third acts show a Dufy scene of Paris. “Dufy’s work feels so fresh,” Moyer says. “To me, a painting of his is like the play—effortless, like someone just threw it off.”

—CHARLES HAUGLAND

La Plage de Sainte Adresse HUNTINGTON THEATRE COMPANY 15

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“One of the funniest comedies of the 20th century!”

- THE NEW YORK TIMES

Divorcés Amanda and Elyot meet again by accident on their second honeymoons with brand-new spouses in tow. Fireworks fly as they discover how quickly romance — and rivalry — can be rekindled in Noël Coward’s stylish, savvy comedy about the people we can’t live with . . . or without.

Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence in Private Lives; Noël Coward

A HASTY KIND OF GENIUS: NOËL COWARD’S PRIVATE LIVES

“Noël Coward’s signature wit and keen eye for human behavior make his plays vibrate emotionally. It’s thrilling to have Maria Aitken, one of the world’s greatest interpreters of Coward, here to bring his work to life.” – PETER DUBOIS

On the decks of the S. S. Tonkin, traveling from Hong Kong to Hanoi in February 1930, Noël Coward composed a letter to an old friend: “Well, old cock,” he wrote, “we stayed two weeks in Shanghai and I wrote a light comedy for Gertie and me in the Autumn. It’s completely trivial except for one or two slaps but it will be fun to play.”

All through his East Asia journey, Coward had been trying to come up with a vehicle for himself and actress Gertrude Lawrence. Nothing clicked until he arrived at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo where, Coward wrote in his autobiography, “The moment I switched out the lights, Gertie appeared in a white Molyneux dress on a terrace in the South of France and refused to go again until 4am, by which time Private Lives, title and all, had constructed itself.” A few weeks later, as he recovered from a bout of flu in Shanghai, Coward committed the play to paper. The writing took four days — about average for the then 30-year-old playwright. Little wonder that upon meeting him, T. E. Lawrence wrote that Coward was “a hasty kind of genius.”

The vision in the white dress became Amanda, a woman on her second honeymoon. While on the terrace, she encounters her first husband, also on his second honeymoon, and they decide to run away together. As the two lounge around Amanda’s Paris flat, they embody what The New Yorker critic John Lahr calls, “the Coward myth of chic dressing-gowns and bitchy dressing downs.”

The pajamas-clad Elyot and Amanda are masters of verbal swordplay. They parry and riposte with élan, displaying wits that are not only quick but also

succinct. Stinging one-liners litter the play (“Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs,” “Don’t quibble, Sybil,”) bearing out critic Kenneth Tynan’s assertion that Coward “took the fat off English comic dialogue.”

As in all of Coward’s best-loved “comedies of bad manners” (Hay Fever, Blithe Spirit, Present Laughter), the characters are brisk and breezy, totally lacking in material concerns. They are determinedly superficial: “You musn’t be serious, my dear one,” Elyot warns Amanda. “It’s just what they want.”

But the determined flippancy of the characters doesn’t translate into a shallow play. As Lahr points out, “Only when Coward is frivolous does he become in any sense profound.”

The underpinnings of the play consist of ever changing, ever repeating relationships. Critics have bemoaned the highly topical nature of Coward’s plays, but the forces that push Elyot and Amanda together and then tear them apart again and again are universal. Their diametrically opposed love and hate are reflections of emotions that exist, in varying degrees, in every relationship.

This universality perhaps explains the countless revivals of Coward’s plays.

As Edward Albee wrote in his introduction to a collection of Coward’s work, “Mr. Coward’s subjects — the ways we kid ourselves that we do and do not exist with each other and with ourselves — have not, unless my mind has been turned inward too long, gone out of date.”

- RACHEL CARPMAN

LEARN MORE ONLINE Visit the Learn & Explore section of huntingtontheatre.org/privatelives to watch a clip from the 1931 film version of Private Lives and an interview with playwright Noël Coward, and more.

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DIRECTOR MARIA AITKEN:

INSPIRED INTERPRETER OF COWARD’S COMEDY

T. CHARLES ERICKSON

T. CHARLES ERICKSON

Jane Pfitsch and Andrew Long in Educating Rita (2011)

Jennifer Ferrin and Charles Edwards in Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (2007)

“The comedy of manners is not prancing about with fans or being brittle,” Maria Aitken explains. “Things don’t work unless you warm them up from underneath. I’ve been in lots of serious plays, but I don’t see it as my forte. Comedy is a very serious matter.” Aitken is sought as a teacher and director for her expertise in high comedies such as Noël Coward’s Private Lives. “High comedies are not bloodless, refined, wordy plays,” says Aitken during a session of the BBC Acting Series. “Their themes are sex, money, and social advancement. They contain a splendid contradiction: wit and elegance at the service of man’s basest drives.”

Maria Aitken learned “on the boards.” Though she was a student at the renowned Oxford University, she spent more time on professional stages than in the classroom. Her first professional acting credit was while she was still in school in the mid-sixties. Aitken was cast in a small role in Richard Burton’s production of Faustus. She hid in the theatre and watched Burton and his wife Elizabeth Taylor as they rehearsed. American audiences may also remember Aitken from the 1988 film A Fish Called Wanda. Over the course of her acting career, Aitken has played more Coward leading women on West End stages than any other actress to date including Blithe Spirit (1976), Private Lives (1980), Design for Living (1982), Private Lives again (1984, star and director), The Vortex with Rupert Everett (1989), and Hay Fever (1992). “My career has been very predicated on Noël Coward,” Aitken admits. “I’ve played all his great roles, either at the National or in the West End.” After many years of acting, Aitken began directing when she was forced to turn down a role in Giles Cooper’s play Happy Families only to be asked to helm the production. Huntington audiences have seen her work in popular productions of Educating Rita last season, and

Maria Aitken

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BOX OFFICE 617 266 0800

COWARD AT THE HUNTINGTON Noël Coward’s Design for Living, the story of a trio of artistic characters and their complicated three-way relationship, was produced by the Huntington in 1983 as part of our second season.

T. CHARLES ERICKSON

Arnie Burton, Cliff Saunders, and Charles Edwards in Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (2007)

Her skill as an interpreter of Noël Coward comes from the integration of her experiences as an actress with her intuition and instincts as a director. Aitken distills the intricacies of Coward to find the wit. She believes an actor must understand a character’s thought process completely to fully employ the linguistic devices of high comedy and execute it seemingly effortlessly. “The effort involved must be imperceptible,” Aitken writes in her book Style: Acting in High Comedy.

“One has to acquire the cleverness, the articulacy, the febrility of the characters — and then make the whole laborious exercise seem like swimming through silk.”

GERRY GOODSTEIN

Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, which had its American premiere at the Huntington and then went on to play three years on and off Broadway. She now prefers directing to acting, but continued to do both for a time. Aitken has worked with more than fifty directors over the course of her career and tends to “pinch the good things from some of those [she] liked.”

In 2007, the Huntington revisited Coward with Present Laughter, starring Victor Garber as the successful and self-obsessed matinee idol Garry Essendine. This production went on to Broadway in 2010.

The characters in Private Lives may seem distant to the modern American, but Maria Aitken disagrees. “The whole reason that high comedy has proved such a durable form is that it reveals the truth about human nature, warts and all, but does so with glorious pyrotechnics of language and behavior. It uses society’s most sophisticated social accomplishments, intellect and wit, to mock society itself; the glitter reveals the grubbiness.”

- VICKI SCHAIRER

T. CHARLES ERICKSON

SEE PAGE 27 FOR SHOW PERFORMANCE CALENDAR AND EVENT LISTINGS

(From top) Richard Council, Katherine Ferrand, and Kenneth Meseroll in Design for Living (1983); Lisa Barnes and Victor Garber in Present Laughter (2007)

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Noël Coward’s timeless ‘Lives’ - Theater & art - The Boston Globe

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By Laura Collins-Hughes | GLO BE S T AFF

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2012/05/24/seeing-timeless-...

M AY 2 5, 2 012

THE NEW Y O RK TI MES

Noël Coward.

1

NEW YORK — At the far end of the gallery, in the same glass case with Noël Coward’s Tony Award and a letter Coward wrote to a young Edward Albee, is a black-and-white photo of Harold Pinter in director mode, talking to his “Blithe Spirit” stars. It’s 1976 in London, and Maria Aitken, Pinter’s willowy Elvira, listens with a lighted cigarette in her left hand, the smoke curling upward.

Flash-forward 36 years, and Aitken is

5/30/2012 11:26 AM

Noël Coward’s timeless ‘Lives’ - Theater & art - The Boston Globe

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http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2012/05/24/seeing-timeless-...

now directing Coward, too: a production of “Private Lives” at the Huntington Theatre Company, which happens to coincide with “Star Quality: The World of Noël Coward,” a major exhibition at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Slippers and silk dressing gowns, film clips and

JO HN HAY NES / NATI O NAL THEATRE ARCHI VE

handwritten manuscripts, a Steinway

Director Harold Pinter talks to Richard Johnson

baby grand with Coward sheet music

and Maria Aitken on their 1976 collaboration on

open on the rack: His art and artifacts

Noël Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” for the National

sprawl through the gallery. Near the entrance, in a cache of the playwright’s smoking paraphernalia,

Theatre in London. Aitken, a veteran actress in Coward plays, is now directing the Huntington Theatre Company’s production of his “Private Lives.’’

is a slender metal box stuffed with a dozen or so filtered white Reyno cigarettes — “original to the case,” the explanatory text notes.

Such are the riches of the exhibition, and Aitken is not immune to them.

“It gave me huge kind of shoplifting tendencies,” the British director says after rehearsal one evening in Boston. “I thought, surely they’re not going to miss one of these cigarette cases or an ashtray.” She laughs. “And then I thought, when I get diagnosed with something terminal and I go back to smoking — which I absolutely would — wouldn’t it be wonderful if it was one of Coward’s cigarettes?”

The tobacco might be a touch on the stale side, here in the next millennium. But to Aitken, who has acted in a passel of Coward plays in London’s West End, his drama remains not only modern but, in its way, timeless.

“He just does understand how sex works, and yet he never is overtly sexual,” says Aitken, who previously directed “Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps” and last season’s “Educating Rita” at the Huntington. “He expresses a passionate

5/30/2012 11:26 AM

Noël Coward’s timeless ‘Lives’ - Theater & art - The Boston Globe

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http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2012/05/24/seeing-timeless-...

relationship not through examining sex but through examining jealousy, and that is theatrically so much more effective. Sex onstage

BI LLY RO SE THEATRE DI VI SI O N, THE NEW Y O RK PUBLI C LI BRARY FO R THE PERFO RMI NG ARTS

is nearly always a bit of a downer, whereas

Playbill for “Private Lives” with its

jealousy onstage is very, very potent, you know?”

original stars, Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence.

Amid the witty banter of Coward’s plays and films — “Design for Living,” “Brief Encounter,” “Blithe Spirit” — love and passion often endure in the face of reason, convention, mortality, or common sense. To Aitken, Coward’s having been a gay 20th-century writer is an obvious enough explanation for that.

“Don’t forget that homosexuality was illegal,” she says. “And I think the idea of long-term relationships had a sort of magical potency to gay men then because it was so difficult — so difficult to sustain anything. You had to hide and lie. I think that was a kind of Holy Grail. He achieved it, but he achieved it through friendship rather than through love. He kept the longest and most intense friendships alive.”

In “Private Lives,” the heedless lovers are Elyot and Amanda, who have divorced each other and remarried others when they meet by chance on adjoining hotel balconies during their respective honeymoons in the south of France. Their long history of bickering and brawls does not stop them from swooning anew. They ditch their spouses and run off together.

It was 1930 when Coward premiered “Private Lives” in London, playing Elyot opposite his

BARRY CHI N/G LO BE STAFF

friend and frequent costar, Gertrude Lawrence,

James Waterston and Bianca Amato

as Amanda. The following year, they brought the

rehearse the play in Boston.

comedy to Broadway, complete with Laurence Olivier as Amanda’s blustering husband, Victor.

To Coward, Olivier was Larry, and that’s how the actor signed a telegram to the playwright decades later, rejoicing in a revival of “Hay Fever”: “OH MY LOVELY BOY ISNT IT GREAT GREAT GREAT AND LOVELY LOVELY LOVELY GLAMOROUS AND EARTH SHAKING. BRAVOS TO MY BELOVED ONE-AND-ONLY PRETTIEST AND

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Noël Coward’s timeless ‘Lives’ - Theater & art - The Boston Globe

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BEST. OH I AM SO HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY DEAREST MOST LOVING AND JOYOUS CONGRATULATIONS FROM YOUR DEVOTED = LARRY.” The telegram, sent from Leeds, hangs on a wall in the library exhibition, courtesy of Olivier’s widow, Joan Plowright. At the top of the sheet of paper is a notation in tiny handwriting: “ ‘It’s the Leeds Post Office I’m worried about’ = Joan.”

The weight of tradition hangs over any production of a play that’s become a part of the canon. But actor James Waterston, who plays Elyot in the Huntington’s “Private Lives,” says he thinks less about Coward having been the first actor to play the role than that he wrote the play in four days while recovering from the flu.

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As for Aitken’s having played Amanda in a 1980

Allen Moyer designed the sets; above is

West End revival, actress Bianca Amato — the

the hotel set for Act 1.

Huntington’s Amanda — is deliberately comical in claiming to be unfazed.

“Not intimidating at all,” Amato says, mock-emphatic, before the question can even be asked.

Neither Amato nor Waterston has ever acted in a Coward play before, which makes Aitken's familiarity with his work all the more crucial. According to the Huntington, she has performed in more Coward productions in the West End than any other actress.

“She knows the music of it,” says Waterston, whose father is the actor Sam Waterston.

“She’s got it in her bones.”

Aitken claims no special mastery of Coward’s work, but she does say she can tell immediately whether actors understand the signals the playwright has left for them on the page.

“It’s almost like a tune. Some actors are tone-deaf, and [to] the actors that are not tone-deaf, it’s as if he’s laid out a map that you cannot misunderstand,” she says. “If you observe the punctuation and you observe the consonance, he tells you so much about how it should be said. Of course there are choices to be made beyond that, but he’s made so many of them for you in this subliminal way.”

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Noël Coward’s timeless ‘Lives’ - Theater & art - The Boston Globe

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At the library exhibition, Coward’s old Remington typewriter sits, solid and small, in one vitrine. In another is that letter to Albee, typewritten in 1965 from Jamaica. On blue stationery, Coward lays out his thoughts on Albee's “Tiny Alice,” which he has just read. He is complimentary, baffled, crisply critical. Then he seems to call Albee's bluff.

“Expert use of language is to me a perpetual joy,” Coward writes. “You use it expertly all right but, I fear, too self-indulgently. Your duty to me as a playgoer and a reader is to explain whatever truths you are dealing with lucidly and accurately. I refuse to be fobbed off with a sort of metaphysical ‘What’s My Line’!”

It’s a bit of an evisceration, but the older playwright’s warmth toward the younger is nonetheless unmistakable.

“Let me hear from you,” Coward signs off. “Just an ordinary love letter will do.”

PRIVATE LIVES Presented by Huntington Theatre Company At: Boston University Theatre, through June 24. 617-266-0800, www.huntingtontheatre.org STAR QUALITY: The World of Noël Coward Presented by New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and Noël Coward Foundation At: New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, through Aug. 18. 917-275-6975, www.nypl.org Laura Collins-Hughes can be reached at lcollins-hughes@globe.com.

© 2012 THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY

5/30/2012 11:26 AM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 12, 2012 CONTACT: Rebecca Curtiss, RCurtiss@huntingtontheatre.bu.edu / 617 273 1537 PHOTOS: huntingtontheatre.org/2012-2013

HUNTINGTON THEATRE COMPANY’S 2012-2013 SEASON FEATURES GRIPPING ADAPTATIONS, CLASSICS, BITING COMEDIES, LOCAL STORIES, AND LOCAL ARTISTS (BOSTON) – Great plays begin with great stories. The Huntington Theatre Company announces its 2012-2013 Season. Continuing its 30-year tradition, the Huntington will present world-class productions of new works and classics made current that are created by the best local and national talent. The varied lineup of productions include a gripping adaptation of a great American novel, an outrageous world premiere by one of Boston’s most fascinating playwrights, an acclaimed Broadway hit that tells a local story, a timeless family classic, the American premiere of an intriguing political drama, an innovative and intriguing drama, a biting new comedy, and the previously-announced visionary production of an American classic.

“We have assembled an incredible team of artists for next season,” says Huntington Theatre Company Artistic Director Peter DuBois. “Throughout the year, we will feature radically different approaches to adaptation, fresh investigations of classics by world-class directors, and important plays that spring from our own backyard. In combination, the plays will create dynamic collisions of ideas, stories, and perspectives.”

The 2012-2013 Season will include four plays at the Boston University Theatre on the Avenue of the Arts, three plays in the Wimberly Theatre in the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, and one play in the Roberts Studio Theatre in the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA.

THE 2012-2013 SEASON LINEUP 

Good People, a compelling Southie story by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire; directed by Kate Whoriskey; at the Boston University Theatre September 14 – October 14, 2012;

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Now or Later, a political drama by Christopher Shinn; directed by Michael Wilson; at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA October 12 – November 10, 2012;

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Betrayal, a razor-sharp drama by Harold Pinter; directed by Maria Aitken (Educating Rita, Private Lives); at the BU Theatre November 9 – December 9, 2012;

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Our Town, a reimagined staging of the intimate classic by Thornton Wilder; directed by and featuring David Cromer; at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA December 7, 2012 – January 13, 2013;

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Invisible Man, a powerful American classic adapted for the stage by Oren Jacoby, based on the novel by Ralph Ellison; directed by Christopher McElroen; at the BU Theatre January 4 – February 3, 2013;

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A Raisin in the Sun, a timeless family classic by Lorraine Hansberry; directed by Liesl Tommy (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Ruined); at the BU Theatre March 8 – April 7, 2013;

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M, an outrageous new comedy adapted by Ryan Landry (Psyched) from the Fritz Lang film; directed by Caitlin Lowans; at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA March 29 – April 27, 2013;

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Rapture, Blister, Burn, a biting new comedy by Gina Gionfriddo (Becky Shaw); directed by Huntington Artistic Director Peter DuBois (Sons of the Prophet, Captors); at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA May 24 – June 22, 2013; at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA.

MORE ABOUT THE SHOWS GOOD PEOPLE September 14 – October 14, 2012 (Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre) In South Boston, this month’s paycheck covers last month’s bills, bingo is a night on the town, and sharp-tongued single-mom Margie Walsh has just been let go from yet another job. Scrambling to make ends meet, she looks up an old flame, hoping he’ll help her make a fresh start in this humor-filled drama from Pulitzer Prize winner and South Boston native David Lindsay-Abaire about how twists of fate determine our path. “Good People maps the fault lines of social class with a rare acuity of perception while also packing a substantial emotional wallop,” praises The Boston Globe. Kate Whoriskey (How I Learned to Drive, Second Stage; Ruined, Manhattan Theatre Club), a Massachusetts native, directs.

“I grew up in Boston and spent many a summer with my dad selling fruit out of the back of his truck on a corner of Huntington Avenue right across the street from the BU Theatre, wondering what kinds of plays were performed inside,” recalls Lindsay-Abaire. “Needless to say, it was both thrilling and surreal to be inside that very theatre in 2006 watching the Huntington’s wonderful production of my play Rabbit Hole. I’m excited to be back with Good People, which is very much about and inspired by my hometown. It’s about class in America. It’s about choices and luck, and lack of both. It’s about the good people sitting inside that building in plush theatre seats, and the equally good people selling fruit out on the corner. I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather see this play performed.”

“David's play explores complex social questions about class, luck, and escaping our roots with electric energy and sharp humor,” says DuBois. “Our production marks a homecoming for him, Kate, and this local story.”

NOW OR LATER October 12 – November 10, 2012 (South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA) On election night, the son of a Presidential candidate sends his father’s political team into crisis mode when controversial photos of him at a college party spread over the internet, potentially sparking an international incident. Smart and timely, Christopher Shinn’s (Dying City) searching new play examines religion, freedom of expression, and personal responsibility. The Times of London calls Now or Later, “Riveting, thrillingly paced, and effervescent with wit and intelligence. Urgent and unmissable!” Michael Wilson (Dividing the Estate and Enchanted April on Broadway) directs.

"I'm beyond thrilled to be working with Michael Wilson and the Huntington on Now or Later,” says Shinn. “With its extraordinary academic and political cultures, Boston is the perfect city for the play's US premiere. Four years after its debut at the Royal Court in London, the questions it raises only seem more complex and fraught to me. I can't

imagine anyone better than Michael to direct this play, not just because of his deep familiarity with the world of politics but because of his profound understanding of the human heart – what all questions of politics are ultimately about."

“Experiencing Now or Later at the height of election season adds an extra twist to this provocative tale of political fiction,” says DuBois. “I'm proud we are producing the US debut of this play that was such a success at London's Royal Court, and that we're introducing Huntington audiences to the fine work of Christopher Shinn and Michael Wilson.”

BETRAYAL November 9 – December 9, 2012 (Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre) For seven years, Emma and Jerry engage in a passionate love affair, deceiving their spouses, each other, and at times, even themselves. One of the 20th century’s most influential dramatists, Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter innovatively explores the complexities of love, guilt, and duplicity in this Olivier Award-winning classic. The London Telegraph calls Betrayal, “The greatest and most moving of all Pinter’s plays.” Renowned British director and actor Maria Aitken (Private Lives, Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps) directs.

DuBois says, “Harold Pinter has been on the short list of playwrights I’ve wanted to include in a season since I arrived at the Huntington. Maria will bring sharp honesty to the play's simple, spare beauty and a singular perspective as an interpreter of his writing.”

OUR TOWN December 7, 2012 – January 13, 2013 (South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA) Visionary director and MacArthur “Genius” David Cromer brings his critically acclaimed, groundbreaking new version of Our Town to the Huntington. George and Emily fall in love in Grover’s Corners, a New England town that offers a universal glimpse at everyday life. This intimate staging marks the Huntington’s first production in the Roberts Studio Theatre. The Wall Street Journal says, “Cromer’s rethinking of Wilder’s masterpiece is a landmark.

Arrestingly original!”

“Wilder's play mines the depths of our relationship to home and community,” says DuBois, “and so I find it fitting and deeply satisfying that in addition to directing and reprising his role as the Stage Manager, David will be engaging a company of actors comprised of Boston's best talent alongside company members from his original Barrow Street production."

Our Town is not a part of the 2012-2013 subscription series. Tickets are currently available exclusively to Huntington subscribers as add-ons to packages. Any remaining tickets will be put on sale to the general public next fall.

INVISIBLE MAN January 4 – February 3, 2013 (Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre) “I am an invisible man.” An idealistic young African-American man searches for identity and his place in the world in this epic journey through 1930s America. Ralph Ellison’s landmark American novel about race, power, freedom, and liberty comes to life in this gripping theatrical adaptation by Academy Award nominee Oren Jacoby and directed by Christopher McElroen (Classical Theatre of Harlem founding artistic director). Chicago Tribune calls Invisible Man, “A remarkable, must-see, dramatic achievement!” Co-produced with the Studio Theatre (Washington, DC).

“This blazingly theatrical adaptation of one of the most important books of the 20th century confronts us with a blistering perspective on race in America,” says DuBois.

A RAISIN IN THE SUN March 8 – April 7, 2013 (Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre) In a crowded apartment in Chicago’s South Side, each member of a struggling African-American family yearns for a different version of a better life. An impending and sizeable insurance payment could be the key. Lorraine Hansberry’s groundbreaking 1959 classic drama is an inspiring and fiercely moving portrait of people whose dreams are constantly deferred. The New York Times calls it, “A play that changed American theatre forever.” Liesl Tommy (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Ruined) directs.

“With Ruined and her fresh approach to Ma Raineys Black Bottom, Liesl created two of the most artistically exciting productions of recent memory at the Huntington,” says DuBois. “Now she brings her perspective to one of the greatest American plays ever written.”

M March 29 – April 27, 2013 (South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA) Famous for his irreverently funny adaptations of the classics, Huntington Playwriting Fellow Ryan Landry (Psyched, Death of a Saleslady, The Little Pricks) sets his twisted sights on Fritz Lang’s early film noir masterpiece, M, about a child killer who is hunted down and brought to justice by the criminal underworld. This provocative yet surprisingly hilarious premiere features Boston favorite Karen MacDonald (All My Sons) and is directed by Caitlin Lowans (Turn of the Screw). Warning: not for the squeamish! Boston.com says, “With Ryan Landry, perversity and hilarity go skipping along hand in hand.”

“Lang’s film is nothing less than a masterpiece and the very fact that some are still unfamiliar with it is far more disturbing (to me) than its actual subject matter,” says Landry. “I plan to make the audience laugh, cry, and boil with rage. All in the course of 90 minutes. If this does not happen then I have obviously failed and hereby promise to pack up my pages and head for the hills. If I do succeed however, I expect many shiny awards for everyone involved, a plaque in the men's room commemorating my contribution to the arts and a complimentary cheese plate.”

DuBois says, “Ryan's genre-breaking, gender-bending brand of theatre unites puppets, cross dressing, and a classic suspense film. It won't be for the faint of heart, but it will be an amazing collaboration between two Boston theatre legends. I am as excited as anyone to see what happens.”

RAPTURE, BLISTER, BURN May 24 – June 22, 2013 (South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA) After grad school, Catherine pursued a career as a rockstar feminist academic, while Gwen built a home with her husband and children. Decades later, each friend covets the other's life. With searing insight and trademark wit, this new comedy by Gina Gionfriddo (Becky Shaw) takes a deep look at family, career, romance, and the decisions that define a life. Huntington Artistic Director Peter DuBois (Sons of the Prophet) directs. Variety says, “Gionfriddo’s some kind of genius.”

“Gina is a dear friend and has been an artistic partner since we were in graduate school,” says DuBois. “This sharp, smart comedy, set in a small New England college town, will connect deeply with our audiences here in Boston.

What the play has to say about marriage, feminism, and parenthood – from the 20-something, 40-something, and 70-something perspective - is savagely funny and deeply human.”

SUBSCRIPTIONS ON SALE NOW The Huntington’s 2012-2013 subscriptions are on sale now. Seated subscription packages and FlexPass packages (a minimum of 4 tickets that can be used for any show and never expire) are available. Subscribers save up to 56 percent on full-price tickets to individual shows.

Our Town is not a part of the 2012-2013 subscription series. Tickets are currently available exclusively to Huntington subscribers as add-ons to packages. Any remaining tickets will be put on sale to the general public next fall.

Subscriptions may be renewed or purchased by calling the Huntington Box Office at 617 266 0800 or by visiting huntingtontheatre.org/subscribe. Groups of 10 or more can place orders at 617 273 1665. Individual tickets for all shows will go on sale in August.

ABOUT THE HUNTINGTON Since its founding in 1982, the Huntington Theatre Company has developed into Boston’s leading theatre company.

Bringing together superb local and national talent, the Huntington produces a mix of groundbreaking new works and classics made current. Led by Artistic Director Peter DuBois and Managing Director Michael Maso, the Huntington creates award-winning productions, runs nationally renowned programs in education and new play development, and serves the local theatre community through its operation of the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. The Huntington is in residence at Boston University. For more information, visit huntingtontheatre.org.

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MEDIA NOTES For interviews and more information, contact Communications Manager Rebecca Curtiss at rcurtiss@huntingtontheatre.bu.edu or 617 273 1537.